There was a point when Lincoln was being berated by a political opponent and Lincoln's colleagues were upset and angered by this and wanted to go on the offense. Abe however acted with great restraint and humility commenting that this legislator is very often right and should be heard out to see what was valid in his argument and what Lincoln might need to do to change. In another instance, someone commented in front of Lincoln during the war that "God is on the Union's side." Lincoln quickly chastised him by saying that God is on the side of the right and that the Union must seek to be right and so be aligned with God and not opposing him. As Bush has often framed the battle against terroristic Islamic extremism as a battle of good against evil, he would do well to listen carefully to the nuance of Lincoln's admonition. I don't think God necessarily has a soft spot on his heart for America; he is much more concerned about justice and rightness.
The third difference comes from Churchill. It is reported in the book Good to Great:
Churchill said, 'We are are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of his Nazi regime. From this, nothing will turn us. Nothing! We will never parley. We will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land. We shall fight him by sea. We shall fight him in the air. Until, with God's help, we have rid the earth of his shadow.' Armed with this bold vision, Churchill never failed, however, to confront the brutal facts. He feared that his towering, charismatic personality might deter bad news form reaching him in its starkest form. So, early in the war, he created an entirely separate department outside the normal chain of command, called the Statistical Office, with the principle function of feeding him - continuously updated and unfiltered - the most brutal facts of reality.
This stands in significant contrast to the current administration's formation of a strategy and execution of it in Iraq.
4 comments:
How? Back up your arguments with proof. Tell me, exactly, how there have been tactical failures. I want specific examples, not a cheap shot opinion piece that I could have gone to CNN dot com for.
You're telling me "I think Bush handled the war wrong." Tactically, I don't think that's true at all. And I think that you are pissed about the Libby thing and letting that leech into how you view the reast of what he does. I may be angry at him for cutting Libby free, but I still think the war is just, and that it is being handled well enough for what it is. Guerilla warfare against an unregistered combatant isn't like anything else. The United States military isn't built for it, and has to dramatically shift tactics to deal with it. It is very hard to deal with a guerilla opponent and not do one of two things; turn the country into radioactive glass, or stoop to their level (which is what often happened in Vietnam, with the butchering of villiages and such). The United States army has managed to keep from doin both. PRecision strikes have been used as much as possible, and there have been thankfully few incidents of soldiers murdering non combatatnts.
Lincoln also suspended the writ
of habeas corpus. You don't like Bush now? What if he had pulled that little "no more needing a reason to throw you in jail" stunt off? Lincoln's administration shut up a few loud, outspoken critics with that policy, I believe. Or what would you have thought about battles like Antetam, where 5,000 men died in a single day, and was a loss for the Union? Would you still have sttod by your esteemed Mr. Lincoln? I seriously doubt it, Steve. If you can't handle 2,000 some odd casualties over the course of several years and gradual success, with many citicens thankful that you came, how could you ever sustain confidence in a war of actual severe losses, where your side is losing more men than the other (the Union lost more soldiers than the Confederacy), and battles which are critical to victory like Antetam are being lost?
Over 100 years later, it's easy to find the moral high ground for the union. We were fighting slavery; slavery, as we now see it, is bad. But then? Even the north had its share of slavery. Things were not so clean cut as we would like to believe. Nazi Germany was easy to hate. They were foreign, and they were trying to take over the world (literally). What we found that they were doing later only further justified the war in our eyes, and rightly so. But tell me you would have thrown your support behind a war of brother slaying brother, over a matter that was as much of a "You belong to the Uniion whether you like it or not" pissing contest as it was a call to free slaves. A war where the people of the South to this day call "The War of Northern Agression." If you don't believe they call it that, ask Paula.
We want glorious victories like the Siege of Vicksberg and Sherman's rapacious March to the Sea. We want eloquent words like those from Lincoln's mouth. We won't get them, Steve. The war we are fighting isn't like the Civil War (tactically), and the president we have isn't like Mr. Loncoln. And even if these things were as you wished, we would still not be satisfied. Lincoln was criticized as viciously as Bush is now. If you don't believe that, do some reasearch and see for yourself, without letting the glorification of Mr. Lincoln that we do here in the north get in the way.
I am sorry for that post, Steve.
"Blind pharisee! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!"
The Civil War was not about slavery.
And should we throw out everything Lincoln said and did because of his mistakes? Martin Luther King had an ongoing affair with another woman. Southern Baptist preachers were very eager to point this out. Perhaps Paula can attest to this as well. MLK was unrepentent of his sin. Should we regard him as a fake and a failure? Should his work be null and void of any value because of his poor choices?
"The Civil War was not about slavery."
No, it wasn't. Slavery was just a nice excuse and justification the Union used later. It was really about the Union telling the South "you're ours whether you like it or not".
"And should we throw out everything Lincoln said and did because of his mistakes? Martin Luther King had an ongoing affair with another woman. Southern Baptist preachers were very eager to point this out. Perhaps Paula can attest to this as well. MLK was unrepentent of his sin. Should we regard him as a fake and a failure? Should his work be null and void of any value because of his poor choices?"
I find it interesting that people are willing to be so foriving when taking a historical perspective. I wouldn't be surprised if, 20 years from now, there is another man saying the exact same thing about President Bush.
And I never knew MLK had an affair with another woman. That was shameful and stupid. They never taught us that in high school.
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