Crush Liberalism

We want Iraq to end like Korea?

From Jonah Goldberg:

“As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be-President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. ‘When comes the end?’ … And as soon as he became president, he brought the Korean War to an end.” This was part of freshman Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s much ballyhooed stentorian Democratic response to President Bush’s State of the Union address.

One wonders if the untold millions of North Koreans who’ve starved, bled and died since then would similarly applaud Eisenhower’s courage and wisdom. For more than half a century, North Korea has been a prison-camp society beyond the imagining of George Orwell, where public executions for stealing food are familiar events. The man-made famine of the 1990s alone claimed the lives of up to 1 million people (hard data from Stalinist regimes are difficult to come by).

One also wonders: When are our troops going to come home? Technically, the Korean War isn’t really over. We’re merely enjoying a cease-fire – much like the one we had with Iraq in the 1990s.

While Webb favors a “formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq,” our forces in South Korea have been there for nearly six decades. Something tells me the antiwar base of the Democratic Party doesn’t have that sort of timetable in mind for Iraq.

So, except for the fact that the Korean War didn’t end, our troops are still there, and the outcome has been the source of humanitarian and national security nightmares, Webb’s salute to Eisenhower’s statesmanship really strikes home.

Maybe Webb should just stick to writing kiddie porn and leave the governing (or, at the very least, the analogies) to the grown-ups, hmmm?

January 26, 2007 - Posted by crushliberalism | Iraq, Webb