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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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WAR THEN AND NOW: QUAGMIRE IN EUROPE (First of two articles) The following are news reports from World War II. They are reminiscent of what is being written and spoken today about our military involvement in Iraq: ‘France. July 14, 1944. The grand Allied invasion of Europe is hopelessly bogged down in the Cherbourg Peninsula, dimming the hopes raised by the successful landings of June 6th. Repeated Allied attempts to break out of the peninsula have failed. Directed by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, German defensive deployments and counter-attacks, featuring vicious fighting among the ancient Normandy hedgerows, have produced appalling casualties. The Normandy beachhead is now a densely packed killing ground which threatens to destroy the entire Allied invasion force. In off-the-record interviews, Allied High Command staff officers have raised fears of a World War I-style “quagmire”. ‘Stateside, student demonstrations against the war and the draft have begun. Republicans have denounced Franklin Roosevelt’s leadership of the war from the well of the Senate and called for withdrawal of our forces. A retired general says the European invasion was “the wrong war at the wrong time”. He argues that Hitler was not a direct threat to American interests and would have “self-destructed in due time” without our direct intervention. The European war is expected to be a major issue in the coming presidential election. Political experts expect FDR to be defeated and American policy to take a new direction. ’ ‘Belgium. December 20, 1944.Bursting out of the Ardennes Forest on December 16, as they did in May 1940, the German Wehrmacht launched a massive Panzer offensive, driving a thirty-mile wedge into the Allied line. Falling back in disarray, several American battalions were overrun by triumphant German forces. The 101st Airborne Division is completely surrounded and cut off at Bastogne. Its surrender is anticipated imminently. ‘Republican leaders are demanding the removal of General Eisenhower from command of Allied forces in Europe. The unexpected German success has produced renewed calls for a negotiated peace and withdrawal of all American troops from Europe. Republicans who say Mr. Roosevelt lied about the Allied military situation in order to get elected are now calling for his impeachment... ’ Of course, these reports are fictional, although the military situations were true. Indeed, allied forces were stuck just inland from the Normandy landing areas throughout June and much of July, 1944. Fighting through the impenetrable hedgerows of Normandy was murderous going – expensive in both casualties and time. Erwin Rommel – although absent from Normandy at the exact moment of the invasion – organized a robust defensive deployment in the following weeks. The Allies spent six very tough weeks fighting their way out of Normandy. On December 16, 1945, Germany launched a massive offensive through the Ardennes against a weak sector of the Allied line in Belgium. The surprise attack became known as the Battle of the Bulge. The Allied high command was caught off guard. Some American forces were overrun, and the 101st Airborne division was surrounded by superior German forces at Bastogne. German demands that the 101st surrender were met by a surly one-word reply: “Nuts”. The 101st held out until relieved by General Patton’s Third Army on December 26, 1944. By mid-January 1945 the Allies had regained most of the ground captured by the German offensive. 25-year-old PFC Eugene Zimmerman (my father) – then in Belgium with the Fourth Division – later described mile upon mile of German vehicles abandoned along the Belgian roads after the Bulge. They (and the German offensive) had run out of gas. Allusions to political and media events in these “reports”, however, are fanciful. Nothing of the kind was going on in 1944. Republicans studiously eschewed criticism of FDR’s management of the war or our troops’ progress. During the 1944 election campaign, when Republicans might have made the war an issue, they said nothing about it. Republican John W. Bricker of Ohio ran against FDR, but his pro-forma campaign merely twitted FDR for seeking an unprecedented fourth term. Republicans evidently did not think changing leadership in mid-war was a good idea. The news media also did not criticize the war or its management. Casualty figures were not generally published. When they were, the data usually understated reality. Reporters probably knew this, but did not object. Military authorities managed news of military actions for its effect upon civilian morale. Very few details were allowed through in the style of current war reportage. Although many reporters landed with military units at Normandy, Italy, North Africa and on the Pacific islands, they were not free to file reports which military censors considered harmful to the overall war effort. Most of the grisly footage and snapshots of dead and wounded soldiers we now see on the History Channel were kept from the American public until after the war was won. On several occasions I have suggested that we might be unable to defeat our skilled and ruthless opponents of World War II in the current media and political climate. The trust and freedom of action given to Mr. Roosevelt by the American people, as well as by his political opponents, could not possibly be replicated today. Nor would the current media consent to the military management of news that prevailed from 1941 to 1945. What happened between 1945 and 2005 that so affected our ability to wage war? A book could hardly suffice to answer the question thoroughly, but some critical items can be noted here. 1. The Politics of War. All four of our significant wars in the twentieth century occurred during Democratic administrations. (One would not know this fact from current reporting.) Observing long tradition, Republicans were the Loyal Opposition during each war. All politics ended at the water’s edge. No Democratic president ever had to contend with Republican opposition to its war policies. Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson each had a completely free hand to fight their respective wars. This changed after LBJ involved us in Vietnam, in 1965. Political opposition to the war began to grow, reaching a crescendo after North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive in early 1968. The opposition, however, came not from Republicans but from the burgeoning anti-war wing of Mr. Johnson’s own party. Its leader was Robert Kennedy. Reading the handwriting on the wall, LBJ announced in March 1968 that he would not stand for re-election. By June, Senator Kennedy had mounted a formidable drive for the Democratic nomination. His assassination occurred on the night he was celebrating his victory in the California primary. In the election campaign that followed, both Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon supported the war and promised to conclude hostilities with all deliberate speed. It took the winner, Mr. Nixon, four years to keep his promise. Peace with North Vietnam was concluded in December 1972, shortly after Mr. Nixon had decisively defeated peace candidate George McGovern. As peace-protests grew during Mr. Nixon’s first term, Vietnam became Nixon’s War. Already hated by leftists for his anti-communism activities of the 1940s and ‘50s, Richard Nixon became the perfect target for Democrats and Big Media who joined student protestors in opposing both the war and the president. Although Mr. Nixon’s final destruction was ostensibly caused by the Watergate cover-up, its true driving force was decades of festering leftist hatred. The post-Nixon Democratic Party (not including the Scoop Jackson wing) gradually solidified into the anti-war party – particularly if the president was a Republican. Democrats and the news media worked themselves into a frenzy when Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative for building a ballistic missile shield. Thousands marched in anti-nuke demonstrations when Mr. Reagan placed missiles in Europe to counter a Soviet threat. Friends in Switzerland (whom we visited in 1987) considered Mr. Reagan far more dangerous than Mr. Gorbachev. They thought our “cowboy president” might pull the nuclear trigger. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton got passes on the military thing (although Mr. Carter didn’t really need one). Mr. Clinton kept the peaceniks quiet by using military actions only as “diversions” from his political (and behavioral) problems. Anti-war passions erupted during the first Gulf War, but Mr. Bush wrapped things up quickly – some say too quickly – thus stopping the protests. George W’s full blown War on Terrorism – in response to the unprecedented attacks on American soil of September 11, 2001 – has revealed how much control the anti-war wing now has over the Democratic Party. The new Democratic National Chairman, Howard Dean, ran as the anti-war candidate in the Democratic primary of 2004. For anti-war Democrats, politics no longer stop at the water’s edge. The Gentlemen’s Agreement Democratic presidents enjoyed during their wars is gone. Rejecting the Loyal Opposition role, Democrats call Mr. Bush a “liar”, criticize his conduct of the war, and slander his advisors and cabinet officers. Their demands for withdrawal of our troops encourage our enemies to think they can win just by hanging on until Americans change their political leadership. Major news organs, claiming “neutrality”, oppose our military actions and run stories clearly intended to degrade public morale and harm our war effort. The media of 1944 would never have published anything like the “reports” above. Today, they are almost routine. Big media beat the drum for months over minor prisoner abuse at Abu Grahib and Guantanamo, while all but ignoring Islamothugs who televise beheadings and murder women who helped the Iraqis. This says something important about today’s media. They are fully aligned with Democrats who seem willing to see us lose the war against terrorism if that will hurt Republicans, politically. Too bad FDR isn’t around. He knew that partisanship (and journalism) at this level is called Treason. ******* Next week we’ll look at additional factors which have degraded our ability to wage war in 2005.
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