Why We Lost China

[andyfox]

"Why We Lost China" was a three-part series in the Republican Saturday Evening Post in 1950. Written by Joseph Alsop, it placed the blame on the State Department. Leaving aside the question of whether countries can belong to us and are thus capable of being "lost," the articles were the beginning of the end for many foreign service officers who had recognized early on the fact that civil war would come in China and that Chiang Kai Shek would lose and the Communsits would win. The two most brilliant were John Paton Davies and John Stewart Service and they saw their duty as reporting the truth as they saw it without adjusting it to American domestic considerations.

Because of the loss of these Asia experts, the United States approached Vietnam with little expertise or understanding of the situation. The result, of course, was disaster. Disaster for America, and an unforgettable tragedy for the Vietnamese.

We now are witnessing what may be the beginnings of a similiar situation. Newt Gingrich has unleased an all-out attack on the State Department, characterizing its plan for Mideast peace as "a deliberate and systematic effort to undermine the president's policies." Tom DeLay has also jumped on this bandwagon.

Gingrich urged the Bush administration to "take on transforming the State Department as its next urgent mission." The White House has, to its credit, rejected Gingrich's advice, strongly defending both the department and Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer saying that the State Department simply "carr[ies] out the president's directions, and they do so very ably and profesionally."

In the heady rush of the military success in Iraq, the hardliners are complaining that the State Department is too soft, too interested, according to Gingrich, in "politeness and accommodation."

Those ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it. Hopefully, we are not in for disaster and tragedy.

A vice president at the American Enterprise Institute, where Gingrich gave his speech, said, in disagreeing with Gingrich, "I am not a believer in the idea that somehow the State Department hijacked the president's brain."

I'll leave it for others to smack at this hanging curve.

[Zeno]

"I am not a believer in the idea that somehow the State Department hijacked the president's brain."


The state department no doubt used a thimble for the hijacking.


"I'll leave it for others to smack at this hanging curve."

Even John Halma could knock that one out of the ballpark!

-Zeno

[Zeno]

For an interesting side note about chinese history -

Check out this Obituary article from the Guardian, this man change the course of Chinese history. Chang (http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0%2C3604%2C576074%2COO.html)

He was even more interesting than this small obit can give him credit for and a bit of an enigma. He is a standing hero in China to this day. The obituary on Chang that appeared in the Economist is much better but "unavailable".

-Zeno

[adios]

Me thinks that Newt has appointed himself as a leader in the Republican Party. IMO the religous right constiuency that certainly has a big influence in the Repulican Party is the Republican party's achilles heal.

[Chris Alger]

Good analogy, although the recent event could be nothing more important than Rummy's payback for the flak orchestrated by Powell, Scowcroft and their supporters during the second week of the war. Gingrich is on the Defense Policy Board, which supports Rumsfeld's desire to consolidate foreign and intelligence policy with the DOD. It isn't likely that Gingrich would have fired this salvo without consulting beforehand with his colleagues. His dormant public career means there is little downside to him taking on someone as powerful as Powell.

Other parallels to the domestic political scene at the time: the Democrats continue to backtrack from the platform that made them popular; the GOP is struggling to sell an dismal homefront agenda (subsidies for the wealthy, wage discipline and indifference for the rest); leaders in both parties are determined to sell a more aggressive and expensive foreign/military policy by churning up as much fear and anxiety as possible.

In both cases, the seeds were planted by liberal leaders and the right simply took the ball and ran. The result is a propaganda system out of control compelling policies that no one can justify without resort to fantasy. In the early 1950's it might well have been politically impossible for leaders to "do nothing" about Vietnam, although supporting the Geneva Accords instead of subverting them seems the only intelligent policy from both an elite and popular viewpoint.

Now, in the Middle East, actually getting out of Iraq and supporting the Palestinian peace proposal that's been on the table for decades also seems to be the only sane alternative, but it is hard to reconcile it with the dominant ideology. You see this in Powell's recent interviews and the right-wing reaction to the roadmap. Powell perfectly understands that if an "end to violence and terror" is the prerequisite for Israeli compromise, then all options remain with Israel, meaning with the Israeli right, meaning nothing will change. At the same time, he's at pains to resist the obvious conclusion that the US has no control over the process. But watch what the Gingrich's of the world will do the first time Powell tries, if he tries.