Politics Screws Foreign Policy Every Time

Way back when, in the Pleistocene, well, actually during the Cold War, there was a disgustingly hypocritical cliche in common use. "Politics stop at the water's edge."

This crock was always accompanied by pious blathering from the politicos of both parties about something they liked to call "bi-partisan foreign policy." Other times the sanctimonious Wallahs in Congress bloviated about "not making war into a political issue."

When he was young and listened to this tripe, the Geek would roll his eyes. Now he engages in projectile vomit.

Get a grip on this. Foreign policy has rarely, very rarely been bi-partisan. War has always been a political issue.

Even World War II, the so-called "Good War," the war which started for us when the American Eagle's perch in Pearl Harbor was broken and the eagle found himself beak down in the dreck on the bottom of the cage, was a political football. Senator Truman rode to prominence running investigations of defense contractor waste, fraud, and abuse. Governor Dewey was all fired up to use the very secret information about how the US had broken the enemy's codes and ciphers when the perfectly apolitical, country-first Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall prevailed upon the governor not to.

Less popular wars, and supposed foreign policy failures, became the centrality of political life after World War II. The Republicans barked and snapped successfully at the Democrats by alleging that FDR had "sold out" Poland and other Eastern European countries occupied by the Red Army because Democrats were "soft on communism."

The Republicans yowled all the louder when Mao's forces won in China. With an utter irresponsibility and a completely cavalier disregard for historical facts, one Republican red meat eater after another accused the Democrats generally and Harry Truman and FDR in particular of having "lost China."

Nor did the Korean War stop the high powered hype. After the dramatic turnaround of military fortune following the Inchon landings in September 1950, the demands that the US go all the way to total victory escalated on the political right. The US commander in the theater, Gen Douglas MacArthur, stoked the political fires of the right and his own presidential ambitions by totally off-the-wall statements to the press and supporters including the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars about invading China, turning the forces of Chaing lose from their Formosan cage, and alleging that there was "no substitute for victory."

In his campaign, Dwight Eisenhower invoked not only his military hero status but stated, "if elected, I will go to Korea," as if this meant he had a plan for ending the war. He went to Korea before his inauguration, but the war didn't end until Joe Stalin had the good grace to die and Ike made some carefully calculated comments regarding our supposed willingness to "use whatever weapons might be required."

Flash forward to the end of the Eisenhower years and the beginnings of the Camelot ascendancy of John Kennedy. The President and his brother, Attorney General Robert, not only went ahead with the tactical and strategic loonie tune plan to oust the communists from Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, but, after the invasion was readily defeated by Castro's forces, both plotted revenge against the successful bearded dictator.

In addition to pure personal spite, the Kennedy brothers had sound political reasons for seeking the death or overthrow of the Cuban communist regime. The Democrats had been burned, badly burned, by the "who lost China" blathering of the Republicans a decade earlier. Now, not only had the commies established a beachhead in the Western Hemisphere only ninety miles from Key West, the Reds had built the Berlin Wall, and, we thought, started pro-communist insurgencies in Africa, Latin America, and, most scarily, Southeast Asia. Looking ahead to the 1964 presidential cycle, both could hear, "Who lost Cuba? Who lost the Congo? Who lost South Vietnam? Laos? Who let the Berlin Wall be built?"

Domestic politics combined with personal anger to power bad policy regarding Cuba. With respect to South Vietnam the same political considerations applied.

The War in Vietnam was political from the giddy-up. LBJ was pleased to brand his opponent, Barry Goldwater, as a warmonger, too unstable to be trusted near the nuclear button. LBJ piously promised not to have "American boys die for Asian boys in an Asian war," while already planning the sustained bombing campaign dubbed ROLLING THUNDER and contemplating a major uptick in the number of US ground combat forces in country.

The 1968 presidential campaign was all about the War in Vietnam. LBJ tried to maneuver the North Vietnamese and the boys in Saigon to the peace table in Paris in time to help the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey. At the same time, the Republican, Richard Nixon, was sending "secret" emissaries to the South Vietnamese government, urging them to stall on the talks because Saigon would get a better deal from the Republicans.

Nixon's underhanded (and probably illegal) ploy payed off better than LBJ's underhanded but legal gambit. Nixon won the White House and the war wound on, and on, and on.

In the endgame of the Vietnam War, both parties played the war as pure politics. Nixon went for the gold with air bombardments which worked. The North was willing to go along with the appearance of "peace with honor."

The Democrats in Congress played their game as well, seeming to bow to the desires of public opinion. From their perspective it appeared that We the People were so tired of the war that peace was all that mattered. To hell with the honor portion of it.

Congress passed its "date-certain" resolutions. Congress cut off funding. The troops came home. The POWs were released. Finally push came to shove in South Vietnam. In a final irony of an already irony laden war, the South Vietnamese Army fought well. They were fighting the type of supply heavy, munitions heavy, air power heavy war which we had taught them and showed them.

As Northern forces attacked, the South relied on the promises made years earlier that Uncle Sam would provide the supplies, the ammunition, the air power which would allow the South Vietnamese Army to resist. Hiding behind the will of We the People, the Wallahs in Congress refused the supplies, refused the munitions, refused the air power.

When the South fell, the same Wallahs had the unmitigated audacity to say, "See, we knew they wouldn't/couldn't fight. We did the right thing."

Now both parties are hard at it, using the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for political gain. The Democrats (and some Republicans) hope they are reading the tea leaves of public sourness on the war correctly. They apparently believe that by establishing "dates certain," time tables for withdrawal, or cutting funding, they will both end the war and gain votes.

Once again, in an uncanny analogy with the Vietnam War, Wallahs in Congress and Presidential Wannabes seek to truckle effectively, gain votes, write off our dead as a bad investment and sacrifice the notion that wars are fought to gain a better state of peace.

In the Vietnam War there were no long term losses to the US from the shortsighted political games playing. The Vietnam War, as the Geek has noted so often before, was the war that we could afford to lose.

In the current wars as in the long ago Korean War, the US is fighting a war it cannot, in its own better long term interests. afford to lose.

To truckle to the whims of opinion this time around is to trifle with our collective future. In this war, a determination not to lose may not be a crowd pleaser. Too bad.

A question for politicians: does it make sense to win an election while losing a future?