Letters to the Editor
jwr_12
Published Letters: 149 Editor's Choice: 45
-
An irresponsible gamble
[Read the article: When does the bombing begin?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perry's article--which, to their credit, the US government is not trying to get involved with (I think Scherer's wrong to read this press conference so harshly here)--is an irresponsible gamble. If you read it, nowhere does it mention the obvious possibility that if the US bombs the North Korean missile silo, the North Korean government might use the nuclear bombs that it does have in response. The authors briefly--without mentioning this nuclear scenario--dismiss the possibility of war on the Korean peninsula with the claim that the North Korean government would never respond militarily, knowing ahead of time it would be defeated in a "matter of weeks."
I don't know where to begin with such crazy logic. First of all, since when has the North Korean government operated by logic alone? Aren't we dealing with a totalitarian,ideological regime built around visions of national self-sufficiency and national defense? Could this government expect to survive the humiliation of our strike without waging war? And if war then came, and by some miracle was fought solely with conventional weapons, tens if not hundreds of thousands of Koreans would die on this famously militarized peninsula. North Korea's long-range artillery can shell Seoul.
And of course how can we possibly expect that if things come to that--if a South Korean army supported by US forces is charging towards Pyongyang--how can we expect that this totalitarian government will not use the nuclear bombs it already has?
It is true that this IBM test is frightening. But it's still just a test. And we have no right to roll the dice on war on the Korean peninsula, when time may yet give us a chance to deal with the nuclear threat by other means.
-
Response to Jason C (Analogy OK, Facts Loose)
[Read the article: Bush to the media: Shut up and wave the flag]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'd like to respond to some of the critics of Mr. Goodman's piece by noting that while some of his facts are loose--I especially liked the bit about "Kerensky and his handful of zealots" (?) "subduing Moscow" (??)--the analogy holds well.
There is no disputing that World War I, while not the only cause (and itself caused by many things), played a huge role in creating the 20th century, politically, culturally, socially. This includes the Russian Revolution, the political fate of the Balkans and that of the AH Empire. Speaking from my own realm of expertise, Russian history, let me just say that it is entirely unclear whether Russia would have had a second revolution after that of 1905 without the war, and that it certainly would not have taken the specific form it did without the brutality and chaos of World War I framing the end of the imperial regime. I suppose not every professional historian would agree with me on this point, but the author's basic point has many who would argue for it.
It may also be true that people found out about the war informally by mail. I suppose there are some who find out about the Iraq war informally now. But it seems odd, to me, to deny the point that the official media climate--the opinions of newspapers and public institutions--matters a great deal. It also seems plain that although the tin wore thin as the war went on, initial attempts to paint the war as a heroic, antiseptic, almost jolly kind of affair served as a barrier against criticism, or even rational debate about the generals' murderous embrace of attrition as a tactic.
The analogy to our own time seems apt. We, of course, have many more sources of information than the people of the early 20th century. And yet it is startling to see how quickly 'conventional wisdoms' developed in the media about Iraq, seeded by our government; and how these wisdoms both made the war possible, and have sustained it since. I'm sure the authors of WWI propaganda would be stunned at the cynicism and success of Rove & co.
To briefly quibble about facts which don't challenge the author's basic analogy: 1) St. Petersburg (or Petrograd, as it was known then--the city was renamed in the middle of WWI because St. Petersburg was thought too 'german-sounding') was the capital of Russia in 1917, not Moscow; 2) Kerensky, though a failed leader, was a relative moderate socialist in 1917; the band of zealots who overthrough the provisional government and prevented the calling of the constituent assembly was, of course, led by Lenin. Their zealotry, however, should be placed in context: by the fall of 1917, the Bolsheviks were a very popular--perhaps the most popular--urban political party. Lenin made his revolution under the fig leaf that the Bolsheviks were the actual spokesmen of the working class, a claim just plausible enough to provide the cover he needed for as long as he needed it.
But, BTW, it was the soldiers who secured the February and October revolutions as well as Bolshevik victory in the civil war--and without WWI, their distribution and specific morale (or lack thereof) would have been entirely different.