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Bush Dishonors the Legacy of Pearl Harbor
The anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor gives us an opportunity to remember our tragic loss that day, and reflect on the almost unimaginable sacrifices that generation of Americans made to protect the liberty of all who followed. But as I first suggested in 2005, our observance now includes a new ritual. With each passing year President Bush dishonors the memory of Pearl Harbor, misappropriating its meaning and lessons to support his partisan political purposes and his war in Iraq.
Year after year on Pearl Harbor Day, President Bush presents the response to the attacks of 9/11 and the occupation of Iraq as a single, unified struggle against an existential terrorist threat. But that proclaimed threat to our national survival is belied by the actions of the White House. George W. Bush has not asked Americans for sacrifices in the war against Al Qaeda. He has not mobilized us to fight the war, refused to require privation at home to support it, and certainly refused to demand that we pay for it.
But you'd never know it from the words of President Bush each December 7. In his annual Pearl Harbor declaration on Tuesday, Bush subtly suggested that the American conflicts in Berlin and Baghdad, Tokyo and Tal Afar are cut from the same cloth:
"When it mattered most, an entire generation of Americans stepped forward to protect our freedom and to defend liberty. Their devotion to duty and willingness to serve a cause greater than self helped secure our future and our way of life...From the unprovoked attack at Pearl Harbor grew a steadfast resolve that has made America a defender of freedom around the world, and our mission continues as our men and women in uniform serve at home and in distant lands."
In 2006, though, Bush showed no such finesse in equating Imperial Japan with sectarian militias in Iraq:
"After the devastating attacks on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared, 'We are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that follows.' In the 21st century, freedom is again under attack, and young Americans have stepped forward to serve in a global war on terror that will secure our liberty and determine the destiny of millions around the world. Like generations before, we will answer history's call with confidence, confront threats to our way of life, and build a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren."
But it was in 2005, when President Bush used the 64th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to continue his faltering effort to drum up support for his Iraq policy, that his theft of the legacy of Pearl Harbor was most obvious - and cynical.
Only days after unveiling his supposed "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" to an incredulous American public, Bush sought once again to draw parallels with a different, "good war" against fascism:
The strike on Pearl Harbor was the start of a long war for America -- a massive struggle against those who attacked us, and those who shared their destructive ambitions. Fortunately for all of us, a great generation of Americans was more than equal to the challenge. Our nation pulled together -- and despite setbacks and battlefield defeats, we did not waver in freedom's cause. With courage and determination, we won a war on two fronts: we liberated millions, we aided the rise of democracy in Europe and Asia we watched enemies become allies, and we laid the foundation of peace for generations.
On September the 11th, 2001, our nation awoke to another sudden attack. In the space of just 102 minutes, more Americans were killed than we lost at Pearl Harbor. Like generations before us, we accepted new responsibilities, and we confronted new dangers with firm resolve. Like generations before us, we're taking the fight to those who attacked us -- and those who share their murderous vision for future attacks. Like generations before us, we've faced setbacks on the path to victory -- yet we will fight this war without wavering. And like the generations before us, we will prevail.
Sadly, the President's false analogies to World War II only serve to highlight his own shortcomings as a wartime leader. Bush is no FDR, to be sure. More shameful still is his call for national sacrifice, a concept utterly absent from the Bush presidency before September 11th and since. As I wrote on September 11th in a piece titled "9/11 and the Culture of Grief":
[...]The Japanese attack on US forces in Hawaii was not only launched the United States into World War II, it was a tectonic change, a historical marker seared into the consciousness of all Americans. Americans surely felt the same sense of loss and violation on December 7, 1941 as they did on September 11, 2001. But they also understood that their world had changed forever and that a monumental effort by all Americans would be needed not only to defeat the threats from Japan and Nazi Germany, but to ensure, in FDR's words, "that this form of treachery shall never we will endanger us again."
Following Pearl Harbor, Americans more than anything else realized that shared sacrifice would be required if the United States were to prevail. If there was any question about the American sacrifice that was both called for and expected, President Franklin Roosevelt ended the discussion in his fireside chat of December 9, 1941:
On the road ahead there lies hard work-grueling work-day and night, every hour and every minute.
I was about to add that ahead there lies sacrifice for all of us.
But it is not correct to use that word. The United States does not consider it a sacrifice to do all one can, to give one's best to our Nation when the Nation is fighting for its existence and its future life.
It is not a sacrifice for any man, old or young, to be in the Army or the Navy of the United States. Rather is it a privilege.
It is not a sacrifice for the industrialist or the wage earner, the farmer or the shopkeeper, the trainman or the doctor, to pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forego extra profits, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best fitted. Rather is it a privilege.
It is not a sacrifice to do without many things to which we are accustomed if the national defense calls for doing without.
One needs only a moment's reflection on FDR's words to realize why President Bush's words on this Pearl Harbor anniversary are an obscenity, an affront to traditional American values of shared sacrifice and common defense.
In World War II, 15,000,000 American men and women served in the nation's armed forces. In George W. Bush's America, there is no call for national service, leaving our volunteer military badly - and unnecessarily - overstretched around the world. Our security abroad and safety at home is threatened as a result. Yet Americans of both parties and all walks of life are largely silent.
During World War II, the "Greatest Generation" willingly paid more taxes, with the top rate reaching 91%. In George W. Bush's America, the United States government for the first time in its history cut taxes during wartime. And with our troops in harm's way and America facing massive budget deficits, President Bush and the Republican Party want to cut them further, in a massive transfer of wealth to the richest among us. Yet Americans of both parties and all walks of life are largely silent.
During World War II, all Americans steadfastly endured privations at home, including gasoline rationing, limitations on travel, and shortages of commodities of all kind. In George W. Bush's America, there is no call for conservation and sacrifice at home. Americans howl in protest at $3 a gallon gas and rising heating oil and natural gas prices. There is no strategy for national energy independence, no mandates for greater fuel efficiency or conservation, no penalties for consumption or incentives to save. Yet Americans of both parties and all walks of life are largely silent.
On this Pearl Harbor Day, we would do well to recall more of FDR's wartime leadership now so dearly missing in Washington:
We are now in this war. We are all in it-all the way. Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories-the changing fortunes of war.
Those words could never from President George W. Bush or his allies in the free-lunch Republican Party. In pursuit of his calamity in Iraq, the only thing President Bush has asked Americans to sacrifice is the meaning of Pearl Harbor itself.
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I've been thinking along the same lines for years. It's not just that Bush equates Iraq with 9/11 and Al Qaeda, but that he then equates it all with the good fights in World War II.
Posted by Dennis on December 7, 2007 12:27 PM