"To South Korean President Syngman Rhee, the Korean War settlement was a sellout.
In 1965 the independence of South Vietnam was an overriding political imperative for the U.S. By 1975 it wasn't.
I could go on -- Iraq, Afghanistan, the Kurds.
Let South Korea be our microcosm. Three months after the North's invasion, U.S. forces had pushed the invaders back beyond the 38th parallel. The fighting nevertheless went on for nearly three years, accounting for the lion's share of the casualties, before ending -- yes -- at the 38th parallel.
No sentient being during those 34 months didn't think, as Donald Trump does now, to the outrage of many, that a deal was inevitable and the sooner the better.
Mr. Trump: "I watched this poor guy [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky] yesterday at the United Nations. . . . They're locked into a situation. It's sad. They just don't know what to do. Because Ukraine is gone. It's not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns. And you can never replace the dead people -- so many dead people. Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better. . . . We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn't have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated."
A book of world historiography could be written on the unhelpfulness of Mr. Trump's truthful statement next to the disingenuous but advisable words uttered by Kamala Harris in the same week.
Her statement, saying any territorial concession by Ukraine would be a "surrender," was celebrated, with moist eye and thumping heart, by U.S. pundits at the very moment Ukraine's public was signaling a readiness to compromise.
The question for every American: Does Ms. Harris know what she's saying and why, with a subtle appreciation of how it serves the U.S. interest in a deal not to be seen pressuring Ukraine for a deal (even as the Biden administration withholds weapons to encourage a deal)?
Or is Ms. Harris just a repeater of words?
My personal journey perhaps is indicative. Last February I imagined Ms. Harris replacing President Biden and brushing aside a softball Super Bowl interview to give a stirring defense of Ukraine. We were likely to get President Harris anyway if Mr. Biden was re-elected. Alas, Mr. Biden bowed out far later than he should have, while somehow mystically transferring the nomination to Ms. Harris. Now a foreshortened 105-day campaign may expire with half of America not knowing whether it's pulling the lever for Chauncey Gardiner or Chance the Gardener.
Mr. Biden, the author of this mess, likes to quote FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy" rhetoric. An apter comparison is Woodrow Wilson, who didn't want to be seen preparing his army to fight World War I, even permitting dissolution of the Army's Field Artillery Board, charged with learning the lessons of the Western Front.
The James Buchanan parallel also comes to mind. If Mr. Trump wins and there's violent or extralegal opposition from Democrats, it will fall to Mr. Biden to restore order. If either party, from real or feigned outrage, chooses to contest the result, Mr. Biden will have to see us through.
This is the same Mr. Biden who recently thought collective bargaining was the solution to strikes (i.e., airstrikes) in Yemen.
Only the president can ride herd on the inveterate election meddlers at the FBI, CIA and Justice Department. Can we count on Mr. Biden to do so?
At least this time Mr. Trump would be in the position of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and not Donald Trump in 2020 -- he won't be contesting a disputed election from the White House. But Kamala Harris will, with the additional complication of being subordinate to Mr. Biden, who reportedly remains full of resentment at how he was replaced.
Have fun, voters.
This will be the second election in a row decided by mail-in ballots, whose validity is inherently easy to question and impossible to demonstrate.
Election Day may become election month, with fights over missing signatures and postmarks, amid the inevitable demand that some but not all improperly marked ballots be counted in the name of "democracy." Never mind also the vexed business of "ballot harvesting," legal in some states and not in others.
Voters can help by giving an unmistakable win to one candidate or the other, but this is a wish and not a strategy. A likelier result is a passionate turnout tsunami like 2020, with more Americans than ever believing they have reason to be angry about the outcome." [1]
1. Thanks for Nothing, Say Voters in 2024. Jenkins, Holman W; Jr. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 Oct 2024: A.13.
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