Worst op-ed piece of the month (WSJ: “What Truman can teach Trump”)

[as seen on tv]

"The death of the Truman Doctrine, 1963"​

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-truman-can-teach-trump-1500661673

The link above is to a WSJ op-ed piece published last week by Bard College professor of Foreign Policy Walter Mead. Depending on your point of view, Mead’s article is either (a) confirmation of the sad truth that college professors live in bubbles isolated from reality; (b) “the triumph of hope over experience”; or (C) a sign of the coming apocalypse when a millennial online pundit like this writer so easily deconstructs the faults off left wing world views. (or, it could be all 3 at once, I suppose)


To sum up Dr. Mead’s thesis – the Truman era represents the apogee of American foreign policy theory and practice. It's another step on the inevitable path toward world peace, universal human rights, and the replacement of nationalism with a global outlook. For real! Read the entire link, if you doubt me. Or even if you don’t doubt me, and you just want a laugh.


The insta-pundit in me responds thus to Dr. Mead and his fellow travelers: It’s been 70 years since the Truman era . . . why aren’t we there yet?


I realize that smart alecky jibes like mine demand supporting facts, so here goes:

1. The United Nations – Truman’s (and most other liberals’) chosen instrument of achieving the new world order – has singularly fallen short in virtually every endeavor. Rather than list all the failed resolutions, the continued expansion of the nuclear club, and the dozens of invasions and armed conflicts that have taken place since the UN charter was signed by Truman, let me simply point out: the only thing the UN guarantees its member states is “sovereignty”. Specifically, that no other state – nor the UN itself – is going to oust any member’s government. Whether the leader is a dictator, Imam, President for life, general, King, Shah, or self-proclaimed descendant of Mohammed. How can you achieve basic human rights and peace when your first order of business is promising NOT to interrupt any pogroms, genocide, and wholesale execution of political opponents?
   
2. Let’s drill down on the Middle East, okay? We have one nation (Iran) vowing to “eliminate” another (“Israel”). Another UN member wanna be (Palestine) launches thousands of low yield/low cost missiles a month into Israel’s civilian neighborhoods, with the same goal. We have serial invasions over the years by half a dozen middle east nations. Horrific terrorism and massacres by hard core Muslims against India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt. Not to mention events closer to home like 9/11.
   
3. Okay – America is not innocent here either. See the top photo above – which I have retitled “the death of the Truman doctrine”. Truman’s theory was that limited economic aid in the 1950's to democracies like Turkey, Greece, and Iran (which has never been a democracy) would stymie the advance of Stalinism. The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald marks the onset of America’s occupation of Vietnam, which was neither a democracy nor a Soviet client state. The US military loss there – as well as our 16 year misadventure in failing to defeat post 9/11 terrorism – has done nothing except underline the fact that we aren’t the military superpower we imagine ourselves to be, and globalization is shunned as much by democracies as by oppressors, whenever it imposes any sort of self sacrifice.
   
4. You want more examples off why “Trumanism” was never a thing, let alone a success? How about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Crimea? China’s longstanding technical and economic support of North Korea, which is now a nuclear power with ICBMs? How about Obama’s embrace of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc.? The Falklands war? Piracy, rape, and pillage for profit? Internet destabilization of the mechanisms of democracy, and the infrastructure of economic stability?
   
5. For that matter, how about the tenure of Hillary Clinton, Obama’s secretary of state and head cheerleader for the Truman world view? According to the left, Hillary might be a fascist because there are some situations which she concdes might demand a US military response. But American voters who refused to pull the lever for Hillary as president in November 2016 are more likely to serve up the following as their bill of complaint: Benghazi; a half dozen foreign coups during her tenure; the rise of ISIS and Boko Haram; and the “Arab spring” which boh commences and then comes to quick and bloody end. Hillary’s early departure in 2013 to run for president prevented her from held partly accountable for Russia’s invasion of Croatia and Ukraine, but just barely.

Sorry, Dr. Mead, I stand by my rant. If Truman’s ideas of 70 years ago were the key to world peace and human rights, we’d no doubt have more concrete evidence by now. Your exegesis extolling the President who nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki is simply an affirmation that US foreign policy “experts” (like generals) are usually prepared to re-fight the last war, and seldom offer insights into future threats and solutions.


Not that I have these answers. And President Trump neither, for sure. Before someone thinks this top post is pro-Trump screed, please recall that I didn’t even vote for him. I wrote in for Marco Rubio, as the guy “most likely to assembly a learned and honest cabinet" (from a 2016 post on this site). A judgement that seems prescient right about now, no?


Your stones and brickbats are now invited, if you disagree with me, and take the position of Dr. Mead that Truman era domestic and foreign policy will set Trump right with the world, and history.


Full disclosure 1 – the first identified use of “stones and brickbats” appears in “English constitutional history” (Stephenson), published in 1937


Full disclosure 2 – “the triumph of hope over experience” is attributed both to Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, in the 16th century.


Full disclosure 3 – Bard College, where professor Mead holds forth, is small liberal arts college in the village of Annandale on Hudson, upstate NY. Although the median SAT score is only 645, and the math score is even lower, Newsweek surprisingly ranks Bard as “the 11th most rigorous” college by entry requirements in the USA. The Steely Dan song “My old school” was inspired by actual events at Bard College in 1973.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

I wonder if the author even realizes that it was Harry Truman who ordered two nuclear bombs to be dropped on Japan- just to add to the hilarity of the whole premise.

 

[Sickofleft]

"The death of the Truman Doctrine, 1963"​

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-truman-can-teach-trump-1500661673

The link above is to a WSJ op-ed piece published last week by Bard College professor of Foreign Policy Walter Mead. Depending on your point of view, Mead’s article is either (a) confirmation of the sad truth that college professors live in bubbles isolated from reality; (b) “the triumph of hope over experience”; or (C) a sign of the coming apocalypse when a millennial online pundit like this writer so easily deconstructs the faults off left wing world views. (or, it could be all 3 at once, I suppose)


To sum up Dr. Mead’s thesis – the Truman era represents the apogee of American foreign policy theory and practice. It's another step on the inevitable path toward world peace, universal human rights, and the replacement of nationalism with a global outlook. For real! Read the entire link, if you doubt me. Or even if you don’t doubt me, and you just want a laugh.


The insta-pundit in me responds thus to Dr. Mead and his fellow travelers: It’s been 70 years since the Truman era . . . why aren’t we there yet?


I realize that smart alecky jibes like mine demand supporting facts, so here goes:

1. 
   
   
   • The United Nations – Truman’s (and most other liberals’) chosen instrument of achieving the new world order – has singularly fallen short in virtually every endeavor. Rather than list all the failed resolutions, the continued expansion of the nuclear club, and the dozens of invasions and armed conflicts that have taken place since the UN charter was signed by Truman, let me simply point out: the only thing the UN guarantees its member states is “sovereignty”. Specifically, that no other state – nor the UN itself – is going to oust any member’s government. Whether the leader is a dictator, Imam, President for life, general, King, Shah, or self-proclaimed descendant of Mohammed. How can you achieve basic human rights and peace when your first order of business is promising NOT to interrupt any pogroms, genocide, and wholesale execution of political opponents?
   • Let’s drill down on the Middle East, okay? We have one nation (Iran) vowing to “eliminate” another (“Israel”). Another UN member wanna be (Palestine) launches thousands of low yield/low cost missiles a month into Israel’s civilian neighborhoods, with the same goal. We have serial invasions over the years by half a dozen middle east nations. Horrific terrorism and massacres by hard core Muslims against India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt. Not to mention events closer to home like 9/11.
   • Okay – America is not innocent here either. See the top photo above – which I have retitled “the death of the Truman doctrine”. Truman’s theory was that limited economic aid in the 1950's to democracies like Turkey, Greece, and Iran (which has never been a democracy) would stymie the advance of Stalinism. The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald marks the onset of America’s occupation of Vietnam, which was neither a democracy nor a Soviet client state. The US military loss there – as well as our 16 year misadventure in failing to defeat post 9/11 terrorism – has done nothing except underline the fact that we aren’t the military superpower we imagine ourselves to be, and globalization is shunned as much by democracies as by oppressors, whenever it imposes any sort of self sacrifice.
   • You want more examples off why “Trumanism” was never a thing, let alone a success? How about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Crimea? China’s longstanding technical and economic support of North Korea, which is now a nuclear power with ICBMs? How about Obama’s embrace of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc.? The Falklands war? Piracy, rape, and pillage for profit? Internet destabilization of the mechanisms of democracy, and the infrastructure of economic stability?
   • For that matter, how about the tenure of Hillary Clinton, Obama’s secretary of state and head cheerleader for the Truman world view? According to the left, Hillary might be a fascist because there are some situations which she concdes might demand a US military response. But American voters who refused to pull the lever for Hillary as president in November 2016 are more likely to serve up the following as their bill of complaint: Benghazi; a half dozen foreign coups during her tenure; the rise of ISIS and Boko Haram; and the “Arab spring” which boh commences and then comes to quick and bloody end. Hillary’s early departure in 2013 to run for president prevented her from held partly accountable for Russia’s invasion of Croatia and Ukraine, but just barely.

Sorry, Dr. Mead, I stand by my rant. If Truman’s ideas of 70 years ago were the key to world peace and human rights, we’d no doubt have more concrete evidence by now. Your exegesis extolling the President who nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki is simply an affirmation that US foreign policy “experts” (like generals) are usually prepared to re-fight the last war, and seldom offer insights into future threats and solutions.


Not that I have these answers. And President Trump neither, for sure. Before someone thinks this top post is pro-Trump screed, please recall that I didn’t even vote for him. I wrote in for Marco Rubio, as the guy “most likely to assembly a learned and honest cabinet" (from a 2016 post on this site). A judgement that seems prescient right about now, no?


Your stones and brickbats are now invited, if you disagree with me, and take the position of Dr. Mead that Truman era domestic and foreign policy will set Trump right with the world, and history.


Full disclosure 1 – the first identified use of “stones and brickbats” appears in “English constitutional history” (Stephenson), published in 1937


Full disclosure 2 – “the triumph of hope over experience” is attributed both to Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, in the 16th century.


Full disclosure 3 – Bard College, where professor Mead holds forth, is small liberal arts college in the village of Annandale on Hudson, upstate NY. Although the median SAT score is only 645, and the math score is even lower, Newsweek surprisingly ranks Bard as “the 11th most rigorous” college by entry requirements in the USA. The Steely Dan song “My old school” was inspired by actual events at Bard College in 1973.

Given the loss of 53K of our Soldiers in the Korean conflict Truman was hated when he left office. He is the man who gave the order to nuke Japan at the end of WWII.

If he had been a republican he would not get the glowing endorsements he does today, he would still be hated among our "elites". Don't believe me?

Ask yourself this albeit about another conflict in Asia, when people talk about the Vietnam war who do you hear more hatred for, LBJ who got us into the conflict or Richard Nixon who inherited the disaster?

The op-ed is dripping with pretentious bullshit.

 

[Arkady]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-truman-can-teach-trump-1500661673

The link above is to a WSJ op-ed piece published last week by Bard College professor of Foreign Policy Walter Mead. Depending on your point of view, Mead’s article is either (a) confirmation of the sad truth that college professors live in bubbles isolated from reality; (b) “the triumph of hope over experience”; or (C) a sign of the coming apocalypse when a millennial online pundit like this writer so easily deconstructs the faults off left wing world views. (or, it could be all 3 at once, I suppose)

I'm no fan of Mead. He's got solid academic credentials --an Ivy-Educated scholar who previously taught at Yale-- but he has, indeed, been living in a bubble, isolated from reality. Specifically, he's been living in a neocon bubble, having been involved with various hawkish think tanks like the Hudson Institute and the New America Foundation. He was even the Kissinger Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's one of the dunderheads who thought is was a good idea to invade Iraq -- he even pushed the non-existent tie between Iraq and 9/11, to get people into the necessary blood-thirsty mood to trigger that catastrophe.

Still, as little as I tend to agree with him, you could do worse than emulate Truman on the foreign policy front. He inherited a world in the depths of the worst war humanity has ever known, and look what he left. Not only had that war been won definitively on all fronts, but the groundwork had been laid for our greatest enemies in that war becoming some of our closest allies and most lucrative trading partners. The groundwork was also laid for seven decades that, in terms of a human's chance of getting killed in a war, have been the most peaceful in human history.

In terms of aggregate historical opinion of the man, by historians and the like, Truman is listed as our sixth greatest president -- and that's not due to his well-meaning but ultimately aborted Fair Deal domestic policy. It's because of his foreign policy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

Right-wingers love to bash the UN, but it's done its job. There hasn't been a shooting war between major nations for the better part of a century. When before in history could you say the same? All sorts of novel challenges have popped up in that time that could have led to military conflict -- competition over ever-scarcer natural resources, questions of how to handle space, the growing ability of small numbers of terrorists to inflict serious harm, refugee crises, issues involving nuclear proliferation, etc. Yet the conflicts involving major nations, in that time, have been fairly small-scale and have generally taken the form of indirect proxy wars. The UN has given us a decent forum for talking out most differences.

That's not to say the UN has been perfect. Countries manage to defy international law for decades at a time, sometimes without any real consequences (see, for example, Israel's illegal settlements and refusal of a right of return, for which the UN imposes no price). Thanks to the vetoes for the permanent security council members, the UN is essentially paralyzed any time any one of five nations wants it to be paralyzed. But it has still managed to deal effectively with any number of crises, famines, epidemics, etc,. that would have been much worse without it.

Trumanism was a raging success, and we have 70 years of concrete evidence of that. There has never been a better time to be alive in human history, in terms of the average person's freedom from privation, subjugation, and war. The process put in place by Truman was a major part of the reason.

Sort of a side note, here, but Bard is reporting 640 critical reading, 620 math, for the medians. 1260 is pretty competitive -- top 13%, relative to a nationally representative sample:

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/understanding-sat-scores-2016.pdf

 

[as seen on tv]

I wonder if the author even realizes that it was Harry Truman who ordered two nuclear bombs to be dropped on Japan- just to add to the hilarity of the whole premise.

Professor Mead theorizes that this is part of Truman's "robust/populist" foreign policy. however, that policy predates the advent of the Truman doctrine, which sets us on the path to the UN, and one world government.

America - it's 50 states - cannot agree on important matters of domestic and foreign policy. is it any wonder why western democracies are perpetually at odds with communist states, theocracies, kleptocracies, and banana republic dictatorships?

 

[as seen on tv]

Given the loss of 53K of our Soldiers in the Korean conflict Truman was hated when he left office. He is the man who gave the order to nuke Japan at the end of WWII.

If he had been a republican he would not get the glowing endorsements he does today, he would still be hated among our "elites". Don't believe me?

Ask yourself this albeit about another conflict in Asia, when people talk about the Vietnam war who do you hear more hatred for, LBJ who got us into the conflict or Richard Nixon who inherited the disaster?

The op-ed is dripping with pretentious bullshit.

If America had achieved the Truman/McArthur promise of victory in Korea (i.e., no communist partition) Truman likely would have been much more popular. Americans are seriously opposed to having their children die for a lost cause (korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria). No one complains that the cost (in lives) was unacceptable for WW1 or WW2.

 

[Sickofleft]

If America had achieved the Truman/McArthur promise of victory in Korea (i.e., no communist partition) Truman likely would have been much more popular. Americans are seriously opposed to having their children die for a lost cause (korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria). No one complains that the cost (in lives) was unacceptable for WW1 or WW2.

Prior to WWII when WWI was known as "The Great War" I think a lot of people were complaining about why went over there........of course 60million dead at the end of WWII changed all of that.

 

[as seen on tv]

If America had achieved the Truman/McArthur promise of victory in Korea (i.e., no communist partition) Truman likely would have been much more popular. Americans are seriously opposed to having their children die for a lost cause (korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria). No one complains that the cost (in lives) was unacceptable for WW1 or WW2.

The part of the Truman doctrine which Mead DOESNT mention, but which is vital, consists of the following:

• defeat your opponents in battle; do not negotiate a truce which leaves a wounded enemy in power, nursing a grudge (he violated this in Korea, after observing it with Germany and Japan)
• take a strong role in nation building after your enemy surrenders. Install democratic institutions, and help rebuild infrastructure so that the civilian population can provide for themselves and operate under the rule of law, rather than the oppression of warlords/tyrants.

Contrast this with the current (LBJ to present) willingness to :

• withdraw without victory
• fail to effect regime change, or
• stand off from nation building and protection of hapless civilians
• covertly fund various factions, power brokers, and other shady characters to undermine successor governments while we publicly praise those same governments. Assassinations aren't out of the question here.

Foreign policy is actually quite simple, if you have clear principles and goals and stick to them. Unfortunately, from Korea to the president, America has had neither. Mead is the ultimate apologist for "real politik" - a soviet term which means anything that seems to opportunistically meet your short term needs.

You deride him as a neocon - a typical leftist brickbat (word of the day). If he was actually a neocon, he'd be writing op ed pieces along the following lines;

- American exceptionalism
- ending the invasion of America by refugees from latin America, the middle east, and oppressed regions of asia
- a stance against negotiating with Iran and NK to grant them more weapons with which to threaten the west.
- forceful denunciation of Crimea and Ukraine.
- standing against human rights abuses in the mddle east, Russia, china, etc.

I haven't attended any of professor mead's classes (and neither have you) but I feel comfortable in predicting that if either of us did, he'd wax eloquently on how the Iran treaty (opposed by a bipartisan congress) is a great deal.

It IS possible to be in favor of "fair trade" and against terrorism and human rights abuses, you know. Mead seems confused on such points.

 

[as seen on tv]

Prior to WWII when WWI was known as "The Great War" I think a lot of people were complaining about why went over there........of course 60million dead at the end of WWII changed all of that.

there was considerable angst in America - but more so in Europe, which suffered most of the WW1 casualties, owing to hubris and reliance on 19th century battle tactics in the face of poison gas, aerial bombings, etc.

this led to the punitive clauses against Germany, which deepened their postwar economic woes, and gave hitler a natural opening.

when you think about it, it IS rather astonishing that in 1940 Britain and France would again conscript their young men by the millions, given that the "great war" had ended barely 20 years earlier.

 

[Sickofleft]

there was considerable angst in America - but more so in Europe, which suffered most of the WW1 casualties, owing to hubris and reliance on 19th century battle tactics in the face of poison gas, aerial bombings, etc.

this led to the punitive clauses against Germany, which deepened their postwar economic woes, and gave hitler a natural opening.

when you think about it, it IS rather astonishing that in 1940 Britain and France would again conscript their young men by the millions, given that the "great war" had ended barely 20 years earlier.

It was harder for France, as many as the British loss in WWI it was not fought in Britain. France lost millions upon millions of men in WWI. When the Germans came again a mere 20yrs late they had absolutely nothing left.

As for as conscription goes, they avoided the war that was coming at their own peril for far to long. When Germany invaded Poland they were left with no choice.

WWII would have never taken place had the French booted the Germans from the Rhineland when they took it in 1937. More then likely Hitlers Government would have collapsed due to such a humiliation but........... They just could not even muster the energy and the rest is a very sad and brutal history.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

The part of the Truman doctrine which Mead DOESNT mention, but which is vital, consists of the following:

• defeat your opponents in battle; do not negotiate a truce which leaves a wounded enemy in power, nursing a grudge (he violated this in Korea, after observing it with Germany and Japan)
• take a strong role in nation building after your enemy surrenders. Install democratic institutions, and help rebuild infrastructure so that the civilian population can provide for themselves and operate under the rule of law, rather than the oppression of warlords/tyrants.

Contrast this with the current (LBJ to present) willingness to :

• withdraw without victory
• fail to effect regime change, or
• stand off from nation building and protection of hapless civilians
• covertly fund various factions, power brokers, and other shady characters to undermine successor governments while we publicly praise those same governments. Assassinations aren't out of the question here.

Foreign policy is actually quite simple, if you have clear principles and goals and stick to them. Unfortunately, from Korea to the president, America has had neither. Mead is the ultimate apologist for "real politik" - a soviet term which means anything that seems to opportunistically meet your short term needs.

You deride him as a neocon - a typical leftist brickbat (word of the day). If he was actually a neocon, he'd be writing op ed pieces along the following lines;

- American exceptionalism
- ending the invasion of America by refugees from latin America, the middle east, and oppressed regions of asia
- a stance against negotiating with Iran and NK to grant them more weapons with which to threaten the west.
- forceful denunciation of Crimea and Ukraine.
- standing against human rights abuses in the mddle east, Russia, china, etc.

I haven't attended any of professor mead's classes (and neither have you) but I feel comfortable in predicting that if either of us did, he'd wax eloquently on how the Iran treaty (opposed by a bipartisan congress) is a great deal.

It IS possible to be in favor of "fair trade" and against terrorism and human rights abuses, you know. Mead seems confused on such points.

I think the first Truman point is critical. I generally don't believe in cease-fires. I strongly suspect all they are good for is letting people about to lose regroup, recover and get ready for more war. If I were in command, when an enemy wanted to talk about a cease fire, that would be the time to turn up the heat and win a sound and crushing defeat.

 

[as seen on tv]

It was harder for France, as many as the British loss in WWI it was not fought in Britain. France lost millions upon millions of men in WWI. When the Germans came again a mere 20yrs late they had absolutely nothing left.

As for as conscription goes, they avoided the war that was coming at their own peril for far to long. When Germany invaded Poland they were left with no choice.

WWII would have never taken place had the French booted the Germans from the Rhineland when they took it in 1937. More then likely Hitlers Government would have collapsed due to such a humiliation but........... They just could not even muster the energy and the rest is a very sad and brutal history.

funny how refugees from that era didn't turn out to be sleeper cells with a mission to kill their benefactors

 

[as seen on tv]

I think the first Truman point is critical. I generally don't believe in cease-fires. I strongly suspect all they are good for is letting people about to lose regroup, recover and get ready for more war. If I were in command, when an enemy wanted to talk about a cease fire, that would be the time to turn up the heat and win a sound and crushing defeat.

cease fires are an exercise to see who can re-arm the quickest.

 

[4/15]

As trump is un educable there is nothing to do but let a Jack Ruby be close to him.

 

[EatTheRich]

I'm no fan of Mead. He's got solid academic credentials --an Ivy-Educated scholar who previously taught at Yale-- but he has, indeed, been living in a bubble, isolated from reality. Specifically, he's been living in a neocon bubble, having been involved with various hawkish think tanks like the Hudson Institute and the New America Foundation. He was even the Kissinger Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's one of the dunderheads who thought is was a good idea to invade Iraq -- he even pushed the non-existent tie between Iraq and 9/11, to get people into the necessary blood-thirsty mood to trigger that catastrophe.

Still, as little as I tend to agree with him, you could do worse than emulate Truman on the foreign policy front. He inherited a world in the depths of the worst war humanity has ever known, and look what he left. Not only had that war been won definitively on all fronts, but the groundwork had been laid for our greatest enemies in that war becoming some of our closest allies and most lucrative trading partners. The groundwork was also laid for seven decades that, in terms of a human's chance of getting killed in a war, have been the most peaceful in human history.

In terms of aggregate historical opinion of the man, by historians and the like, Truman is listed as our sixth greatest president -- and that's not due to his well-meaning but ultimately aborted Fair Deal domestic policy. It's because of his foreign policy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

Right-wingers love to bash the UN, but it's done its job. There hasn't been a shooting war between major nations for the better part of a century. When before in history could you say the same? All sorts of novel challenges have popped up in that time that could have led to military conflict -- competition over ever-scarcer natural resources, questions of how to handle space, the growing ability of small numbers of terrorists to inflict serious harm, refugee crises, issues involving nuclear proliferation, etc. Yet the conflicts involving major nations, in that time, have been fairly small-scale and have generally taken the form of indirect proxy wars. The UN has given us a decent forum for talking out most differences.

That's not to say the UN has been perfect. Countries manage to defy international law for decades at a time, sometimes without any real consequences (see, for example, Israel's illegal settlements and refusal of a right of return, for which the UN imposes no price). Thanks to the vetoes for the permanent security council members, the UN is essentially paralyzed any time any one of five nations wants it to be paralyzed. But it has still managed to deal effectively with any number of crises, famines, epidemics, etc,. that would have been much worse without it.

Trumanism was a raging success, and we have 70 years of concrete evidence of that. There has never been a better time to be alive in human history, in terms of the average person's freedom from privation, subjugation, and war. The process put in place by Truman was a major part of the reason.

Sort of a side note, here, but Bard is reporting 640 critical reading, 620 math, for the medians. 1260 is pretty competitive -- top 13%, relative to a nationally representative sample:

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/understanding-sat-scores-2016.pdf

What are "major nations"? Not India (2nd largest by population) and Pakistan, it seems.

 

[EatTheRich]

funny how refugees from that era didn't turn out to be sleeper cells with a mission to kill their benefactors

Despite unsupported rumors at the time that they were ... rumors that condemned millions to death in a catastrophe we are on the road to repeating.

 

[oicu812]

As trump is un educable there is nothing to do but let a Jack Ruby be close to him.

you are in dangerous waters my treasonous friend...

you think i wont forward this?
[along with others from YOU.]

you think nobody cares?

you need to think again...

actions have consequences..just as running your mouth on public forms do...
but as you have said, you welcome the attention...so be it..

 

[Arkady]

What are "major nations"? Not India (2nd largest by population) and Pakistan, it seems.

It's semantic, but I was thinking more in terms of power, not population. If you look at power, by way of total military spending or total GDP, then the major nations would be those in the top ten or twenty. India may qualify, but not Pakistan.

 

[georgephillip]

I wonder if the author even realizes that it was Harry Truman who ordered two nuclear bombs to be dropped on Japan- just to add to the hilarity of the whole premise.

It was Harry who did away with the OSS thereby creating the CIA and turning over effective control to the Dulles brothers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/books/review/the-brothers-by-stephen-kinzer.html

"The O.S.S. was dissolved in 1945 by President Truman, but was soon reborn as the C.I.A... Truman did not support plots against foreign leaders but his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, had no such scruples.

"By 1953, with Allen Dulles running the C.I.A. and his brother in charge of the State Department, the interventionists’ dreams could come to fruition.

" (Author Steven) Kinzer lists what he calls the 'six monsters' that the Dulles brothers believed had to be brought down: Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Sukarno in Indonesia, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba.

"Only two of these, Ho Chi Minh and Castro, were hard-core Communists.

"The rest were nationalist leaders seeking independence for their countries and a measure of control over their natural resources."

Truman replaced Henry Wallace as FDR's VP candidate in 1944 in spite of the fact Harry did not actively seek the nomination; Wallace was as far left as it got in US politics, and the world would be a much different place today had Harry never entered the White House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_vice_presidential_candidate_selection,_1944