The Korean War

This seems to be much too weighty a topic to tackle for a first blog entry. I've been doing some reading on the Korean War for a paper in school. There sure seem to be some eerie similarities between the attitude of the populace then and now, now being the extreme disapproval of Bush and his antics in trying to figure out this Mid-East situation. After the dismisal of General MacArthur, both the Republican controlled Congress and the populace were livid. It seemed that the Truman Administration was appeasing the Communists by removing his commander that was willing to take the war to the Chinese. Republicans thought abouttrying to impeach Truman and Sec. of State Acheson. People deplored Truman's idea of a limited war without certain victory. Acheson wrote that people were expecting a complete and total victory and that would bring about peace, but that this view was unrealistic based on the situation of the world and that this war would be long. Turns out he was right. Truman paid the political price, so did the Democrats, but the United States never did attack mainland China like MacArthur wanted to.
The situation isn't the same, but the call to disengage our troops from this war seems somewhat similar. Total victory was achieved over Iraqi forces. Once again, everyone expects that there should be a clear victory. I seem to recall that in Bush's big time speech post-9/11 that he said that the war on terrorism would not be a short fight. I guess most people have lost their stomach for it already. I am not expressing approval or disapproval over the situation in Iraq. I really don't know. Some things seem so bungled. Of course, being involved in history, it's hard to tell if this is going to be historically disasterous or significant. Of course, I'm sure the Republicans in 1951 would never have expected people 55 years later to say that Truman made the right decision in Korea. It will be interesting to see the effects of US meddling in the Mid-East after 50 years.
In other news, I think that Blues are Still Blue by B+S has made my top 10 songs of '06 list. So has Another Sunny Day. I really have been liking Irving's Gentle Preservation of Children's Minds. I haven't heard much new stuff in '06. I mean, I might discover the top song of '06 in '08, much like I discovered (possibly, as I believe the Scientist by Coldplay was released in '02 as well) the top song of '02 (American English by Idlewild) in 'o4 and the top song of '03 (Run by Snow Patrol) in '04. You know you've got a contender when you actually listen to a song 15 times in a row ( this would mean that Travis' Happy would count as a top song in 1997...and well it should but then that would also mean that Staring at the Sun by U2 would as well and I haven't listened to that song since...well before the great mission divide in my life. In fact, the only song off of Pop that I've listened to post-2001 was Mofo and only because it sounded like the Edge was singing Little Red Men and my roommates thought it was funny. This led to an unfortunate encounter of my roommate reading a children's book about little blue men to me, my roommate and a girl which was excruciating. I was too nice to tell him to stop)

Okay. Post one is done. I'm glad I'm done with that