02-25-2014, 11:16 PM
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not antifa
Industry Role:
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: invisible GNC
Posts: 67,528
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude
ADG |
Cool meme, but taken out of context. Let's look at the real Eisenhower:
Quote:
Everyone knows that, in his Farewell Address, Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex (MIC). But few recall the words that immediately followed:
"We recognize the imperative need for this development [of the MIC]. ... Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action," because the danger of the communist foe, "a community of dreadful fear and hate[,] ... promises to be of indefinite duration."
years of research and writing three books on Ike, I think it's time to see the real Eisenhower stand up. The president who planned to fight and win a nuclear war, saying "he would rather be atomized than communized," reminds us how dangerous the cold war era really was, how much our leaders will put us all at risk in the name of "national security," and how easily they can mask their intentions behind benign images.From first to last, Eisenhower was a confirmed cold warrior. Years before he became president, while he was publicly promoting cooperation with the Soviet Union, he wrote in his diary: "Russia is definitely out to communize the world....Now we face a battle to extinction."
Eisenhower signed NSC 5810/1, which made it official U.S. policy to treat nuclear weapons "as conventional weapons; and to use them whenever required to achieve national objectives." "The only sensible thing for us to do was to put all our resources into our hydrogen bombs," he told the NSC. He found it "frustrating not to have plans to use nuclear weapons generally accepted." He and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, were "in complete agreement that somehow or other the taboos which surround the use of atomic weapons would have to be destroyed."
(Historians long ago debunked the popular image of Dulles as the hard-line cold warrior who was really in charge and undermined a peace-seeking president. Dulles acknowledged that Eisenhower called the shots. The president himself wrote the famous words in a Dulles speech pledging the U.S. to "massive retaliation.")
For Eisenhower, the point of amassing a huge nuclear arsenal was not to deter war but to win it. This was enshrined as official policy in NSC 5810/1: "The United States must make clear its determination to prevail if general war occurs." The only meaningful war aim, he told the NSC, was "to achieve a victory." He described his war plan as "Hit the guy fast with all you've got if he jumps on you"; "hit 'em ... with everything in the bucket."
By 1957, the president announced publicly that he would use nuclear forces in some "future small war." NSC 5810/1 made it official policy to use nuclear weapons to "deter limited aggression" as well as a full-scale Soviet attack. At various times, Eisenhower considered plans for using nuclear weapons in Korea, Vietnam, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere.
The crux of Eisenhower's strategy for victory was to strike first. "Shoot your enemy before he shoots you," he insisted. That became official, albeit implicit, policy in NSC 5904/1, "U.S. Policy in the Event of War," which assumed the possibility of a preemptive response to an impending Soviet attack. In a "real" emergency, the president expected to launch an "all-out" nuclear war without consulting Congress.
In 1959, when he was well aware that a nuclear war would kill 100 million or more Americans, he still approved NSC 5904/1
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