Bryce Zabel's INSTANT HISTORY

Occupational Hazards

We've just passed the 60th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima that ended World War II.  While that is a momentously important event, it has received massive amounts of coverage in the media.  Let's take a moment to reflect on what followed the defeat of Japan in August 1945 -- namely, a long-term occupation by the U.S. Army, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur.

Of course, there are major differences between Iraq and Japan, not the least of which is the current desire to "stand up" Iraqi security forces as soon as possible while in Japan, at the time, the thinking was to keep them from having a military as long as possible.  After all, the Japanese had initiated the Pacific conflict in World War II by their attack on Pearl Harbor four years earlier.

Hirohito's Front Yard: How Long Will They Stay?
October 1, 1945

Still, some things are givens in an occupation.  As Newsweek asked on its cover -- the same question Americans are currently asking about our Army in Iraq -- "How long will they stay?"

If you think all the discord over our Iraq policy is unseemly, well, you may be right, but it is hardly unprecedented.  Following our victory in World War II against two villainous regimes -- the German Nazis and Tojo's Japanese -- you would think we'd be on top of the world and presenting a united front.  Think again.  Less than two months after the bombs dropped, Newsweek's inside article is called "American Diplomacy Loses Face Over Occupation Force Bickering" and the sub-title to the section is "Sharp Retort by Acheson to MacArthur's 200,000 Estimate Exposes Disunity to World."  Yes, we are talking about troop levels, a subject that has bedeviled Iraq policy from the beginning.  And it was the first Truman/MacArthur dust-up that would eventually lead to Harry firing Douglas years later.

The high-level planners of supervised revolution for Japan collided openly and angrily last week with the personality of America's most individualistic general -- Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander on the spot... President Truman kept his own feelings within bounds.  He was glad, he told a press conference, if MacArthur, having estimated his needs at 500,000 four weeks ago, and then having trimmed them down to 400,000, now thought that he could do with half that number.  But the next day callers found on his desk a pasted-up cartoon by sardonic GI cartoonist Bill Mauldin.  It showed ex-GI Willie looking at the headline: "How MacArthur Beat Japan," and cracking: "Eisenhower was a piker.  He needed an army to help him."

There's also some tantalizing stuff here about "going it alone" -- another issue that has cast a long shadow over the Iraq occupation.

The American decision to turn Japan upside down, alone if need be, was unmistakable.  The leading Allies were "welcomed and expected" to share the occupation job.  Advisory bodies would be set up to try to harmonize polices but "in the event of any differences of opinion...the polices of the United States will govern."

There was, however, no insurgency to arise in Japan.  The people there knew that their government had picked the fight and they had lost.  They simply wanted to get on with their lives.  This is, practically speaking, what the majority of the Iraqis want now, too.  But -- unlike the Japanese -- they have militants within their own borders, some from Iraq and others from surrounding countries, who would rather kill Iraqis than see this current occupation succeed.  This latest occupation in the Middle East has lessons to be learned from the one in the Far East -- but it's still very different.

London Calling

Our hearts are with Londoners these days, but they've been through even tougher times.  I've chosen this issue of Time featuring Winston Churchill as the 1940 "Man of the Year" to remind us of how tough, feisty and downright courageous the British have been.  Recall that as this magazine was going to the presses, America was not yet in the war, Hitler had pummeled London with a sustained aerial attack in the "Battle of Britain" and as Churchill took office countries fell like bowling pins: Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, France.

Man of the Year
January 6, 1941

Time chose to begin its coverage of Churchill with the first speech he delivered to the British House of Commons on May 13, 1940 as Prime Minister.  You know the one -- where he declared: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."  He said more, much more.  Listen to it again, and think of it in the context of the global War on Terror.

"You ask, what is our policy?  I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air -- war with all our might and with all the strength God has given us -- and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.  That is our policy.  You ask, what is our aim?  I can answer in one word.  It is victory.  Victory at all costs.  Victory in spite of all terrors.  Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."

Maybe Tony Blair is not Winston Churchill, but he has the same spirit.  Battered by his association with war in Iraq, and a bruising election campaign, Blair showed us again why we like him.  He has integrity, guts and, like Churchill, he has resolve about the things that really matter.  Here's how the article put it after describing the litany of disaster and defeat Britan had endured under Nazi assault in 1940:

But Churchill was not without accomplishment.  He gave his countrymen exactly what he promised them -- blood, toil, tears, sweat -- and one thing more: untold courage.  It was the last that counted, not only in Britain but in democracies across the world.

We stand with London today, as our parents and grandparents did with London in the dark days of World War II.