We’re Not Leaving… (U.S. News & World Report)…Michael Barone, July 10, 2008.
On June 23, the Soviets cut off land access to West Berli. .
… Secretary of State George Marshall and Joint Chiefs Chairman Omar Bradley, two of America’s most respected generals, felt Berlin was indefensible and we should withdraw. One man disagreed. President Harry Truman, in one crucial meeting after another, said, We‘re not leaving Berlin.
Just as Truman’s Pentagon opposed the airlift, so George W. Bush’s Pentagon mostly opposed the surge strategy in Iraq.
But Bush, echoing Truman, said, at least in effect, We‘re not leaving Iraq. He embraced the proposals for the surge, which had been worked up by retired Gen. Jack Keane and American Enterprise Institute scholar Frederick Kagan. He found a commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who had rewritten the Army’s manual on counterinsurgency and who had the character and skill to put the surge into effect.
…The lessons are clear. Stand fast. Put the right men in charge. And never doubt the capacity of the men and women of the American military, when given the right orders, to perform far better than the experts predict.
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