American mythology (Ref: Fred Thompson) [Barf Alert]

'You know," drawled Fred Thompson at a recent rally in Des Moines, Iowa, "you look back over our history and it doesn't take you long to realize that our people have shed more blood for other people's liberty than any other combination of nations in the history of the world."

This is an interesting statement, and not only because Fred Thompson has a good shot at being the Republican nominee for president in 2008, and an outside chance of winning. It's also interesting because of who Thompson is.

Fred Thompson is a Washington lobbyist. That's not what his campaign highlights, but it's what he has been for most of his working life. He is also an actor typecast as the growling, no-nonsense authority figure. And Thompson was, briefly, a U.S. senator who was mainly known for his affable manner and relaxed work ethic. And for being tall. Fred Thompson is very tall.

Thus, Thompson has little experience in management and less in elective office. He has no original ideas that anyone has been able to discern. He has embraced no particular cause. He doesn't even seem terribly interested in being president; it is widely believed his smart and ambitious wife cajoled him into running.

But despite all this, rank-and-file Republicans love the man for one, simple reason: Fred Thompson says only what they believe and he says it the way they want to hear it. And that is what makes Thompson's statement particularly interesting.

Thompson and his speechwriters know that a large swath of the American public believes the United States, alone in the world, fights wars to liberate oppressed people far away. America may occasionally make mistakes -- only very rarely, of course -- but it is always pure of heart.

This belief is dogma. It is a given. And any attempt to critically examine it will be answered with a few factoids and a barrage of condemnations. In that sense, it is the mirror image of the belief held by Noam Chomsky and his followers that the United States is a uniquely wicked power whose actions have brought nothing but woe and misery to the world. What distinguishes the two dogmas is the number of faithful sitting in the pews: Chomsky's cult is vastly outnumbered.

Happily, lots of Americans have not taken leave of reason and so a fact-checker at the Washington Post put the statement that opens this column under a microscope. In eight foreign wars since the late 19th century, the Post found, 623,288 Americans lost their lives. But Soviet losses in the Second World War alone were an order of magnitude greater than that and it was the Soviet Union's victories in the east that broke Nazi Germany's back and led to the liberation of Europe.

Of course the Soviets replaced Nazi chains with their own so it's a little disturbing to think of them as liberators. It's also true the Soviets only got into the war after being attacked, so it's a stretch to see the liberation of Europe as a factor in the country's decision to go to war.

But the same can be said about the American record. Remember that the U.S. sat out the first three years of the First World War and only got involved after German submarines attacked American ships and Germany was exposed urging Mexico to declare war on the U.S. That's quite a contrast with the British Empire, which decided to go to war after Germany invaded France and neutral Belgium. Thus, unlike the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and other countries can plausibly claim to have entered the war for the purpose of liberating foreigners.

And in the course of that war, the British Empire lost one million soldiers -- far more than the U.S. lost in all wars combined. Among the Empire's casualties were 65,000 Canadians -- a per capita loss far greater than the U.S. suffered in any of its foreign wars.

The U.S. did not declare war on Japan when it invaded China. Nor did it declare war on Germany when the Nazis invaded Poland, or overran Western Europe, or raced across the Soviet Union. Only in December, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, did the U.S. declare war, and even then only against Japan. The U.S. may never have gotten involved in Europe if Hitler hadn't foolishly declared war on the Americans.

Not so Britain, France, Canada and others. They all declared war in response to Germany's invasion of Poland, and so they can all argue they went to war to liberate people far away.

Now, I don't want to answer dogma with dogma. Strategic and national interests played major roles in the decisions of all combatants in the First and Second World Wars. They do in every war. It's a messy world and the motives of nations are seldom simple and pure.

The sort of Americans who cheer for Fred Thompson would agree with that statement -- as it applies to other countries. What they cannot seem to accept is that it applies to their country, too. For them, Americans are unique. The United States is unique. And what sets America and Americans apart is purity of heart.

"We are proud of that heritage," Thompson said in Iowa after citing the mythology of America-the-liberator. "I don't think we have anything to apologize for."

Nothing to apologize for. Never did anything wrong in 231 years of history. Nothing.

This is infantile. And dangerous. A superpower that believes it is pure of heart and the light of the world will inevitably rush in where angels fear to tread. And then it will find itself wondering why the foreigners it so selflessly helps hate it so.

Dan Gardner's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. E-mail: dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com

The writer is a liar. Fred said neither of these things and most conservatives believe neither of these things. Fred said, and most conservatives believe, that America has done more for others' liberty and that America is usually relatively goodhearted.

it is widely believed his smart and ambitious wife cajoled him into running.

Oh really? Widely believed by WHOM exactly? Sounds like someone is trying to start another negative rumor about Fred, in order for it to be lazily picked up by others.

But what about the claim that more British died in the 2nd world war than Americans in all of our wars?

Those British didn't all die fighting for the freedom of folks other than themselves. Some died fighting the enemy that had attacked their homeland, and was threatening to invade it. Or they died in defense of the other members of the British Commonwealth. Thus, they were fighting for their own liberation. Other Britons died in the relentless bombing by the Nazis. It doesn't make their sacrifice unworthy, or ignoble in any way.

America was not in imminent danger of being invaded, as was England or other countries in Europe. We didn't have to go from island to island fighting the Japanese in order to make them leave our homeland. We did that to liberate the folks who had been conquered and enslaved by the Japanese. We crossed the Atlantic and did the same for all those countries that had been conquered by Hitler, and whose people were systematically being slaughtered by his troops. We didn't HAVE to do either of those things, but we did, and our soldiers died for others, rather than for themselves or their fellow Americans.

Fred wasn't trying to be triumphalist, just stating the fact that our military is not one of conquest for imperialist reasons, but of liberation.

Don't confuse overall deaths with what Fred is saying. He's speaking specifically about soldiers who are there for no other reason than liberation of people who are not their countrymen.

The Soviets were defending their homeland, as were the Brits and the French. Yes, they went into Europe, sometimes outside their borders, but only because that's where the enemy happened to be. They were trying to vanquish Germany so it would no longer threaten them directly.

America wasn't sending her soldiers across the Atlantic ocean to fight to protect our homeland directly, because we weren't in danger of being invaded by Germany. We just went, as Allies, to help Britain, France, and the Soviets, push Germany back to defeat, and free those who had been, or were under threat of being, subjugated by the Third Reich.

I shouldn’t argue this point any more, but it would be wrong to say that our entrance into WW2 wasn’t at least in part because we decided finally that the war COULD hurt us directly. Until Pearl Harbor, we were staying out of the conflict because it didn’t effect us.

I say I shouldn’t argue because I agree with the general point made by Thompson — we as much as any other country do our part to make the world a safer place.

But we do so at least in part for selfish reasons. We don’t get involved in wars where we see no self-interest.

We don’t get involved in wars where we see no self-interest.

Of course not, but we get into them for additional reasons as well, usually for the liberation of a particular people, or to stop the movement of forces that would deny freedom to people, not just our own.

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