To Make War, Presidents Lie

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie. Surveying our history, we see a clear pattern. Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war. The enormous losses of life, property, and liberty that Americans have sustained in wars have occurred in large part because of the public's unwarranted trust in what their leaders told them before leading them into war.

In 1898, President William McKinley, having been goaded by muscle-flexing advisers and jingoistic journalists to make war on Spain, sought divine guidance as to how he should deal with the Spanish possessions, especially the Philippines, that US forces had seized in what ambassador John Hay famously described as a "splendid little war."

Evidently, his prayer was answered, because the president later reported that he had heard "the voice of God," and "there was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them."

In truth, McKinley's motivations had little if anything to do with uplifting the people whom William H. Taft, the first Governor-General of the Philippines, called "our little brown brothers," but much to do with the political and commercial ambitions of influential expansionists such as Captain Alfred T. Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and their ilk. In short, the official apology for the brutal and unnecessary Philippine-American War was a mendacious gloss.

The Catholic Filipinos evidently did not yearn to be "Christianized" in the American style, at the point of a Springfield rifle, and they resisted the US imperialists as they had previously resisted the Spanish imperialists. The Philippine-American War, which officially ended on July 4, 1902, but actually dragged on for many years in some islands, cost the lives of more than 4,000 US troops, more than 20,000 Filipino fighters, and more than 220,000 Filipino civilians, many of whom perished in concentration camps eerily similar to the relocation camps into which US forces herded Vietnamese peasants some sixty years later.

When World War I began in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson's sympathies clearly lay with the British. Nevertheless, he quickly proclaimed US neutrality and urged his fellow Americans to be impartial in both thought and deed. Wilson himself, however, leaned more and more toward the Allied side as the war proceeded. Still, he recognized that the great majority of Americans wanted no part of the fighting in Europe, and in 1916 he sought reelection successfully on the appealing slogan, "He Kept Us Out of War."

Soon after his second inauguration, however, he asked Congress for a declaration of war, which was approved, although six senators and fifty members of the House of Representatives had the wit or wisdom to vote against it. Wilson promised this war would be "the war to end all wars," but wars aplenty have taken place since the guns fell silent in 1918, leaving their unprecedented carnage -- nearly nine million dead and more than twenty million wounded, many of them hideously disfigured or crippled for life, as well as perhaps ten million civilians who died of starvation or disease as a result of the war's destruction of resources and its interruption of commerce.

And what did the United States or the world gain? Only a twenty-year reprieve before the war's smoldering embers burst into flame again.

After World War I, Americans felt betrayed, and they resolved never to make the same mistake again. Yet, just two decades later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began the maneuvers by which he hoped to plunge the nation once again into the European cauldron. Unsuccessful in his naval provocations of the Germans in the Atlantic, he eventually pushed the Japanese to the wall by a series of hostile economic-warfare measures, issued clearly unacceptable ultimatums, and induced them to mount a desperate military attack, most devastatingly on the US forces he concentrated at Pearl Harbor.

Campaigning for reelection in Boston on October 30, 1940, FDR had sworn: "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." Well, Peleliu ain't Peoria. Roosevelt was lying when he made his declaration, just as he had lied repeatedly before and would lie repeatedly for the remainder of his life. (Stanford historian David M. Kennedy, careful not to speak too stridently, refers to FDR's "frequently cagey misrepresentations to the American public.")

Yet many, many Americans trusted this inveterate liar, sad to say, with their lives, and during the war more than 400,000 of them paid the ultimate price.

Among FDR's many political acolytes was a young congressman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who eventually and, for the world, unfortunately, clawed his way to the presidency. As chief executive, he had to deal with vital questions of war and peace, and like his beloved mentor, he relied heavily on lying to the public. In October 1964, seeking to gain election by portraying himself as the peace candidate (in contrast to the alleged mad bomber Barry Goldwater), LBJ told a crowd at Akron University: "We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

In 1965, however, shortly after the start of his elected term in office, Johnson exploited the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, itself based on a fictitious account of an attack on US naval forces off Vietnam, and initiated a huge buildup of US forces in Southeast Asia that would eventually commit more than 500,000 American "boys" to fight an "Asian boy's" war.

Some 58,000 US military personnel would lose their lives in the service of LBJ's vanity and political ambitions, not to speak of the millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians killed and wounded in the melee. Chalk up another catastrophe to a lying American president.

Now President George W. Bush is telling the American people that we stand in mortal peril of imminent attack by Iraqis or their agents armed with weapons of mass destruction. Having presented no credible evidence or compelling argument for his characterization of the alleged threat, he simply invites us to trust him, and therefore to support him as he undertakes what once would have been called naked aggression.

Well, David Hume long ago argued that just because every swan we've seen was white, we cannot be certain that no black swan exists. So Bush may be telling the truth. In the light of history, however, we would be making a long-odds bet to believe him.

I understand. However, when faced with a machine such as that of the combined German/Japanese empires, one must face the facts: War becomes inevitable.

You might not like it, but that doesnt change it. One must realize "...the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and of tyrants." (Thomas Jefferson)

Likewise with Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. You cannot hide from these people. 9/11 proved this. Unfortunately, however, many knew this long beforehand. And did nothing.

I don't really disagree with you, but my only point is that the great Franklin Roosevelt cannot in any way be compared to Ronald Reagan. In his first term RR

whipped inflation
got the country going again, and
ended the energy crisis.

In his second term Ronald Reagan

transcended communism.

The "great" FDR who won WWII is really the weak president who spent his first two terms letting the economy stagnate and letting WWII develop in Europe. And whose actual motive for getting us into WWII lead directly to the human tragedy (lest we forget, still ongoing vs China) known as the Cold War. And to policies not even approximately designed to minimize our WWII casualties.

Without the 22nd Amendment, after all, Clinton would probably have been renominated and reelected--and whatever hash he made (continued to make) of a response to terrorism would eventually have become in history some kind of "great legacy."

Good morning. I apologize for my absence. I think we have established that Wilson was less than truthful, Churchill allowed civilians to be murdered to get the US into the war fully. Now the issue, at least to me, is the blockade and unrestricted sub warfare and why.

October 7, 1916, the German U-Boat U53 just popped up out of nowhere in Newport Harbor and dropped anchor off of Goat Island. The skipper of the U53, Hans Rose, paid an official visit to Rear Admiral Austin M. Knight who was the commander of the Newport Naval District. While the submarine was anchored "the crew came ashore and were treated to beer by the American Sailors, while crowds of curious were admitted aboard the submersible and shown about with the most open courtesy." Captain Rose said he had come to deliver a letter to the German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff. The Germans stayed until sunset and left.

The Navy Department figured it was over and the U53 was on her way back when a message came in from Captain Smith of the liner Kansan. He wanted to know why he had been stopped and boarded by a German sub in the vicinity of the Nantucket light-ship at 5:30 that morning. He added that after he convinced the German Captain of the nationality of the ship he was allowed to go. This changed between the hours of noon and midnight when ships were being sunk off of the Nantucket coast. One of these being a steam liner from Halifax named Stephano. She had Americans on board when she was sent to the bottom.

One German diplomat at the embassy in Washington said "It should be easy to destroy more of the overseas commerce of the Allies, which is principally with America, near where it originates."

Not only were the Germans sinking Merchant Men and passenger liners, they also sank several schooners in June of 1918.

Source: Our Navy In The War, Lawrence Perry, 1918

Hope this at least helps but if not, a decent look into history.

I am not defending the actions taken by the German Navy in a moral sense, but a strategic sense. Kaiser Bill and Ludendorf believed they were morally, and legally, justified to attack American shipping because the United States was viewed as violating the terms of their neutrality.

Your naval anecdote reminds me of the soccer game the Germans and the British played in no-mans land, Ypres, Belgium, Dec 24, 1914 (The Germans preportedly won 2-1.) It certainly was an age of warrior-poets.

Oh come on, thats absurd. The "terms of neutrality" certainly do NOT dictate who we may and may not trade with. The terms of sovreignty certainly DO dictate just that. The choice is ours, not ze Germans.

By your logic, the solution to the Chinese trade deficit is justifiable war. Think you'd have Ayn Rand on your side regarding that argument?

WAR IS ONLY AN OPTION WHEN IN RESPONSE TO AN ACT OF FORCE.

Spoken like a liberal.

The "terms of neutrality" certainly do NOT dictate who we may and may not trade with. The terms of sovreignty certainly DO dictate just that. The choice is ours, not ze Germans.

I suggest remaining silent and thought a fool rather than posting and removing all doubt...Contraband(munitions for making war), were being sent to the British which violated international laws of neutrality, and by the 1856 Declaration of Paris, made vessels shipping contraband subject to search and seizure and capture. Shipping munitions on passenger vessels put the Germans in a tough spot.

The blockcade of Germany was 'illegal' under The Declaration of London, because it blocked food stuffs from neutrals, however, all the signatories of the DoL had not signed so it was not law per say.

What about a foreign policy that would have answered the calls, rather than being insulted by the Allies, from the German General Staff asking if the Allies would be supported in a coup against Hitler as early as 1936?

The only moral to World War Two was that hundreds of Stalinst sympathizers in FDR's administration angled the country into a war to make the world safe for Communism and Frankie the Crips Welfare/Warfare state.

The author and other leftists have no coping mechanism for the current situation.

Having never encountered anyone who wants to commit genocide for the fun of it, they can't conceive that such people exist.

Following 9-11, their response was to try to find out what Al-Qaeda wants. What Islamists and their state sponsors want is for everyone not in their clique to die a violent death as quickly and painfully as possible, starting with all Americans. That's the totality of their political program and war aims.

The early nuclear powers were circumspect about sharing nuclear weapons. Starting with Pakistan, the attitude regarding proliferation is "mi casa, su casa."

If we were hit, the state or group responsible wouldn't announce themselves. Bush would announce the culprit, and the putz who wrote the article would call him a lier.

The same people who are blaming Bush now would accuse him of the detonation.

Regardless of the level of violence directed against us, the left's response would be to identify with the killers, and scapegoat anyone who proposed to resist the killers.

Only the author is not a leftist but a radical individualist, and thus most 'Conservatives' are left defensless, having been taught only in the skill of debating lice-ridden anti-American leftists. While 'Conservatives' start marching to the beat of the war drum Wolfowitz, Kristol et al have been banging since 1992 on the way to Baghdad, patriots are wondering why the first step wasn't to seal the borders and rescind the FAA regulation that prevents citizens from carrying firearms onto airplanes.

The welfare/warfare state rolls on...

The blockade of Germany was British, not American. It has nothing to do with your original argument (that our trade policies legitimized German unrestricted warfare on American vessels). Contraband is not defined as "munitions for making war," as you suggest. Rather, contraband is defined as "Goods or merchandise the importation or exportation of which is forbidden."

The United States had no prohibitions regarding the shipment of munitions to the allies, only regarding the shipment of munitions to the Germans. Therefore, the shipments in question were not contraband.

Moreover, there is no proof whatsoever that the Lucitania (the passenger ship to which I beleive you are indirectly reffering) was carrying munitions. This according to a History Channel special on the subject. So dont tout as fact what stands as rumor.

And dont be such an arrogant prick. Contrary to your "burst of insight," I am a staunch conservative, not a liberal. And whether or not someone who considers sinking a passenger ship on the grounds that it MAY be carrying munitions legitimate, but the sale of arms to one nation and not another illegitimate, considers me a fool is pretty god dman irrelevant in my mind.

Said person has missed out on a healthy dose of reality.

Superb proposition. Seal the boarders. Your proposition is moronic..... $10 says your an immigrant. This country was built on the backbone of immigrant labor. Open borders has been our policy for centuries. Voluntary citizens have, statistically, proven themselves more productive and law-abiding than their natural-born counterparts.

And as for allowing any idiot to carry a gun on a plane.... Im all for personal gun rights, but dont be ridiculous. Do you have any idea what happens if you fire off a weapon on board a pressurized aircraft?

You pierce the cabin. Ever shotgun a beer?

I heard it described somewhere as the "Battered Wife" syndrome. Liberals and other appeaser, like battered wives, get attacked and immediately blame themselves for the attack. "What did I do to deserve this attack, and how can I prevent it from happening again?" And though the policy results in little more than more beatings of increasing severity, the policy continues until someone else does something, or the wide ends up dead.

Lets look at the eight years of liberal control of government under Clinton. Numerous terrorist attacks, in ever increasing severity and audacity, culminating with 9/11. The Clinton response? Classic appeasement policies. And now someone finally is doing something about it, but liberals whine away regardless.

The metaphore is almost perfect.

Years ago, I managed a political campaign. There was a female white lawyer who mated with an illiterate black career criminal. What followed was a soap opera. He beat her like a drum repeatedly. Multiple contusions, fractures, the works. She was the dental surgery society's best customer. Her friends would try to convince her to terminate the relationship. The more they tried, the closer her bond with him. He had less value than a cockroach, but in her eyes he was Albert Schweitzer. Finally, the relationship ended. Perhaps he had run out of bones to break. Shortly thereafter, I learned she had taken up with another illiterate black career criminal, if anything meaner than the first. Not long after, he murdered her.

Among the loony left, there's an intense lack of self-worth or connection with the community. In adversity they are a natural fifth column.

I'm fascinated by France under the occupation. It's remarkable how many loony leftists collaborated with the Nazis. When we liberated France, they rejoined the communist party without missing a beat.

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