Which US Wars Were Justified?

[David Floyd]

Oh, and Hoek...would you not agree, though, that the Constitution seems to support secession?

And Dissident, I considered the WoD, but I decided seeing even one vote in favor of it would piss me off

Ok, so actually I just forgot about it

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Hoek
Chris: You completely ignore the fact that in Nicaragua, the Sandanistas were supported by the population.

I never intended to bring this up, nor did I link it to Grenada, Clem did that.
I still hear that claim today, yet the opposition forces where all nicaraguans.

Reagan clearly did not understand the lessons of Vietnam. The Sandinistas posed no threat to U.S. interests, and Reagan supporting them by selling weapons to the Iranians is nothing less than treason, for which Reagan should have been impeached and imprisoned.

This is muddy water, to say the least, to this day, no clear link to Reagan has EVER been established, Teflon President, remember?

You can not tell me that the terrorists (which they were) in el Salvador and Nicaragua stabilized the region by killing thousands of civilians. This is not "leftist clap trap," it's the truth.

I never brought this up, I was speaking about Grenada, not here, and I never said I supported right wing death squads.
My answer was in responce to the idiotic baiting by Clem, who just shot out a little quip.

Here's a question: what is the criteria being used for justification. For instance, should morality ever play a role in military action.

This is another grey area, what morality?
What was perfectly acceptable 100 years ago may not be now, but may again be 100 years from now. It is dangerous to apply current morality to historical situations.

Call it liberal clap trap again, but I think it should. I think that the fact that the Nazis and the Japanese were evil is enough of a reason to stop them. Both were scars of the human race. The same applies to a number of cold-war actions that we took. Kennan's doctrine of containment was clearly distorted to justify such wide-reaching actions such as Angola, Vietnam, and Nicaragua. Our inability to say, distinguish between Chinese communism and Soviet communism gave us decades of poor foreign policy in Asia.

I don't disagree with this, if you look where I placed vietnam.

The numbers for the Phillipine Insurrection are not made up, there were in fact in the hundreds of thousands that we killed.

Sorry, this simply isn't the case, careful study of this campagin bares this out through at least a dozen sources, Aguinaldo's rebels at their height NEVER exceded 40,000 men.
This is confirmed in nemerous sources. His loss rate never exceeded the 3,000 killed near Manilla in the opening phase of this war. It is also a myth that this war was popular with all Phillipenoes, this was FAR from the truth.
"Hundreds of thousands" just doesn't stand up to the light of historical truth, I'm sorry, but that is the way it is.

Chris, imperialism is not justified in any sense. It is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. We obtained Hawaii to protect Panama, we obtained the Phillipines to protect Hawaii. To say that they "love" the U.S. now says nothing of our grisly history of death there.

Don't remember ever saying it did, but in fact, considering the fracturing in the modern world, it may have been far better than the current situation.

Originally posted by uh Clem

No doubt. I'm sure you can remember vividly and in detail every slight since the first grade. Not my problem.

Whether the Caribbean and Central America are "nowhere near" each other, I leave to geographers. Certainly the US government has always thought they were close, however, as Castro has been regularly invoked by Washington whenever anybody in the hemisphere has stepped out of line for the past 40 years.

Either way, if someone invades another country, the burden of proof is on him. It's not up to anyone else to demonstrate that it wasn't justified. A warehouse or two (or a hundred) of small arms that may or may not have been fom where the gumment said they were and may or may not have been intended for what the gummint said they were intended for...doesn't cut it. Sorry.

Anyway, that pales when compared to the many millions in military & intelligence aid that the US dishes out to its favorites.

Oh, I'm so insulted again.
Just as I suspected, you DIDN'T have an argument, just the normal leftest whine "US dishes out to its favorites".
This is an opinion discusion, if you don't have one, why post?
There are plenty of "US sucks" threads to place that speal in.
I love the part about "leave it to geographers" and the Castro comment is classic, right out of the "Daily Worker".
Bad news, Sunshine, I'm not a rightest, and never have been, I'm a centralist, and have ZERO axe to grind in history.
Wish we could say that about you.

[DaleC76]

The only reason one society will tolerate the horror of war with another is economics. Wars fought for political reasons alone are rarely supported by the public, and wars driven by hatred usually have underlying economic factors. Is this 'right'? Is money a 'justifiable' cause for war? It does not matter. It is a fact of life.

Hitler achieved what Europe had tried to prevent for three centuries - a Great Germany, a single German nation. This one fact marked him as a target for the rest of Europe.

Napoleon achieved what Europe dreaded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: French control of the Rhine. Even if he and Hitler had not begun their doomed wars of conquest, they would have always found themselves isolated politically because they upset the economic balance of power.

Even the main causes of the American Revolution and Civil War were economic. American colonists were not 'oppressed' by any srtetch of the imagination. And to say that the Southern States seceded for any reason other than because their wallet was threatened is silly.

No one wants to think money is a justifyable reason to go to war, but society has proven again and again that it believes it is. The Persian Gulf War was supported; the Vietnam War was not. The only difference was that the Gulf War had an economic impact on the public, while politics was the drive behind the war in Vietnam.
In fact, from a moral point of view, Vietnam was as justifiable as any war. There were atrocities committed there that would make any Nazi proud, but the public viewed it as none of our business. If East Germany had invaded West Germany at the same time, the public would have been enraged and we would have fought to the last man. Because of economics.

[David Floyd]

But my whole point is that economics, money, and especially morals don't justify wars.

[DaleC76]

I agree. There is no justification for war. But it's easy to say that as an individual.

[DaleC76]

Wars don't just happen. They have definate causes. Calling these causes 'justifiable' or 'unjustifiable' is futile. War is not a football game. Words like 'law' and 'rules of warfare' are meaningless when it comes to the systematic and calculated slaughter of human beings. War is the total and fundamental breakdown of law. Only by understanding the causes, justifiable or not, can we prevent the effects.

[David Floyd]

But what does that have to do with anything? These wars WOULD NOT have happened if Libertarians ran the show.

[DaleC76]

No matter who 'runs the show,' as long as one group of people sees itself as different from another, there will always be war.

[David Floyd]

Incorrect. With Libertarians in charge, the US would never have launched the Mexican War, American Indians Wars, War of 1812, US Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War 1, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, or any other peacekeeping exercise be it in Bosnia, Kosovo, wherever. Nor would Panama, Grenada, etc been undertaken.

The Revolution would have been, as would the Barbary Pirates War and probably the French Naval War, and probably the current war against Afghanistan (provided Congress declared war). Entry in World War 2 would never have happened because a Libertarian US would never have provoked Germany or Japan, and traded with both nations as fair and equal trading partners, and would have told Great Britain and Russia where to get off on military assistance.

So your assertion that with Libertarians in charge, war would still happen is incorrect as it concerns the United States.

[DaleC76]

Please explain. What is your definition of 'Libertarian,' and how would this ideology prevent these wars?

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
WWII, unjustified.

You, my friend, could only talk intelligently with a discussion group of pigeons.

[David Floyd]

Dale, for a definition of Libertarianism, look to such posters on here as Wraith, Berzerker, and Rex Little, they lay forth the positions far better than I.

FireDragon, your comment in and of itself shows who can and can't discuss things intelligently.

[Rex Little]

Please explain. What is your definition of 'Libertarian,' and how would this ideology prevent these wars?

David has done yeoman work in this thread, so I'll take this one for him. I'm not going to go into a long discourse on libertarianism (see www.lp.org if you want one), but the relevant point here is that we believe in using the military only to protect ourselves from foreign attack. A libertarian government would not go to war to protect one group of foreigners from another group of foreigners, unless it was obvious that the aggressors meant to attack us next.

I think it's possible that a libertarian government might have gotten the U.S. into WW2; I don't think it's as obvious as David claims that the Axis were no threat to the U.S. But WW1? the Mexican War? Korea, Vietnam, etc.? No way.

Edit: didn't see David's last post when I wrote this. You're too modest, David; reading through this thread I thought I was in the presence of another Wraith.

[DaleC76]

A point I would like to make is that the Japanese Empire did not attack Pearl Harbor because they thought Uncle Sam wore a funny hat. They attacked because they wanted to establish an economic and political hegemony in the Pacific. The only way for any government, Libertarian or otherwise, to prevent this would be to peacefully surrender that hegemony, a dangerous course of action indeed.

Germany and Japan did NOT have Libertarian governments. They were NOT interested in attacking only when attacked. They were NOT looking for equal trading partners. They were trying to expand their economic spheres of influence at the expense of the other Great Powers, the first ingredient in the recipe for war.

Pacifism is a noble ideal to strive for, but I doubt it is workable in real life. A Libertarian government in power would have to realize that people are as concerned about the economic attacks of other nations as they are physical ones. History has proven this time and time again. A government that ignored that would soon find itself out of office.

[uh Clem]

Stilll not having seen anything in the way of evidence, much less proof, I assume then that there was little justification for the invasion of Grenada.

BTW, I hardly qualify as a leftist, assuming that term actually means anything. In some places, this is known as 'Old Right,' i.e., those who favor a republic rather than global empire. Pointing out that the US has supported mass murderers at times isn't a left wing or right statement...it's called 'reality.'