Wars started by democrats

[rainy]

I posted on fb a picture about the US not being able to stop wars because we were in the business of war and a friend said "too bad all major wars except Iraq were started by democrats." I know that this is not true. Can I get some help debunking?

[limpyhobbler]

1. Grenada, started by Reagan...

[izquierdista]

2. Civil War, Spanish American war,

Gulf War I, Gulf war II, Grenada, Panama, all Republican initiated actions.

The only President in the modern era NOT to send troops into battle is Jimmy Carter. He is quite proud of that fact.

[Puregonzo1188]

10. I believe Carter did send military advisors to El Salvador, where we were certainly on the wrong

side of a civil war.

[izquierdista]

11. Not combat troops

I was going to qualify my statement by mentioning the abortive hostage rescue attempt in Iran, but then again, those weren't combat troops.

Wouldn't it be a different world if all the Presidents since Carter had tried to match his level of military adventures.

[ieoeja]

42. He sent the Marines into Yemen.

Communists pulled a coup. With Ethiopia and Somalia both in the Soviets sphere of influence (even though they were fighting each other), the communist coup in Yemen put both the western and eastern sides of the southern entrance to the Red Sea under Soviet influence.

A few months later a counter-revolution was launched in the South. The North geared for war. Carter sent the Marines to South Yemen. The North decided to recognize the independance of a South Yemen rather than fight. And since it was South Yemen that bordered the Red Sea....

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the two countries reunited rather painlessly at the time. They have problems now, of course. But pretty much unrelated.


That said, Carter was the least adventurous president probably since Eisenhower. And it paid off in 1991. With one exception the other Arab nations were happy to back the United States in the Iraq/Kuwait action. American diplomats reported that they frequently cited Carter as the primary reason they trusted the United States: Camp David accords and taking no action against the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Actually, you wouldn't think it to read DU, but the US had been remarkably hands-off when it came to the Middle East prior to 9-11. One political party (D) was solidy behind Israel while the other (R) was solidly behind the Arab League. When we went in to help, and it was always an humanitarian mission, we always left right away unlike the British and French "liberators" and the German and Italian "liberators" then the British and French "liberators" again.

[Robb]

63. "Hands-off," yes.

But we have been famous for knowing just when to send a care package to the region since about 1975. Better than Emily Post -- guns and money? Always appropriate.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

23. How did Abraham Lincoln start the Civil War?

Honest question.

[Goblinmonger]

40. He could have let them leave the union.

But he, instead, pushed for the "perpetual union" concept. Not saying it was a bad decision.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

41. I think the firing on Ft Sumpter started the war and that wasn't Lincoln.

[ieoeja]

43. Then FDR didn't start WW-II.

I believe the definition for "starting" the war in this context is which American president entered the war.

And definitely not which president called for declaration of war. Or we would have to exclude Civil War, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

53. And i would agree. He presided during time of war. n/t

[TheWraith]

56. Not to mention, the firing on Fort Sumter was a deliberate provocation.

Sumter had little to no provisions for a siege... the commander of the fort had told the forces surrounding him that without any hostilities, he would be obligated to evacuate the fort peacefully within a few days because they had so little food. The southern forces fired on the fort not to acquire it, but as a provocation.

[TheOther95Percent]

3. Desert Storm Seemed Pretty Major at the Time

Started in August 1990 and George H.W. Bush (that famous democratic politician) was the President. The Civil War seemed pretty major - lasted 4 years with hundreds of thousands dead - and Lincoln was not a member of the Democratic Party. World War I and II were started by other nations and entered both of those wars with Democratic presidents at the helm. Neither of those men "started" either of those wars.

[Motown_Johnny]

4. How did the Democrats start WWII ? Or WWI for that matter?

Being in power when a war starts is not the same as starting a war.

[Yupster]

17. Hirohito was a Democrat

Who knew?

I do blame Wilson for bringing us into WWI.

There really wasn't sufficient reason for us to involve ourselves in that European mess.

[Confusious]

20. Except that the entire country wanted it.

Getting into WW1 was very popular.

I heard a story once that after the declaration of war, he went in a backroom and cried. His father was a doctor on the battlefields of the civil war, he was there, and he remembered it.

Now, considering most people don't know who Wilson was, and don't really care, I'm inclined to believe the story.

[Yupster]

22. His reelection slogan was "He ketp us out of war"

Then he got us right in the war.

It is curious as to why?

He was getting pressure from guys like Teddy Roosevelt, but there wasn't much popular pressure. If there was pressure from the people, he wouldn't have won with his campaign of reelect me because I kept you out of that mess in Europe.

The Lusitania ws cited as a cause, but that was two years earlier. The Ziimmermann Telegram is talked about, but that really wasn't a big deal. The timing is interesting.

He asked for the war declaration two weeks after the Czar was replaced by the Karensky regime trying to turn Russia into a democracy.

Maybe that gave Wilson the moral cause he wanted as in his war request to congress he said the US needed to make the world safe for Democracy. Before that, he talked about seeing little difference between the two sides morally.

An interesting topic - at least for this old history teacher and textbook author.

[RZM]

35. Germany resumed USW a couple months before the US entered

USW = 'unrestricted submarine warfare'

They had done this before and backed down in the face of strong US opposition to the policy. By 1917 they were getting desperate.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

39. That's a very good point

In 1917 the Germans were getting desperate. A lot of supplies were getting through to Britain under American flags, meanwhile the British naval blockade was forcing the Germans to make bread out of sawdust. Also the tide of public opinion in America was turning in favor of the Allies, and the German government saw it as only a matter of time before the US came in on the Allied side. The resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare was a desperate attempt to knock the British out of the war before that happened.

[dems_rightnow]

29. Maybe with most.

My direct ancestor is Jeannette Rankin. First woman in congress, and the the "1" in the 388-1 vote to enter WWII.

[Confusious]

44. While I can admire her standing for a principle

I also find it misguided. With countries like Japan and and Germany at the time, the only choice was to fight.

Even more so, knowing what we know now.

and besides, we're not talking about world war II, we're talking about world war I.

[ProfessorGAC]

51. No. Only Tojo

Damn democrats, like Hideki Tojo.
GAC

[unblock]

5. hmm, civil war -- lincoln; spanish-american war -- mckinley;

vietnam, no formal beginning, but ike sent "advisors" in late in his second term.

grenada -- reagan;
panama -- poppy;
iraq i -- poppy;
afghanistan -- shrub;
iraq ii -- shrub.

so, your friend is only off by 7 or 8.

i'm not even counting poppy's somalia crap.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

26. How did Lincoln start the Civil War?

[unblock]

34. not my choice of words. i was going strictly based on who was in the white house at the time.

if who actually started it was at issue, then wilson didn't start wwi and roosevelt didn't start wwii, etc.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

36. To be fair

Since the OP wants to know who *started* wars an answer should fairly disinclude any war a president only presided over; i.e. Clinton began the war against Serbia but not Somalia. Obama started the war against Libya but not Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, etc.

[unblock]

38. i was doing based on who was president at the start of hostilities.

[rainy]

6. Awesome thanks you guys!

[WhoIsNumberNone]

7. Republicans used that line a lot up until the 90s

In fact most of the wars Democrats "started" were either ones in which we didn't fire the first shot, or wars that conservatives approve of:

WW I: Wilson (D) Tried to stay out of it. Stayed out even after the Lusitania was sunk by a U-Boat (Imagine what Republicans would say today) only entered after US intercepted the Zimmermann Telegram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram) proposing an alliance between Germany and Mexico against the United States.

WW II: Roosevelt (D) Entered only after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. War was only declared on Germany after Germany declared war on US. It can be argued that Roosevelt goaded the Japanese by placing embargoes on them after they invaded China. But you probably won't have to worry about them bringing that up- most right wingers you'll have this argument with don't know their history in that kind of detail. You could always counter with 'So you don't think we should have gotten involved in WW II?' Maybe going on to point out that most of the resistance to getting involved came from isolationist Republicans, and that if we hadn't, the Russians would have overrun all of continental Europe.

Korea: Truman (D) Again- we pushed back the godless commies who were about to overrun the whole Korean peninsula. I would have thought the right wingers would approve of that. Maybe their issue is that Truman didn't let MacArthur drop the bomb on the Chinese?

Vietnam: Johnson (D) Another war the right wingers approved of. The US got into the shooting part of it after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (now admitted to have never happened) under Johnson, but the first advisors were sent to Vietnam by Eisenhower (R)

Every one we've been in since -unless you count Kosovo and Somalia under Clinton as "wars"- has been under a Republican.

[killbotfactory]

8. Democrats don't start wars, they finish them.

That was supposed to be said in a Clint Eastwood voice.

Phrase not intended to be 100% accurate.

[Puregonzo1188]

9. Reagan committed overt acts of war against Nicaragua, Bush I Iraq and Panama, Nixon Cambodia

Though with most of these things they go on for so long and are so bipartisan its hard to say who started what. While Reagan gets a lot criticism (rightfully) for Central America, Carter started it in some ways by sending advisors to El Salvador and authorizing covert groups trying to overthrow the Sandinistas (but not the vicious Contras). He even imposed sanctions against Grenada for reasons that I will never get.

Though with Latin America the US is always meddling there so it's hard to tell who started what. The US backed military regimes in both El Salvador and Nicaragua for decades.

In the case of Nicaragua it was an outgrowth of an occupation that STARTED in 1912 and ended in 1933 and was continued with plenty of both Democratic and Republican Presidents. It's also, fyi, the first carpet bombing in history, before the Spanish Civil War.

[rainy]

12. Thanks again. Great replys:)

[Honeycombe8]

13. Next time a Repub says that, YOU say, "See? The Democrats are NOT weak militarily." The major wars

The major wars we've had...hmmmm:

Revolutionary War (no Democrats or Republicans then)
Civil War (started by the south, which had no political parties. Lincoln was a Repub.)
Spanish American War (Republican President McKinley)
Mexican American War (Pres. Polk, a Democrat)
WWI (Democratic President Woodrow Wilson)
WWII (Democratic President FDR)
Vietnam War (Democratic President JFK)
Iraq War (Republican President George W. Bush)

So....looks like it may be true that more Dem. than Repub Presidents have become embroiled in major wars. That doesn't mean they STARTED them. Did FDR start WWII? Hardly. Maybe it's because there have been more Presidents who have been Democratic? Just a thought.

[Yupster]

16. The South had no political parties?

In the three elections before the Civil War, the southern states voted Democratic each time.

Did you mean the Confederacy had no parties?

That was because they were almost all Democrats. If the nation would have lasted a little longer, there would have no doubt been a split into Conservative Democrats and Moderate Democrats. Who knows what they'd be called.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

18. Of course in those days

The Democrats were the conservative party, and the Republicans were the progressive party- Another fact that today's Republicans simply refuse to accept...

[ieoeja]

48. Assuming they retained Democracy.

The Southern colonies were founded by Norman aristocracy looking to expand the British Empire. The Northern colonies were founded by Anglo-Saxons seeking to escape the British Empire. The whole Democracy thing was very much an Anglo-Saxon thing.

Names of the Southern Colonies
- Queen Mary(land)
- The Virgin(ia) Queen Elizabeth
- King Georg(ia)
- King Charles I and II (Latin Carolus -> Carolina)

Names of the Northern Colonies
- New Hampshire, York and Jersey : old regional names
- Connecticut, Massachusettes and Delaware : native names
- William Penn(sylvania) : a populist, often anti-royalist, politician

Southern Politics
- opposed railroads and canals : aided capitalism which permitted upward mobility
- no public schools : one state went so far as to outlaw public schools
- poll taxes and literacy tests : these pre-date the freedom of Blacks and were intended to stop commoners from voting
- southern adventurers took Texas from Mexico
- southern states backed the capture of Baja California and invasion of Sonoma (which lost Baja)
- southern states backed the capture of Guatemala (lost when they instituted slavery thus pissing off their Guatemala's neighbors)
- southern states backed multiple invasions of Cuba (all lost; it finally ended when Spain literally decimated the invaders by executing one in ten before returning the rest)
- opposed States Rights on the question of slavery : most people get this one backwards
- plantations were essentially a modernized interpretation of feudalism and the landed gentry

Northern Politics
- promoted railroads and canals
- public schools with an estimated 98% literacy rate
- all White males could vote
- favored States Rights on the question of slavery

The South During the War (not exact quotes; but near enough)
- "The Great Experiment has failed."
- "Conquer the North, tear down the factories and divide the country into landed estates."
- "This war was never about secession" : southern columnist cheering the invasion of Pennsylvania
- "If the Anglo-Saxon loves work so much, then let us abide his wishes. Put him in chains and make him work the fields. The Anglo-Saxon Yankees are much closer than Africa anyway."

Odds are the South would have retained a form of Democracy. But one so limited there may have not been enough diversity of opinion to warrant political parties.


I wonder how many things I wrote here would piss off modern DUers. Capitalism promoting upward mobility is one if you don't stop to consider that the debate was between capitalism and feudalism making capitalism the radically progressive choice at the time. I know some would be pissed at hearing about Jim Crow laws being initiated against poor Whites.

And then there are southerners steeped in the revisionist history convinced that the war was *not* 99% about slavery. During the period after the war, writing history books became the #1 southern industry as every general, politician, etc tried to shift the blame, make excuses, or just honestly try to figure out how they could have lost a war to the inferior Anglo-Saxon race. Even the honest attempt in that last would lead to revisionist history as they could not conceive of some of the most important reasons: (1) proper breeding does not equate to competence, (2) they were lazy**, and (3) they were not innately superior.

** You can not claim that "manual labor should only be done by Negros and Anglo-Saxons", hire people to run your businesses for you yet deny the charge of laziness.


source: "The Battle Cry of Freedom" which starts with the Northern and Southern lyrics side-by-side. The irony of "to save slavery" we cry "the battle cry of freedom" in the southern lyrics is sort of eerie and funny at the same time.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

52. Good stuff

None of which pissed me off by the way.

[Yupster]

59. I guess the best way to judge what kind of government they had or wanted

would be to look at the Confederate Constitution.

It's a very interesting document since it was created 60 years after the original by committees of former congressmen, judges, senators, cabinet members, etc.

They broke into committees on each part of the Constitution, argued ideas and then came back to the Constitutional Convention in Montgomery to debate and vote on it.

The most interesting thing is that they pretty much ended up with the US Constitution with very few changes. One was he line item verto for the President. Another was one six year term for President. They argued over the Presidential election system for weeks and then ended up keeping the electoral college.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On another topic.

If I'm reading your reply correctly, you seem to say that there was some plan by the Confederates to conquer the north?

This is absolute nonsense. President Davis constantly said that all he asked for was to be left alone.

The Gettysburg invasion was the result of a crisis conference between General Lee and President Davis and his entire cabinet held in in Richmond.

The crisis was that Vicksburg was soon to be surrounded which aside from meaning the capture of at least 30,000 men which the Confederates could certainly not afford, would also cut the country in two.

General Lee's ANV had three corps of approx. 20,000 men each. There was also attached cavalry and artillery. President Davis was planning to send one of Lee's corps west to relieve the situation around Vicksburg and that's why Lee was called to the capital. There were two options.

A) was to send the corps to General Johnston in Jackson Mississippi to use to try to break the siege.
B) was to send the corps to General Bragg in Chatanooga to attack towards Nashville and maybe even Kentucky to force General Grant to break off the siege to rush back to defend central Tennessee.

There were problems with both options. The first one was a mess because of the state of transportation in the south by 1863. By the time a corps could get to Jackson the Vicksburg operation would be long over with.

The problem with option two was that Grant could just ignore it and the north could rush reinforcements from other theatres to save Nashville.

General Lee proposed a third option. Send his army every available brigade, even stripping the Atlantic coastal defenses. He would invade Pennsylvania and attempt to win the war in one stroke by defeating the Army of The Potomac, and maybe capturing a large northern city (Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia?) and holding it long enough to gain English and French recognition.

It was audacious. It was risky. It was Lee.

It also explains why Lee fought so wrecklessly aggressive at Gettysburg. This was not another battle. It was the attempt to win the war. The Confederate Secretary of State even travelled with the army to negotiate with the European ambassadors should they take Washington.

The plan was never to try to hold any territory though. That was far beyond Lee's logistic capabilities.

Interestingly, Newt Gingrch of all people wrote a three book What if Novel series assuming Lee wins at Gettysburg and then takes the story from there. It was an interesting read, but I'm a sucker for the Harry Turtledove What if stuff.

[Courtesy Flush]

14. Vietnam was started in 1955

According to Wikipedia. Eisenhowe(r) was president.

[Obamanaut]

31. US involvement began in the Truman administration.

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index.html

July 26, 1950 - United States military involvement in Vietnam begins as President Harry Truman authorizes $15 million in military aid to the French.

[Courtesy Flush]

15. Ask him if he's accusing the U.S. of A. of starting World War II

And why he hates America!

[think]

19. Who starts the most wars? The CIA & "Friends" /nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. WWI and WWII were kind of started by Germany (and Japan in the case of WWII).

The Korean War was started by the Soviet and Chinese-backed North Koreans invading South Korea which led to UN intervention. The Republicans were in the White House for the Spanish-American War. The Civil War was started by the states of the Confederacy first seceding and then opening fire on Fort Sumter; you could make an argument that most of the Southern political leaders of the time would have been Democrats as they were then, but applying present-day labels to parties of a century and a half ago is kind of pointless.

[JHB]

28. You might add that Lincoln was the Lefty candidate of his day. N/t

[kemah]

24. Wars are a necessary evil but who started unfunded wars is a better question.

Bush is the only world leader to start an unfunded wars and an unnecessary war. Not only were they unfunded he even had a tax cut. Wars are very expensive. It was cheaper to buy a home and give a Viet Cong 4 years of college that it was to kill them. Even Napoleon had to sell Louisiana to pay for his European wars.

[Romulox]

25. We've been at war my entire life--Democrat or Republican hasn't seemed to matter.

[JHB]

27. First off, ask him if he will stand by his claim of "started"...

...and if so, just hand him a paper cone labeled "dunce" and walk away.


Ask him who started Ww2. Who started Ww1. Ask him to go down the list of wars and name their causes, and how exactly the Democrats are responsible for it.

He doesn't really require debunking so much as making it crystal clear that he doesn't know jack.

[librechik]

30. Did FDR really "start" WWII? I think not--responding to an invader is not "starting" a war

and this slippery construction is what your troll wants you to be confused by. In FDR's time, Republicans would have let Europe go down to Hitler, they were adamantly against helping our allies.

If you want a war "started" by Conservatives, however, there's Iraq, VietNam (started in the Eisenhower administration and passed on to Kennedy) the 1898 Spanish American War, started by an Uber Conservative media mogul, the Murdoch of his time, WR Hearst. In fact, INCLUDING ww! (Not started by President Wilson, BTW, but by Germany, again)

All the list proves is that Democrats are strong in response to a genuine threat, not afraid to use the miuitary to protect our homeland and our allies.

[Octafish]

32. Hitler was supported by Wall Street.

Big Time.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

33. Hitler was supported by Prescott Bush

See what the right wingers have to say about that.

...Your post goes into a lot more detail though

[Nuclear Unicorn]

57. We have our own skeletons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr#Ambassador_to_Britain

[WhoIsNumberNone]

66. The Kennedy thing is actually much better known-

-although I confess I didn't know the details until I read that link. Frankly I has assumed it was something worse than being an appeaser. Prescott Bush on the other hand, was doing business with them and got rich doing it. He also continued doing business with them even after the declaration of war until the FBI (or whatever the agency was called in those days) came after him. (here's a long article on the subject:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar)

He was also involved in a fascist coup plotted against FDR.

ETA: All in all I'd say theirs was worse...

[WhoIsNumberNone]

37. Another thing you might counter with-

Every time the economy has crashed it's been on the tail end of a Republican administration:

The Great Depression, 1929- Harding/Coolidge or "Reaganomics Beta" as I like to call it.
Stock Market crash of 1987- More of a hiccup, but it was six years into the Ronnie Raygun era.
S&L Bailout, 1992- Cost Poppy Bush his re-election in spite of all the flag-waving feelgoodery following Desert Storm only 1 year earlier. The revelation that his sons help to cause it didn't help things either.
2008 Crash- After 8 years of irresponsible tax cuts, unfunded wars, and economic deregulation, we are now living in the result of Republican economic policy run amuck.

[ieoeja]

45. Maybe you should acknowledge that your FB friend is correct.

First, the definitions I am using:

1. "started" : which President was in office when hostilities commenced regardless of which side started it.

2. "war" : a protracted military action that involved fighting. This does not include brief fighting such as in Yemen (Carter) or Grenada, Panama, and Lebanon (Reagan) or Somalia (Bush) or Liberia (mutiple) or the Banana Wars (multiple).


Then my list would be:

(L)* American Revolution
(D) War of 1812
(D) Mexican-American War
(R)** Civil War
(D) Spanish-American War
(D) World War I
(D) World War II
(D) Korea
(D) Vietnam
(R)*** Iraq
(R) Afghanistan

* Not Democrats, but it was started by radical Liberals.
** The Republican was a radical Liberal.
*** The American Legion limits membership to members of the Armed Forces during combat operations. Any member of the Armed Forces at any time since 1991 is qualified to join the American Legion due to the fact that we have had combat operations going on in Iraq all this time. Which begs the question, why? It was something that never really came up for debate and was the direct cause of 9-11.

[craigmatic]

46. The only wars started by democrats was Vietnam.

The North Koreans started the Korean War and the Nazis and Japanese really started WWII. You could say the Civil war was started by dems but most of those guys would be conservative republicans today.

[ieoeja]

54. Using your defintion, how would the US be responsible for starting the Vietnam war?

Japan invades.
Vietnamese fight Japanese.
WW-II ends.
Communist freedom fighters grab gov't offices.
Capitalist freedom fighters grab businesses.
Britain comes in and takes control.
Ho Chi Minh has his communist rivals murdered.
Capitalists fight each other for stuff.
Britain hands control back to France.
Vietnamese fight French.
French leave.
Communists withdraw to the north (except for some Viet Minh who stayed to undermine the south).
Capitalists withdraw to the south.
Ho Chi Minh further consolidates power and builds an army.
Capitalists fight amongst themselves.
North invades.
South fights back.
US Marines enter to help south.
North loses.
US Army convinces LBJ to stay and replace ARVN. South agrees.
US fights the South war for them.
US Army leaves.
North invades.
North wins after almost two more years of fighting.
North invades Cambodia and wins in 8 days.
China invades during Cambodia action and loses in 30 days.

Why do you draw the line at the US entering the war? I would break that up into five wars with the 3rd beginning when the north invades the south. Or possibly move it back to when the south declared independance since Ho only agreed to a temporary split in the first place.

Had the south consolidated earlier like Ho did - through the time-honored method of murdering his rivals - during the temporary British occupation, the US probably would have never entered the war at all. I included the Cambodian and Chinese wars just to demonstrate how much better ARVN was even after being pushed aside for 10 years. 10 years earler ARVN was made up of experienced fighters from their war of independance. They just weren't as organized or as well armed by outside forces as the North.

A lot of people seem to think that the Vietnamese war of independance was solely a communist thing. It was not. Capitalists were every bit as much in the fight against Japan and France as was the communists.

[craigmatic]

60. I look at it like this

I only really thought of Vietnam in terms of US intervention since I assumed that the original post was about how the democratic party started wars. Ho Chi Minh asked Truman to recognize both sections of the country as Vietnam and they'd have elections and a constitution based on the US's but Truman deferred to the French who still wanted Vietnam as a colony. Also the shooting part of the war and the escalation which most Americans think of when we say "the Vietnam war" was amped up during LBJ's presidency. I hate to say it but it was a democratic war in the beginning. Sure the French and British helped too but in terms of US involvement it was a democratic party mess starting from Truman going forward.

I know the communists, capitalists, different religious groups, and the people in the country part of Vietnam hated each other and generally had a tradition of fighting to free their country from invaders going back to the anchient Chinese but in terms of US involvement it started after WW2.

[ieoeja]

70. Truman started the war because he did not stop the French?

Hell, might as well say the United States is responsible for every war fought since 1776. We didn't stop Napolean from conquering Europe. We didn't do anything to stop the Franco-Prussian war or between Japan and Russia.

[craigmatic]

75. True but that was at a time when we were discouraging colonialism around the world.

We were giving the Philippines independence, the British were starting to give up their empire and we offered the Marshall plan as a way to help Europe rebuild if certain Europeans gave up their colonies (I want to say the Dutch but don't hold me to that) so what Truman did was against his own policy.

[jwirr]

47. Well to begin with wars do not necessarily start on the date of the first shot. For instance WWII

was in the works as far back as 1923. Not in the US but that is when the Nazi party started to rise. So to say that the Democratic presidents caused these wars is a real lie. But an even bigger lie is that Democrats are soft of our enemies is the point. Somewhere in the world things are boiling over and we may be expected to join in when it gets serious. In recent years we are fighting wars that do not call for war and that is the kind that the rethugs cause: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. All of these are corporate wars not Democrat wars.

[Taverner]

62. In my eyes, WWII was just a continuation of WWI

All of the seeds for WWII were planted during "The Great War"

Even Adolf Hitler was influenced by his days as an Imperial German Corporal...

[WhoIsNumberNone]

64. That's a not-uncommon opinion

Personally I think if the British and French had listened to Wilson and not imposed such an onerous 'conqueror's peace' on the Germans there might never have been a WW2.

[Taverner]

65. That was a big part of it

The debts that the Weimar Republic was saddled with caused them to implode.

Also the borders drawn up after the war were not natural borders but more along the lines that the English and French used when partitioning Africa...

[jwirr]

69. You are correct in that I think. The peace settlement did nothing to prevent another one.

[Bad_Ronald]

49. The War on Poverty.

[ProfessorGAC]

50. Wow, What A Dumb Thing For Him/Her To Say

Realistically, there have been 5 MAJOR wars, at least by my view.


Civil War: Who shot first? And even if you blame Lincoln, he was a republican.
WWI: Started 24 - 30 monhts before the U.S. even got directly involved.
WWII: Started by some german guy.
Korea: OK, we can pin that on Truman, but it was, at least, a U.N. effort. The U.S. just did a lot of the heavy lifting.
Vietnam: Eisenhower. If he minded his own business, Johnson wouldn't have escalated to save face, nor would have Nixon.

We can include all the other interventions and localized events like Cuba, Grenada, Iraq, et al. But, those don't really amount to major for me, except maybe to the families of the people who actually fought in them.

BTW: I consider it major when almost the whole population has some skin in the game, whether they or a family member is serving or not. (Think WWII rationing and tax increases/war bonds for WW! and WWII.)
GAC

[yurbud]

55. use rope a dope: instead of coming up with

Counter examples, ask which Democratic war in the 20th century SHOULDN'T we have fought?

World War II?

The fight against commies in Korea or Vietnam?

Is their point that Democratic politicians are as willing to go to war as Republicans? Then they can't say Dems are soft on defense.

Is their point that both parties are too warlike?

Neither option helps a conservative argument unless you're arguing with a Ron Paul fan, but a lot of them probably disagree with him on wars.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

58. Abe Lincoln started the war

against vampires -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/101855983

[Taverner]

61. LBJ did start Vietnam, but Nixon really ran with it

Other than that, you have to go back at least 100 years to find another Democrat who started one

[librechik]

71. Our involvement in VietNam started under Eisenhower.

LBJ just stepped it up to combat at the request of MacNamara

[Taverner]

72. We just had advisors at that time. It was the Gulf of Tonkin 'incident' that got it going

[librechik]

73. yes, but if we're sticking to the letter of the email

then a Dem didn't "start" our involvement.

[Nye Bevan]

67. Hitler declared war on the USA (nt)

[gulliver]

68. Ask them if they voted for George W. Bush

And if so, how many times.

If they voted for Bush, then ask them why anything they say about war should be believed. You don't have to debunk anything from someone who voted for Bush. The burden of proof is on them. They really shouldn't even say anything at all for a while.

[Kwarg]

74. These discussions are silly

Todays Democratic Party isn't the same as it was 50 or 150 years ago. Remember... The Democratic Party WAS the party of segregation and cross burning.