Diplomacy and Sustainability
Have you ever noticed the fascination many Americans have with the U.S. Civil War of 1860-65? You don’t see World War I re-enactments. You don’t run across people who self-describe as “War of 1812 buffs.” Among other things, the Civil War propelled Abraham Lincoln into his position as, per consensus of historians, the greatest U.S. president, largely based on his tenacity in keeping the Union together.
So here’s a question: What would have been the consequences if he hadn’t? Especially considering the epic casualties on both sides of the war, he could have gone to Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederate States of America) and said:
OK, Jeff. No war. Keep your slaves, your land, and your cotton and tobacco. I’m not sending millions of my boys to chase you filthy pigs all over hell’s half acre. We’re going to join the rest of the world (that abolished slavery decades or centuries ago) in quietly hating your guts and pretending you don’t exist; see how being globally reviled works out for you. And good luck keeping pace with technology. In a few years, you’ll be as irrelevant in terms of industry, commerce, transportation, agriculture, and medicine as Paraguay. And don’t forget about military equipment; I happen to be a man of peace, but eventually someone will want to come down there with whatever they use to kill people at the time, and they’ll go through you savages like crap through a goose. Until then, if you change your mind, you know how to reach me.
Letting cooler heads prevail might not have put Lincoln on Mount Rushmore, but one never knows; he may have been honored even more greatly for his grace and wisdom. It sure would have been great to have a president revered for peace-making, and it would have set a wonderful example for posterity.
Fast-forward 150 years and see how quick we are to rush into war. The entire world’s rejoicing to have Iran off the military radar screen for 15 years? Not a chance. The Saudis are sponsoring global terrorism? Let’s sell them arms. Potential peace in the Middle East? Let’s make sure it’s untenable for the Palestinians.
The United States has a military budget that is larger than that of the next 12 countries combined, yet a true show of greatness is ramping all this horror down, not escalating it further.
Craig,
You seem very confused. This is to be expected when you confuse assertions with reality and possess a very odd grasp of history.
Re-enactment societies exist across America for everything from the Revolutionary war, the Alamo, Wild West etc(even medieval jousting !).
(re-enacting WW1 might be a little beyond the legal logistics of any society).
The US is a nation born from the need to fight wars of expansion. My family participated in both the Revolutionary war and war of 1812,(We burned Washington). Both wars were caused by the desire of the states to expand into Indian territory. The US has been almost continuously involved in some sort of warfare throughout its brief history history.
Despite Congress only declaring war 11 times, the US has fought in more than 120 wars since 1776. ( more than a war every two years!).
Probably the most obscure rationale was the entry into WW1.
The government of Saudi Arabia does not “sponsoring global terrorism”, indeed exactly the opposite! Being an ultra conservative regime it seeks to suppress terrorism. Iran was not “off the military radar” for 15 years! The Iranian government was actively disrupting the middle East through allies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. Training, arming and sending covert military personnel to the rebels in Yemen.
All the while, Iran’s been laughing up it’s sleeve at how easy it was to fool the weak and gullible Obama adminstration concerning nuclear disarmament.
Nor was slavery the original cause of the US civil war. The War was originally fought over the issue of States rights. The idea of a confederacy or a Union.
When offered command of either army at the outbreak of the War, Robert E Lee declined the union offer saying ” I am was opposed to war, but I could not draw my sword against my fellow Virginian”.
Less than 5% of the soldiers in the Confederate army owned slaves, and although later slavery became the main justification for the war, most confederate soldiers fought out of loyalty to their home State rather than the idea of a Federal Union.
In the !930’s we had men who thought like you, of “ramping it down”. In France and the UK they were later known as “appeasers” and some became “collaborators”.
“Peace in our time” , this craven and cringing phrase isn’t a cause to be celebrated, and although it probably led to the angst of Vietnam, I still believe and support the words of JFK when he stated:
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country.”
As a young man in !967, I found inspiration in those words and volunteered to join the “bloody fray” in Vietnam where I served 34 months as a soldier.
War is never a pleasant business, but craven acceptance of tyranny is far worse. Especially, if you benefit from the tyranny.
When a number of prominent English Pacifists took up residence in the US in 1940, much lauded in the US by US traitor and Soviet agent, Helen Silvermaster’s ‘American Peace Mobilization’ organization.
The Poets collective wrote a famous poem describing their moral stance as “defiantly living like lions”.
George Orwell replied caustically, “Yes, just like circus lions in a nice safe cage, fed and pampered safe from harm, protected by better men who by their moral courage protect your right to roar impotently for the audience but then cringe from the whip of your masters”.
” It is all very well to be “advanced” and “enlightened,” to snigger at Colonel Blimp while proclaiming your emancipation from all traditional loyalties, but when a time comes when the soil is sodden red with the sacrifice of others for your freedoms, then the British military class, even at its stupidest and most sentimental, is a comelier thing than the shallow, deluded self-righteousness of the left-wing intelligentsia.”.