Long ago someone wrote a poem about an old man telling his grandchildren of a famous battle in a great war. "Twas a famous victory," he told them more than once. The curious children wondered: What was the war about? What was all that fighting for? The poor man couldn’t remember. "Twas a famous victory," he repeated.  
 
During the “run up” to the Iraq War, I asked a conservative Republican why he believed it was necessary for us to go into Iraq, overthrow Saddam Hussein and remove those nefarious “weapons of mass destruction.”

“Because I believe my government!” he insisted. He reasoned that the people running our government simply knew more than we did.
 
“Oh, they know a great many things,” I assured him, “some of which may even be true.” He apparently never considered the possibility that the government collects as much or more fiction than facts. Sorting out one from the other is presumably the work of highly skilled professionals, but they are not infallible. And at the very highest levels, officials may intentionally mislead or even, perish the thought, outright lie to us. Perhaps my friend missed the Watergate revelations. That’s not surprising. All some Republicans remember about Watergate is that nobody drowned there, a not too subtle reference to Sen. Edward M. “Splash” Kennedy. Twas a famous moonlight swim.
 
My friend may have forgotten Vietnam as well, where we went from military advisors to full-scale combatants over a bogus incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. Even if American ships were fired on and missed from a North Vietnamese patrol boat off the coast of North Vietnam, it appears a rather weak justification for a full-fledged war. But the grant of authority contained in the Vietnam Resolution, passed by a nearly unanimous and unquestioning Congress, became “the functional declaration of war.” The war went on for several more years and, despite a troop level of more than half a million at its highest point and the expenditure of more than 57,000 American lives, we were not entirely successful. Twas a famous defeat.
 
Losing a war can be demoralizing. Winning one can be ruinous. The transformation of a peaceful society into a militarized state is dangerous to the liberties of a free people. Debt multiplies, liberties are constricted or suspended and “big government” gets a whole lot bigger. War conditions otherwise good and decent people to greet with a “patriotic” joy the news that our planes and bombs have rained “shock and awe” upon a people that has never attacked us, including women and children killed and maimed in the “collateral damage.” We may believe we fight “with God on our side,” but God, who hears the voice of the poor and oppressed, may have a different view of our “splendid little” wars.
 
We can if, if we will, view the judgment of history. That sometimes requires that we put aside the things we think we “know” and visit the writings of men who were not on our high school or even college curricula. We need to get over the dissonance we feel when we see the title of an essay by William Graham Sumner: “The Conquest of the United States by Spain, 1898.”
 
“Wait a minute!” many of you are saying. “He’s got that backward. The good ol’ US of A won that splendid little war!” Wrong. Our country may have won that war but in so doing, it ceased being the “good ol’ US of A.” We started down the road to Imperial America. We became like the nation we defeated. English has always been our language and the heritage of many nations is in our genes and our folklore. But in 1898, we began to resemble Spain.

"Spain was the first, for a long time the greatest, of the modern imperialist states,” Sumner wrote. “The United States, by its historical origin, its traditions, and its principles, is the chief representative of the revolt and reaction against that kind of state. I intend to show that, by the line of action now proposed to us, which we call expansion and imperialism, we are throwing away some of the most important elements of the American symbol and are adopting some of the most important elements of the Spanish symbol."

We turned away from the wise counsel of Washington and Jefferson about “entangling alliances” with the plunder and conquests of Europe. We forgot the history and philosophy that made us a republic of free men and women.
 
"Expansionism and imperialism are nothing but the old philosophies of national prosperity which have brought Spain to where she now is, “wrote Sumner. “Those philosophies appeal to national vanity and national cupidity. They are seductive, especially upon the first view and the most superficial judgment, and therefore it cannot be denied that they are very strong for popular effect."

Sumner warned that these delusions are seductive and will lead us to ruin “unless we are hard-headed enough to resist them.” We have not been. As a result the words Sumner penned at the end of the 19th Century are particularly relevant in these early days of the 21st.

“Now what will hasten the day when our present advantages will wear out and when we shall come down to the conditions of the older and densely populated nations? The answer is: war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and navy, lavish expenditures, political jobbery — in a word, imperialism.”

In 1984, several years before we learned of Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s affliction, Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Walter Mondale charged that America under Reagan was suffering from “government by amnesia.” Yes, Mondale said that—but I can’t remember why. Nevertheless, all that is required is what Mondale told us we already acquired a quarter of a century ago: “government by amnesia.”  

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gordy three horses said:

	... the war with spain, wasn't that the war the united states used to go attack hawhaii, which at the time was a sojgern nation. i think they even had an embasey in d.c. manifest destiney is alive and well. to bad for the free people of the world.
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May 29, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

Why Saddam fell Saddam Hussein was trying to do the impossible. He intended to rebuild the city of Babylon. Alexander the Great was also going to rebuild Babylon, but he died suddenly. Saddam should have read God’s Bible and believed it. Notice what it says: Isaiah 13:19-22--- And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. 21But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. 22And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged. Jeremiah 51:60-62 60So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. 61And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words; 62Then shalt thou say, O LORD, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. I don’t see how anything could be more clear then that.

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May 29, 2009 | url
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Pat Henry said:

	Redunant repetition! "The transformation of a peaceful society into a militarized state is dangerous to the liberties of a free people." Redundancy! Insightful, witty article, Mr. Kenny. Thanks for that article link. By the way, the "shock and awe" is to cow our citizenry as well. But freemen do not so easily frighten.
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May 30, 2009
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Beacon said:

	... One of the surest ways to bankrupt a nation fiscally and socially, is to engage it constantly in warfare - especially when funding both sides, either directly or indirectly.
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May 31, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

	Libertine Leftists This may not fit here, but when referring to leftists I have begun to call them "libertine leftists."
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