THE MILITARY.....WARRIOR MENTALITY

Sotises, sotises, sotises . . . Germany declared war on the United States, and began attacking our merchant shipping. That was the causus belli. The Iraqis had not attacked the United States, nor otherwise threatened us. It's a simple concept, Brandon, even you should be able to grasp it. If you would like a detailed discussion of why we've gone to war in every instance in which we have gone to war prior to this, and the alliances with whom we have gone to war, i'm more than happy to oblige.

Your "just as dead" argument is absurd. You were attempting to imply moral equivalence between warriors who try to minimize civilian casualties, and those who specialize in it deliberately.

Well, thanks. Let's cut to the chase, then. Is it true that the criterion for the US to attack a country in the past has been that it attacked us first, as Paaskynen implied it should be? I mean a significant attack on our territory, not just some incident.

You ask a question, then attempt to define the limits within which the question may be answered. What constitutes an "incident" in your mind, when you write "no just some incident?" International relations are extremely complex, and situations often develop over time. Let's take our first war as an example.

During the Wars of the French Revolution, and the Wars of the Empire (commonly bunched together and referred to, erroneously, as the Napoleonic Wars), the United States was making a tidy profit trading with European nations. After 1805, however, the playing field changed considerably. In that year, Admiral Nelson defeated a combined Franco-Spanish fleet, and the Royal Navy was able to finally enforce its blockade of the continent. They had already attacked the Danish Fleet at Copenhagen and closed the Baltic--Trafalgar allowed them to close the Mediterranean. American merchantmen continued to trade with the continent, however, and the English mostly turned a blind eye, as smuggling was thriving prospect for the English.

Napoleon fought back with his Continental System, to exclude British goods. This made trade with the United States more important. Traditionally, historians (influenced by the British line) have held that the Continental System was a failure. However, that ignores the declining balance of trade in Great Britain, and the continuing decline of their economy after decades of growth. As well, it lead to the defiance of Napoleon by Russia, which he could not ignore, and therefore the disasterous invasion--which is not to the point here however.

Because the Continental System was effectively hurting Royal revenues, the English became less enchanted with Americans trading with Europe. They began to interfer with American shipping, looking for "contraband." They pretty well defined contraband as was convenient for their purposes, and the United States objected that "free ships make free cargo"--but we lacked the muscle to back that up. Washington and Adams had begun the process of building a first class fleet, but Jefferson and Madison had dropped such programs, and both adhered to Jefferson's silly, and eventually almost disasterous fantasy of defending the nation with gunboats in inland waters, and the militia.

Both England and France treated the United States much as one sees when people speak of a third party in their presence as if they were not there. In the midst of the squabble, Napoleon issued the Milan Decree (1805), which held that American ships which traded with Britain would be seized. That was fantasy, he had no resources to enforce such an order--but it p.o.'d Americans nevertheless. Britain countered with Orders in Council (1806) to the same effect--American ships trading with the continent would be seized. However, even the Royal Navy lacked the resources to enforce it unless American ships went in harm's way, because they were stretched to the limit by blockading all of Europe. This was the reason the United States Navy was able, with superior standards of training, naval artillery and discipline, to make such a good showing in the subsequent war.

Even then, not much was really done by either France or Britain. But it was the last straw, so to speak. Napoleon was too smart to play a dumb game like that, and revoked the Milan Decree. The Brits were stubborn however, especially in naval matters. The ship bearing Madison's declaration of war passed on the ocean the ship with the message that the Orders in Council had been revoked--by then it was too late.

But why was it too late, and why had paper wars lead to a shooting war? Because of an accumulation of what you are pleased to describe as "just some incident." The Royal Navy was hurting for sailors. They had long practiced the use of "press gangs," which would go through the streets of small seaside towns rounding up drunks, or any man found alone and vulnerable. It had reached the point that small towns whose objections were being ignored turned out the home guard and arrested naval officers and their press gang detachments. The Royal Marines were hugely expanded to keep sailors from jumping ship (throughout more than a century, U.S. naval officers tried to kill the U.S. Marines, saying that a republic didn't need ship's guards to keep the sailors loyal--that's another story, too, however). In 1797, at the Nore, the Royal Navy base in the Thames River, there was a general mutiny which took more than a month to put down.

But when the Royal Navy stopped those American merchant vessels at sea, how convenient to take any sailors who had no papers to prove their citizenship. The British have long denied that this was a common practice, but in his The Naval War of 1812, Theodore Roosevelt used British records to show that more than 2500 sailors in the Royal Navy went to prison rather than serve against the United States in that war, which they claimed was their homeland. To go to Dartmoor Prison or the prison hulks rather than serve against the U.S. Navy says a great deal for their sincerity. That Roosevelt had done his homework is shown by the fact that the Royal Navy asked him to write the article on the war of 1812 for their official history in 1899.

In 1807, the United States Ship Chesapeake, sailing off the Virginia coast, was approached by His Majesty's Ship Leopard. Leopard could not have safely made an outright attack, as American naval vessels carried guns of a larger caliber (24 lbs to the English 16 lbs) and would have shot them to pieces had they tried. So they hailed Chesapeake, asking them to deliver mail for them. This allowed them to get within range of their guns, and they opened fire, killing American sailors, and then laid along side and boarded Chesapeake. They took four crew members off, and sailed upon their merry way.

Americans were incensed. They demanded war. Jefferson didn't want war, and he backed down. Instead, he passed the Embargo Act. It hurt New England merchants, who began smuggling through Canada (and didn't stop even after the war was begun). Encouraged to believe that the United States (as opposed simply to that idiot Jefferson) was a paper tiger, the Royal Navy began stopping more ships and impressing sailors. Madison succeeded Jefferson. Although his intellect made him a giant, and Jefferson a midget by comparison, Madison always had deferred to Jefferson's opinions, and he tried to continue Jefferson's policies. But by 1812, it looked like losing him the next election, so he finally caved in and declared war.

We were lucky in that war that Washington and Adams had built up a good navy before Jefferson got in office. We were also lucky to have a small but very professional corps of officers to serve us, so that we weren't completely reliant upon Jefferson's idiotic policy to defend the nation with militia. The war actually would have had more support if Jefferson had fought it in 1807. But the point of the Chesapeake incident, and literally dozens upon dozens of impressment incidents thereafter lead to that war cannot be ignored (except, of course, for rhetorical reasons if someone were not inclined to agree).

So Brandon, it is quite reasonable to see that we have gone to war in our history without being invaded, but definitely after someone else has started the hostilities. Paasky did not make actual invasion the criterion, but the point is quite clear that we have had good reasons (or venal ones, as in the Mexican and Spanish wars) which have never before included the allegation of a future threat.

I give up, you seem decided not to get the point. There it is, you are right. Can we get back to the subject now?

Hi Setanta, I thought you had died and gone to heaven

To get a handle on this topic, I will need to reread the entire thread.

Is the topic finished?

Are there any other questions we could raise?

I don't believe your statement of wishing Ralpheb well should imbued with petty insults and rude assumptions that it is Ralpheb's job to torture civilians. I don't believe pointing out the fact that he has a B.A. in History and then preceding to give him history lesson serves any merit at all, other then pointing out your obvious disdain for the modern warrior. I would also like to point out in modern it is our politicians (in America) who vote whether or not to go to war. Politicians who are well educated, well bred and elitist. The "penile implant" modern warrior of today is often implanted by politicians and not his fellow warriors.