Interesting War Things To Consider...

[Conan71]

I kind of ruminated on this over the weekend and figured I'd float it out there to get other's opinions.  I didn't feel it really fit on the WTC discussion.

I've tried to figure out how the "war mongering" Democrats, have now become the pacifists.  I'm not trying to stir controversy, just examine how the perception of war has changed in the political parties and how instead of it uniting us all in American pride, and everyone getting behind our leader, it's tearing our country in half.  Prior to Viet Nam, I don't see a point in history where war was viewed with such cynicism.

Facts: in the last century Democrat presidents have gotten us into four protracted foreign conflicts, Republican presidents have gotten us into two, if you care to consider Desert Storm as a protracted conflict.

Woodrow Wilson, a "conservative" Democrat, according to his biography posted on The White House web site, got us into WWI and saw it through to its end- mission accomplished.

FDR got us involved in WWII, Truman brought us out victorious.

Harry Truman got us into Korea.  Eisenhower got us out.

Kennedy got us into Viet Nam, Johnson escalated our involvement, Nixon eventually got us out.

To many of the younger people in the late '60's and early '70's the Viet Nam war was Nixon's war because he did not move rapidly enough to get us out.  Since he was the figurehead of the Republican party, many of the people who dissented on the war registered as Democrats.

IMO, Viet Nam represented little threat to our national security.  Many of those protestors in the late '60's were too young to remember when we did have wars that were about issues of national security.  These days, those same people, and others in younger generations have become anti-war, regardless of the circumstances.  It would almost seem that part of registering as a Democrat is being anti-war.

Now, many of those Viet Nam protestors are prominent in our political land-scape and appear to hate war so much their hatred blinds them when there is a legitimate issue of national security at stake.  One who served in Viet Nam, John Kerry, was for the invasion on Iraq when we went in.  When he developed presidential aspirations, he knew the bulk of the people he needed on his side to get elected were against war.

Unless I've mis-read thousands of pages of US history, we used to unite in times of war.

I'm just curious if Hubert Humphrey had won the election in 1968, if many of those people who registered as Democrats during Nixon's administration, would have registered as Republicans and tried to bring more of the liberal social programs espoused by Johnson ("The Great Society") to the Republican party, and the Republicans would be labeled the "liberal" party these days.

I believe there are politicians in Washington, who are privvy to more intelligence about our military operations than the average citizen, who deep down inside believe we are doing the right thing in our foreign policy.  However, they feel more pressured by their constituency, who are not privvy to the same level of intellegence on the matters at hand.  So those politicians come out against the war to win votes back home, so they can keep a cushy government job.

I have wondered countless times, had Al Gore been president and followed the same plan of attack as Bush, if it would be the Republicans who were coming out against the war, in absence of anything else to impune his credibility.  

Thoughts? Comments? Flames?