About the fact that nobody declares war any more, CL says,
“Since this is a seminar, I’ll unashamedly add some other thoughts on this topic:”
“All of these banana republics (from Korea to Iraq) that we’ve attacked–but haven’t “declared war” on–have had -0- capability of performing a real military operation in the United States. Is it possible a “declaration of war” would only be considered for an “equal?” Bullies don’t usually make a big deal of beating-up a pipsqueak.”
“To follow the question of what constitutes a “real military operation” in the nuclear age would take the discussion way off course.”
“But maybe that’s another reason “declarations of war” aren’t used anymore: Did the end of the “conventional warfare” era make such declarations obsolete?”
“And we haven’t established what the actual purposes of such declarations were–other than as matters of convention, I mean. Did they have a purpose other than pomp and circumstance? If not, wouldn’t today’s omnipresent media be more effective rousing for war than a carnival barker type declaration to be reprinted next week on the front page of the county newspaper? Maybe it’s not the new military age, but the new propaganda age, that has made declarations of war superfluous.”
Comment by CL — 12/22/
CL, as to your first sentence, I like to think I have bravely led the way.
If somebody has the guts to hand out the BS I so often write with complete shamelessness, you have complete license, too.
You have hit on oint I mentioned but never thought of. I wrote a piece below about how at least part of the rationale for “nonproliferation (Anonymous some points about that)” is that we take it for granted that former colonial powers can handle nukes but their former colonies can’t.
I agree with that, but all the people who are against proliferation now called my attitudes evil and racist.
You started by referring to the countries we are fighting in a banana republics and you also said, with perfect legtimacy, that we don’t declare war on such people. You said, “Is it possible a “declaration of war” would only be considered for an “equal?” Bullies don’t usually make a big deal of beating-up a pipsqueak.”
That is very much the attitude everyone takes for granted. The United States of America does not declare war on pipsqueaks, any more than General Lee would have dueled with a hunk of white trash.
Lurking behind this is an attitude. And it is not YOUR attitude, it is one you have pointed to.
Yes, a declaration of war would imply an equality we do not even consider granting.
But I repeat, if the Gospel we preach that every country is equal and sovereign, why do we NOT declare them EQUAL?
Let me repeat this for Anonymous’s benefit. If you hire less than the required number of minorities, it is assumed that racism is at least ONE of your motivations.
But if no non-white country should have nukes, if all those fully sovereign little countries ar enot worth a declaration of war because it implies equality, no one assumes that any part of the motivation is racist.
Not a bit of it.
As to the PURPOSE of a declaration of war, we have had a demonstration of how practical a matter that is at Gitmo.
Many, many things used to change the moment war was declared.
But your last sentence has made me think of what might be the clincher.
In Vietnam only the poor people who couldn’t dodge the draft in college were sent out to die. In a state of war, Jane Fonda and all the college protestors would have been subject to charges of collaboration.
To put it simply, once war is declared it directly affects EVERYBODY. In Korea and Vietnam and Iraq we could do anything we wanted to with the grunts, but the media and everybody who counted were left out of it.
Could it be that a major explanation of the absence of war declarations results from class distinctions among those who declare they are against all class distinctions and racism among those who denounce racism?
CL, you sure helped me get some thinking done.
#1 by Peter on 12/23/2005 - 2:00 pm
Bob, CL is right. I think you seemed to be saying that not making a Declaration of War is a clever ploy which increases the stronger power’s likelihood of success, as if it would be required to fight the war with an arm tied behind its back. Following is a long rant.
Basically this means that if the weaker side simply does not do one small thing, then the stronger side will throw down its arms and refuse to wage war. In the US, this sort of thinking dates to the WbtS, that there would have been no war if SC had simply not taken back Fort Sumter.
The thinking continued in WWI, and had the Germans just ignored the armaments on Lusitania, had not taken out full page ads in the NY Times to warn everyone not to board the ship, and had not sunk it, then they would have won the war (clearly and with no armistice).
The thinking continued in WWII, when FDR was waging war on Europe with all but US troops and had declared war on the Axis partner Japan. Somehow, if Germany had not countered the declaration with the statement that “a state of war has existed between the US and Germany,” then Germany would have won WWII! However, FDR had found an illegal way around every other restriction of US participation in WWII, so what would hold him back from sending troops now that he had gotten a Declaration of War on an Axis partner? The Germans of the era were known for ridiculous thoroughness and horrible pains-taking. It would be odd if they made this important decision if they saw another option. Further, the Germans believed they would lose the war with the US. However, FDR wanted war against Germany, and was in fact already waging war against Germany, and was escalating that war by turns. Germany was scarcely fighting back (the Communists had their full attention). If Hitler had not made his speech saying that “a state of war existed” there is no reason to believe that FDR would have thrown down his arms. The speech was made to publicize to Germany and the international community just how FDR had been waging war against Europe since 1939. The speech did not give FDR an excuse to wage war against Germany. FDR was already doing that. The speech did not give FDR an excuse to escalate the war. He was already escalating the war.
Had Hitler not made his speech, FDR would have sent troops against Europe anyway under a different excuse, and you would be writing here that Hitler should have declared war right after Pearl Harbor so he could have taken precautions at the earliest possible moment and brought the greatest publicity to FDR’s war by publicizing an account of it right after Pearl Harbor, while the world was watching.
A formal Declaration of War is often only for internal politics. It ensures that war is undertaken legally by a country’s own rules. In the US, it means that the Commander in Chief has the legal right to wage war. Calling a war a “police action” and authorizing troops for the war is just a ruse admitting that the CoC is illegally waging war. If two countries are at peace, then a Declaration can be an eleventh hour tool to encourage an enemy to submit. But if hostilities are already underway, then the enemy does not need the enemy’s Declaration of War. If you are already fighting, a Declaration of War is a little late. If a stronger party wants war, it does not matter if the weaker country declares war or not. Not declaring war would be a feckless defense.
Bob’s argument may work in the rare case that a weaker country wants to harm a stronger. A weaker country that wants to harm a stronger country without a full-scale war will not declare war. For example, Mexico is harming the US right now knowing that it has the cooperation of our leaders. Tom Tancredo says that the Mexican army escorts drug shipments and illegal aliens invading the US. On occasion, they have fired upon and threatened to fire upon the undermanned US Border Patrol. These are acts of war. But if Mexico actually declared war, it would draw publicity to the border, and US leaders would be forced to ask Mexico to take a low profile for a while.
All the same, the thinking that if a weaker side simply neglects to do one small thing then it will win a war a stronger party wants is not thinking at all. Neglecting certain actions, like issuing an official Declaration of War, or taking back Fort Sumter, or sinking the Lusitania with all its armaments, or allowing enemy weapons inspectors to spy on anything they want only helps the enemy.
When a psychopath wants to kill someone, his demands to the victim are made to make the killing easier for him. Thinking that a small country can neglect one small act and so cancel a stronger party’s plans for war is not thinking at all. It is WORDISM.
#2 by Elizabeth on 12/23/2005 - 6:42 pm
The thinking behind our not declaring war on the countries we have been fighting
is very condescending — as in “We’re bigger, we’re better, we’ll spank you and you’ll
come around pdq.” It also is very akin to this weird — remember, I’m a girl — idea that
if we play fair everybody else will play fair — the ol’ “Playing Fields of Eton”
rubbish.
Some of those people our boys and girls are fighting are allowed BY THEIR RELIGION
to LIE. (This is a tenet of Shi’ite Islam: Shi’ites are allowed to lie to save their
lives when they are being persecuted.)
#3 by LibAnon on 12/23/2005 - 7:17 pm
“Let me repeat this for Anonymous’s benefit. If you hire less than the required number of minorities, it is assumed that racism is at least ONE of your motivations.”
I agree that race is ONE of the motivations behind non-proliferation, simply not the ONLY one. Because the former colonial powers are now controlled by Jews, the situation is more complicated than that. Non-proliferation is now a primarily a matter of pro-Jew/anti-Jew (i.e., “globalism” vs. “nationalism”) and only secondarily a matter of colonist/colony. Zionism and colonialism are historically related and therefore hard to disentangle, but they are not the same.
IN MY OPINION, your analysis was once completely correct. Israel was a former British colony. They won independence in part by waging a terrorist war against the British. For precisely that reason, in the last days of gentile sovereignty in our country, there was resistance within the US government to Israel’s secret and illegal nuclear weapons program. Clark Clifford, one of Washington’s last old-school gentile mandarins, once begged President Johnson to stop Israel’s nuclear weapons program. He said “Mr. President, I don’t want to LIVE in a world where the Israelis have nuclear weapons.” In other words, Clark Clifford thought of the Jews as the Romans had: just another colonized Asiatic people with crazed tribal hatreds and messianic superstitions. God forbid they should have the Bomb.
Lyndon Johnson replied “Don’t bother me with this anymore” and hung up the phone. Johnson knew better than Clifford did that as a result of WW2, colonialism was over and Zionism had begun. That’s why “the West” today tolerates former colonies China, India, Pakistan and (especially) Israel as nuclear powers but not the former white empire Russia, at least not under its currently defiant gentile management.
#4 by willing on 12/24/2005 - 12:45 am
The other side of the coin is that the Congress won’t issue a declaration
of war even when the US got attacked by the military forces of an identifiable
foreign country.The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was an act of war,but the
president didn’t ask for and the Congress never issued a declaration of war against
the Israeli state.Regardless of Congressional cowardice,America has been legally obligated
to be at war since that attack.A declaration of war,as was Congressionally declared for WWII,
legally permitted the government to detain those whose loyalties were considered suspect.Spies
and saboteurs captured and convicted during a declared war are liable to be executed.
IMO,these are additional reasons as to why no more “real” Congressional declarations
of war get issued.
#5 by Peter on 12/24/2005 - 4:05 pm
This is a fascinating discussion in this topic of the seminar.