“Fiddle-dee-dee! War, war, war. This war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring.” Scarlett O’Hara’s first words at the beginning of Gone with the Wind strike an interesting note this week following America’s bombing of Iran. Of course, it’s summer now, and I’ve only had lunch or cocktails and no party yet, but we ramp up things much quicker today than back in 1861.
So let’s talk a little bit about that. Not war exactly, but war talk. Scarlett was talking about the upcoming Civil War, certainly one of the most cussed and discussed wars in our history. Even talking about why that war was fought riles up some folks enough to want to fire on Fort Sumter all over again.
Since then, the United States has been involved in so many various wars and military offenses that it rather boggles the mind. Before we got into World War I, we were involved directly or indirectly in action in Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, China, Japan, Korea, Egypt, Samoa, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Phillipines and Guam. We fought both against and with Mexico during that time. Oh, and the Native Americans–lots of fighting with them, too.
After World War I, which would be one of the few many Americans could even name from that period, we managed to send 5,000 troops as part of an allied effort to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks. They won anyway, and we got the Soviet Union. But then we partnered up with the Soviet Union for World War II. What a world.
World War II was the big one, rarely talked about by those who fought in it. Rationing of everything from gas and tires to sugar and shoes was necessary. A single pound of coffee needed to last five weeks, but at least Americans didn’t have to worry about getting bombs dropped on them.
We were in China for several years after that trying to get Japanese and Koreans out before withdrawing the Marines in June 1949, having only been partially successful as the Communists soon took control.
After that, there was the Korean War, which surely most folks know about and which ended in something of a stalemate. We were back at it in Indonesia and Lebanon, with differing results, and there was the Bay of Pigs in 1961, which didn’t go well for us in Cuba.
Then Vietnam got really hot, after festering around for several years. When it comes to war talk, I can remember there being a lot it when I was still a child. Like World War II, it hit most American families in one way or another. Those eligible for military service and thus subject to being drafted were up against it, regardless of who their daddy might have been. Dodging that draft successfully meant at the very least not getting sent to the most dangerous war zones, and perhaps the easiest way to do so was to sign up for the military in a branch that might allow you to serve yet avoid being a grunt on the ground in Vietnam.
Those were the days when bumper stickers might read “Make Love, not War” or “America, Love it or Leave it.” Not exactly discourse, but you can catch the drift. Anyway, we pretty much lost that one.
After that, we had that failed attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran in 1980 as well as failed allied interventions in Lebanon and Somalia. We had mixed results in Libya, Bosnia and Croatia, but we got the wins in Grenada, Panama and Iraq.
In this century, we had the twenty years of the war in Afghanistan, started in the first year of the Bush presidency, through eight years of Obama, four years of Trump and ended by Joe Biden in the first year of his term. Rather than being credited for getting us out of a failed war that his three predecessors were unable to do, Biden got a good deal of blame for the execution of the withdrawal. No good deed goes unpunished.
I suppose the Iraq War was a case of win some, lose some, at least the one started by Bush. The intervention started by Obama in 2014 was more successful. We had some wins in Pakistan, the Phillipines, Libya and Uganda and a loss in Niger. Today, there are ongoing efforts in Yemen, Somalia, Syria and now Iran. Throw the Gaza Strip into the mix, and that’s about where we are.
Our history is thus peppered with military action. Some of it has been noble and necessary; some of it has been foolish and wasteful. Sometimes we’ve shown our strength, and sometimes we’ve shown our weakness. And some of it has just been flexing our muscles.
Most folks seem more comfortable with situations that are familiar. I certainly fall into that crowd. When I first heard of the bombing undertaken by Trump in Iran, it did feel rather familiar.
But not in the least comfortable.
