American mythology (Ref: Fred Thompson) [Barf Alert]

The Ottawa Citizen ^ | September 21, 2007 | Dan Gardner

[rogue yam]

Thompson and his speechwriters know that a large swath of the American public believes the United States, alone in the world, fights wars to liberate oppressed people far away. America may occasionally make mistakes -- only very rarely, of course -- but it is always pure of heart.

The writer is a liar. Fred said neither of these things and most conservatives believe neither of these things. Fred said, and most conservatives believe, that America has done more for others' liberty and that America is usually relatively goodhearted.

[SuziQ]

it is widely believed his smart and ambitious wife cajoled him into running.

Oh really? Widely believed by WHOM exactly? Sounds like someone is trying to start another negative rumor about Fred, in order for it to be lazily picked up by others.

[SuziQ]

But what about the claim that more British died in the 2nd world war than Americans in all of our wars?

Those British didn't all die fighting for the freedom of folks other than themselves. Some died fighting the enemy that had attacked their homeland, and was threatening to invade it. Or they died in defense of the other members of the British Commonwealth. Thus, they were fighting for their own liberation. Other Britons died in the relentless bombing by the Nazis. It doesn't make their sacrifice unworthy, or ignoble in any way.

America was not in imminent danger of being invaded, as was England or other countries in Europe. We didn't have to go from island to island fighting the Japanese in order to make them leave our homeland. We did that to liberate the folks who had been conquered and enslaved by the Japanese. We crossed the Atlantic and did the same for all those countries that had been conquered by Hitler, and whose people were systematically being slaughtered by his troops. We didn't HAVE to do either of those things, but we did, and our soldiers died for others, rather than for themselves or their fellow Americans.

Fred wasn't trying to be triumphalist, just stating the fact that our military is not one of conquest for imperialist reasons, but of liberation.

[SuziQ]

Don't confuse overall deaths with what Fred is saying. He's speaking specifically about soldiers who are there for no other reason than liberation of people who are not their countrymen.

The Soviets were defending their homeland, as were the Brits and the French. Yes, they went into Europe, sometimes outside their borders, but only because that's where the enemy happened to be. They were trying to vanquish Germany so it would no longer threaten them directly.

America wasn't sending her soldiers across the Atlantic ocean to fight to protect our homeland directly, because we weren't in danger of being invaded by Germany. We just went, as Allies, to help Britain, France, and the Soviets, push Germany back to defeat, and free those who had been, or were under threat of being, subjugated by the Third Reich.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I shouldn’t argue this point any more, but it would be wrong to say that our entrance into WW2 wasn’t at least in part because we decided finally that the war COULD hurt us directly. Until Pearl Harbor, we were staying out of the conflict because it didn’t effect us.

I say I shouldn’t argue because I agree with the general point made by Thompson — we as much as any other country do our part to make the world a safer place.

But we do so at least in part for selfish reasons. We don’t get involved in wars where we see no self-interest.

[SuziQ]

We don’t get involved in wars where we see no self-interest.

Of course not, but we get into them for additional reasons as well, usually for the liberation of a particular people, or to stop the movement of forces that would deny freedom to people, not just our own.