ANOTHER CROSSROADS?

By Edwin Cooney

Let’s see now, as Americans ponder what the Obama administration should do about Syria, it marks the fifth time in the last 22 years that the American people have been faced with the prospect of going to war.  That includes:

1990-91 -- the first Gulf War in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait;

1999 -- when the United States joined NATO to stop Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina;

2003 -- the second Gulf War, due to Saddam Hussein’s possession of “weapons of mass destruction”; and

2009 -- when President Obama decided to send 30,000 American troops to clean up al-Qaida and aggressive Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Of course, Congress has never declared any of these “wars,” but it has funded all of them (although some will insist that Japan and Saudi Arabia largely funded the first Gulf War).  So the question is: what has been the determining factor in our decision to go to war in the past?  How many wars has the United States engaged in since its founding in 1776?  I count 13 foreign wars and 4 domestic ones. The domestic wars were the Seminole Wars of 1817-18, 1835-42 and 1855-58, and our Civil War which the North never declared, but the South most proudly declared against the United States on May 6^th, 1861.

These foreign wars include the following: the first war with the Barbary Pirates of Tripoli in 1801 (a defensive war undeclared but fully funded by Congress that lasted off and on until 1805).

Next came 1812 when a divided Congress declared war against Great Britain largely due to its policy of economic strangulation. Also, it remained the Royal Navy’s policy to impress American merchant seaman into its service on the high seas.

With the War of 1812 over, there came the second Barbary Pirate War beginning in 1815. It ended with a treaty forever banning the payment of “tribute” for the right of commerce on the Mediterranean.

In 1846,we went to war with Mexico not to protect our sovereignty, but over a border dispute that gained us California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Colorado.

In 1898, we went to war against Spain due to Spanish aggression against our navy battleship “The USS Maine,” but we were glad to accept additional booty such as Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

Traditionally, historians say we went to war in 1917 due to Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. However, a note to Mexico was intercepted by British intelligence promising Mexico the return of California and the territories we gained after the Mexican War if Mexico would attack the United States.

World War II which many believe was a mere continuance of World War I ("the war to end all wars”) is generally regarded as perhaps the most necessary war in history conducted as it was mainly against a clearly crazed Adolf Hitler.

Finally, there were the Korea and Vietnam wars, both undeclared, which were fought to stop the imminent advance of “world communism."  Add the four wars we’ve engaged in since 1990-91 to these nine and you get a total of 13 foreign wars.

Since the “police action” in Korea was taken by the United States (as the most powerful state under the authority of the newly created United Nations), war critics have been lavish in their criticism that Congress hasn’t carried out its responsibilities of declaring war under the constitution.  However, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II all constitute only five of the thirteen foreign wars in which we have taken part.  These conflicts don’t include our 1954 bombing in Nicaragua, our 1983 invasion of Granada or our 1989 incursion into Panama to take its sovereign leader into captivity for international drug trafficking.

In all 13 or 17 of these incidents (take your pick) our patience has been clearly tried and in some instances our economic prosperity or dominance has been threatened.  However, only in World War II has our actual sovereignty been an issue unless one takes seriously the possible 1917 Germany-inspired attack by Mexico!  Hence, it’s hard to conclude otherwise than that we go to war not so much because we must, but when we think we can.  For instance, we’ve easily survived the debacle in Vietnam but proponents of that war insist that we could and should have won it.  Thus, in their eyes our participation in that war wasn’t so much a matter of survival as it was a matter of will.

Now we’re at another crossroads!  Should we send men and women to die in Syria because we can or only if we ought?  What determines the difference between can and ought?  Have America’s friends and allies always been morally superior to the al-Assad family?  If so, is it our obligation to rid the world of the bad -- starting with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?  If so, where does that obligation stop?  Finally, wasn’t it only 22 years ago when, in the wake of the end of Soviet Communism, we declared ourselves victors in the “Cold War” and clear masters of our international fate?  How well, in your estimation, have we done since then in securing that fate?

So, we may well be at another life and death crossroads!  To paraphrase old Harry Truman, any fool can go out and start a war at any time.  Thus, to fight when we can may be both tempting and easy, but I insist that we should only fight if we must!

Okay, Mr. President, I guess it's your call!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY