{"id":211,"date":"2005-04-29T18:08:04","date_gmt":"2005-04-29T23:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=211"},"modified":"2010-12-05T22:18:09","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T03:18:09","slug":"war-powers-war-lies-part-4-willingly-deceived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=211","title":{"rendered":"War Powers, War Lies: Part 4: Willingly Deceived"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Big Picture Home Page<\/a>\u00a0| Previous Big Picture Column<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0 Next Big Picture Column\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

War Powers Page<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Previous War Powers Column<\/a> |\u00a0Next War Powers Column<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

War Powers, War Lies: A Series<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Part 4: Willingly Deceived<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Published in the Maryland Daily Record April 29, 2005\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last time, we considered the dishonesty of President Lyndon Johnson in claiming that North Vietnam had attacked U.S. warships on August 4, 1964, and in denying that he would use as a declaration of war the Tonkin Gulf Resolution he sought, supposedly in consequence of the alleged attack.\u00a0 Appalling though this was, LBJ was merely partaking in an unholy tradition of Presidential dishonesty about matters of war and peace.\u00a0 It is a tradition with two sides, only one of which is the war lies the Presidents tell us.\u00a0 The other side is the complementary lies we tell ourselves.\u00a0 They work well together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A few examples will illustrate the Presidential lies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The start of the Mexican American War in 1846 was one.\u00a0 President James K. Polk sent General Zachary Taylor and about a quarter of the U.S. Army to show the flag in Texas, then freshly annexed to the United States.\u00a0 But not just anywhere in Texas: he dispatched Taylor specifically to the north bank of the Rio Grande.\u00a0 Even granting the Texas annexation a legitimacy the Mexicans categorically denied, there was less legitimacy in Texan and hence U.S. claims to lands between the south bank of the Nueces and the north bank of the Rio Grande \u2013 exactly where Taylor\u2019s men were when Mexican forces attacked them.\u00a0 After word of the attack reached Washington, Polk requested and received a declaration of war, asserting that Mexico had shed American blood on American soil, without specifying where.\u00a0 Historian General John S.D. Eisenhower has too charitably commented: \u201cThe kindest thing that can be said about Polk\u2019s message is that he probably believed it himself.\u201d\u00a0 Polk repeated the vague assertion a number of times as the war ground on.\u00a0 In December 1847 Congressman Abraham Lincoln rose in the House to demand that Polk identify the exact spot where the attack had taken place.\u00a0 He repeated the challenge on two occasions in 1848.\u00a0 Polk ignored him, and Lincoln\u2019s own patriotism came under fire for having dared to question the President in wartime.\u00a0 Having successfully used the distortion to stir up public opinion, Polk simply moved on.\u00a0 His diary revealed that he had been planning to ask Congress for a declaration of war before he had ever heard of the attack anyway.\u00a0 The truth mattered even less to Polk, perhaps, because after the War, the U.S. did indisputably extend to the Rio Grande.\u00a0 Victors write the history books.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A century later, Franklin Roosevelt had led a recalcitrant nation both into and out of war with steps he did not acknowledge.\u00a0 Before World War II, he had used sophistry to violate the 1937 Neutrality Act with the Lend Lease program, knowing full well it was likely to lead to war.\u00a0 He lied to the public about Axis weapons, and promised during the 1940 election campaign that Americans would not be sent to fight in foreign wars while intending and eventually delivering the opposite.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One can reasonably argue that these lies going into World War II truly served a salutary purpose, given that World War II was a \u201cright war\u201d if there ever was one, not to mention inevitable, and these lies positioned us better for the war to come.\u00a0 But Roosevelt\u2019s lies on the way out were for far less admirable goals, and they wrought enormous mischief.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In February 1945, with the successful conclusion of the war in plain view, the leaders of the principal Allied powers, Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, and Winston Churchill of Great Britain, met at the Crimean seaside resort of Yalta.\u00a0 Roosevelt needed to induce the Soviets to join in the war against Japan, and wanted to persuade them to join the United Nations.\u00a0 The Soviets were agreeable, but demanded and received a quid pro quo: Western acquiescence in Soviet domination of postwar Eastern Europe.\u00a0 Roosevelt promised not to interfere with the Soviet fixing of the upcoming Polish elections, a fix that would have the result of turning Poland into a Soviet satellite nation.\u00a0 Effectively, Roosevelt (along with Churchill) sold out Eastern Europe to achieve larger goals.\u00a0 But that is not what he told the U.S. Congress on March 1, 1945, in a speech to a joint session.\u00a0 Instead, he said that Stalin had signed on to the notion of a \u201cstrong\u201d and \u201cindependent\u201d Poland, and represented that there had not even been discussions of the Soviets entering the war with Japan.\u00a0 A month later he died, leaving his successor, Harry Truman, and the American people, clueless as to what had really been agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There were at least arguable \u201creasons of state\u201d for the concessions Roosevelt made.\u00a0 And there were apparent good military intelligence reasons for lying about the concessions Roosevelt had received in return.\u00a0 But the consequences of this act of Presidential dishonesty were utterly poisonous, as Eric Alterman has recently shown.\u00a0 He points out that when the Soviets collected on their half of the deal, the U.S. public and politicians viewed Soviet establishment of the Warsaw Pact as far more treacherous than it really was.\u00a0 Instead of coming across as Moscow collecting its fair share of the war spoils and enhancing its security with tacit American assent, this looked to be the opening of a Cold War of Soviet aggression, which in fact and partly in consequence it became.\u00a0 When U.S. leaders denounced the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, this was in turn perceived as double-crossing by the Soviets.\u00a0 That is not to suggest that Roosevelt\u2019s lies caused the Cold War; but it is arguable that some of the worst excesses could have been avoided.\u00a0 If Roosevelt had said outright that he had let the Russians have Poland, and if he had told America the reasons why, he might have prevented the internecine U.S. bloodletting that followed during the McCarthy era.\u00a0 He might have avoided driving the Soviets and Red Chinese into each other\u2019s arms.\u00a0 It might have been a kinder, gentler Cold War.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Similar lies covered up our extrication from war \u2013 or in this case near-war — again during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.\u00a0 We now know that President John Kennedy did not secure the Russian withdrawal of the Cuban missiles merely by being tough and blockading Cuba.\u00a0 In fact what had really happened was exactly what President Kennedy and his men were then and later so emphatic to deny.\u00a0 Kennedy had made a secret deal with Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev under which we in exchange agreed to (and did) withdraw Jupiter missiles from Turkey.\u00a0 This myth, that by standing tall in the saddle we had cowed the Communists, became part of the Kennedy legend \u2013 and part of what LBJ thought he had to live up to when, in early 1964, it sank in with him that America\u2019s South Vietnamese venture was failing.\u00a0 Johnson expressed more than once the feeling that in handling Vietnam he had to emulate Kennedy\u2019s supposed toughness.\u00a0 Kennedy had pretended to the world he had been willing to lead America to the brink of nuclear confrontation with Russia.\u00a0 (\u201cPay any price, bear any burden.\u201d) Johnson felt he was expected to do the same.\u00a0 And if he ever forgot, there were both Kennedy loyalists (to whom Johnson would always appear an unworthy interloper) and Republican hawks who would and did remind Johnson publicly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And on the other hand, if Johnson chose to lie, he knew that he could get away with it.\u00a0 Presidents always get away with it.\u00a0 The deceptions of President Polk about Mexico and President Johnson about Vietnam bear an uncanny resemblance to the well-known deceptions of President George W. Bush about Iraq.\u00a0 Over the years the American public seems to have grown no less trustful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why is this?\u00a0 I do not think it is simply that, as Bertrand Russell said, \u201cMan is a credulous animal.\u201d\u00a0 Given our undeniable record of literally hundreds of deployments of military force from the Indian Wars to the present, we are obviously a war-like people.\u00a0 We like to use military force and we like the things that military force can attain for us.\u00a0 There is nothing necessarily wrong with that when we are using force to defend ourselves.\u00a0 But oftentimes (in Mexico and Iraq for instance) we are the aggressor \u2013 a label we understandably would rather not acknowledge.\u00a0 We want to feel good about ourselves, and in Presidential war lies we are never the aggressor. We would rather think of ourselves as being what Ronald Reagan (quoting John Winthrop)[1] called us: A City on a Hill,[2] meaning a place set apart from the rest of the world, distinguished by high purpose and lofty principles, with a God-given mission to set an example to other lands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The reality, however, is different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fact the hill we sit on was occupied by brutal theft.\u00a0 Only a tiny minority of our population is comprised of Native Americans, the only truly rightful inheritors of the continent.\u00a0 The rest of us are here because the founders of our nation and generations of their forbears and descendants took advantage of disease, armed aggression, and broken treaties to wrest the nation and the continent from its original owners.\u00a0 (If you need a refresher on the subject, visit the new National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, and let the 4th<\/sup> Floor docents remind you.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fact we are a nation whose economy was jump-started with slave labor.\u00a0 We now profess much concern about human rights worldwide.\u00a0 Yet our national fortune was first made in large part because we tolerated for hundreds of years systematic and blatant abuse of the rights of millions of Africans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fact we act as a Nation from a keen sense of our own best interest most of the time.\u00a0 Our foreign policy is not driven by any consistent commitment to peace, justice or democracy.\u00a0 If it were, then the histories of many lands would be far different.\u00a0 Imagine El Salvador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile or Brazil, to choose some piquant examples, had we not trained torturers and disappearers, and financed the suppression of indigenous tribes, the too-cheap and too-fast exploitation of natural resources, and the corruption of politicians, to smooth the way of U.S. business.\u00a0 If we had cared as much about simple human decency as we had claimed, then surely we would have come more quickly and effectively to the aid of the Bosnians and the Rwandans, who had the fatal misfortune of having little of commercial value to offer us.\u00a0 We would have seen to it that the wealth our thirst for oil created in countries like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Indonesia or the wealth generated by our need for the minerals of South Africa were more equitably shared amongst the populace who lacked legal title, but who were the equitable owners of these common resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, like the nations of the Old World we have often professed to despise, we act on the basis of Realpolitik<\/em> and shape our principles to our ends.\u00a0 Scorning Woodrow Wilson\u2019s ideal of \u201copen treaties, openly arrived at,\u201d we do what Roosevelt did at Yalta, and Kennedy with the Cubans: make agreements that receive publicity only if and when it suits everyone\u2019s end to publicize them.\u00a0 And that is the best-case scenario.\u00a0 Frequently racism and xenophobia supercede even self-interest.\u00a0 Our proxy wars in Central and South America against indigenous populations (to be discussed later on) are good examples.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And in fact we follow leaders who lie.\u00a0 Not only the worst of them, but the best of them, lie to us, like (to choose some examples I have already discussed in this series) Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Kennedy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They lie successfully because they say what we want to hear.\u00a0 We want the wars but not the guilt.\u00a0 Even when we act like Lieutenant William Calley at the massacre of My Lai, we want to feel like John Wayne in The Green Berets<\/em>.\u00a0 Presidential war lies told by Presidential war liars make it possible.\u00a0 We keep voting for liars to sugarcoat our wars, and we keep getting what we elect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are usually satisfied.\u00a0 Yet there is the occasional buyer\u2019s regret.\u00a0 Next time, we shall see what happened when Congress experienced buyer\u2019s regret after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Winthrop’s City upon a Hill, 1630<\/em>.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First Conservative Political Action Conference, 1\/15\/74<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn<\/p>\n

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War Powers Page<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Previous War Powers Column<\/a> |\u00a0Next War Powers Column<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Big Picture Home Page\u00a0| Previous Big Picture Column\u00a0|\u00a0 Next Big Picture Column\u00a0\u00a0 War Powers Page\u00a0|\u00a0Previous War Powers Column |\u00a0Next War Powers Column\u00a0 War Powers, War Lies: A Series \u00a0Part 4: Willingly Deceived \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Published in the Maryland Daily Record April 29, 2005\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last time, we considered the dishonesty of President Lyndon Johnson in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[383,410,402,412,1546,630,393,382,395,409,377,387,106,381,336,136,403,416,334,392,397,108,380,420,406,388,399,386,355,394,422,423,408,407,385,310,415,398,419,391,384,317,401,379,396,354,404,316,337,277,417,267,55,413,414,421,378,400,276,424,389,315,390,335,405,418],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bigpicture","tag-abraham-lincoln","tag-argentina","tag-bertrand-russell","tag-bosnia","tag-brazil","tag-chile","tag-cold-war","tag-congressman-abraham-lincoln","tag-cuban-missile-crisis","tag-el-salvador","tag-eric-alterman","tag-fdr","tag-franklin-d-roosevelt","tag-general-john-s-d-eisenhower","tag-general-zachary-taylor","tag-george-w-bush","tag-indian-wars","tag-indonesia","tag-james-k-polk","tag-japan","tag-jfk","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-john-s-d-eisenhower","tag-john-wayne","tag-john-winthrop","tag-joseph-stalin","tag-jupiter-missiles","tag-lend-lease-program","tag-lyndon-baines-johnson","tag-mccarthy-era","tag-my-lai","tag-my-lai-massacre","tag-national-museum-of-the-american-indian","tag-native-americans","tag-neutrality-act-of-1937","tag-nicaragua","tag-nigeria","tag-nikita-khruschev","tag-openly-arrived-at","tag-poland","tag-president-abraham-lincoln","tag-president-franklin-roosevelt","tag-president-george-w-bush","tag-president-james-polk","tag-president-john-f-kennedy","tag-president-lyndon-johnson","tag-president-ronald-reagan","tag-president-woodrow-wilson","tag-president-zachary-taylor","tag-presidential-lies","tag-realpolitik","tag-rio-grande","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-rwanda","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-the-green-berets","tag-tonkin-gulf-resolution","tag-turkey","tag-war-powers","tag-william-calley","tag-winston-churchill","tag-woodrow-wilson","tag-yalta-conference","tag-zachary-taylor","tag-city-on-a-hill","tag-open-treaties"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1601,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/1601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}