The Surge Is Working

To The Anti-War Democrats

To all the Anti-War Democrats that say the Republican President is a murderer, liar, and war monger maybe you should look into the past Democrat Presidents before casting stones. Below is a list of Democrat Presidents that took us into war, sent our troops into foreign countries as peace keeping force for a limited period of time, or stood by while genocide was committed and did nothing. Before you throw it out as a right wing conspiracy, it came direct from Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia.

James Polk- "Under James Knox Polk, the United States grew by more than a million square miles, across Texas and New Mexico to California and even Oregon. More than any other President, Polk exercised "Manifest Destiny," a phrase coined by a magazine to express the conviction that the United States was entitled to rule as much of the continent as it could acquire. He successfully waged war against Mexico, and thereby obtained for the U.S. most of its present boundaries as a nation." He was accused of lying to Congress in order to declare war on Mexico.

Woodrow Wilson- "In foreign affairs, Wilson was determined to revise the imperialist practices of earlier administrations, promising independence to the Philippines and making Puerto Ricans American citizens. In the European war, American neutrality ended when the Germans refused to suspend submarine warfare after 120 Americans were killed aboard the British liner Lusitania and a secret German offer of a military alliance with Mexico against the United States was uncovered. In 1917, Congress voted overwhelmingly to declare war on Germany. With the nation at war, Wilson set aside his domestic agenda to concentrate on a full-scale mobilization of the economy and industry. Conformity and aggressive patriotism became the order of the day. Private patriotic organizations persecuted dissenters and anyone suspected of political radicalism, and the administration sponsored Espionage and Sedition Acts that outlawed criticism of the government, the armed forces, and the war effort. Violators of the law were imprisoned or fined, and even mainstream publications were censored or banned."

Franklin Roosevelt- "Hamstrung in the 1930s by domestic economic woes and a strong isolationist bloc in Congress and the public, FDR confronted Germany and Japan only tentatively as those powers looked to establish dominance in Europe and Asia, respectively. Nevertheless, Roosevelt did extend massive amounts of aid to Great Britain as that nation successfully held out against the Nazi onslaught during 1940 and 1941 Working with America's allies in the Pacific, FDR also tried to contain the Japanese threat. The Hoover administration had acquiesced in Japan's flagrant occupation in late 1931 of Manchuria, a Chinese territory, rich in minerals, and the Roosevelt Administration proved no more willing in the intervening years to actively oppose Japanese aggression. Instead, like Hoover before him, Roosevelt merely refused to recognize Japanese control of Manchuria. Likewise, Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 provoked no significant response from the United States. The leaders of Japan and Germany surely noted the democracies' failure to respond to aggression in Manchuria and Ethiopia. The immense challenges that Roosevelt faced in the European conflict were compounded by the worsening situation in Asia, and particularly by the downturn in U.S.-Japanese relations. In 1937, that relationship deteriorated further after Japan attacked China, a nation to which a number of Americans had a strong attachment. FDR offered aid to China, although the neutrality laws and the power of the isolationist bloc in American politics ensured that such assistance remain extremely limited. Instead, FDR's strategy, in concert with other Western nations, was to contain and isolate Japan economically and politically. If he could keep the "Japanese dog" -- as Churchill referred to Japan -- at bay, FDR reasoned that he could deal with what he saw as the more pressing German problem. By isolating Japan, the United States and its allies exacerbated Japan's fears of being denied access to the resources it needed to prosecute further its war in China. By the summer of 1941, Japan's leaders felt increasingly hemmed in by a coalition of America, Britain, China, and the Dutch (the ABCD powers) and adopted overtly aggressive foreign and military policies. War came, but in a most unexpected fashion. On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, America's vital outpost in the Pacific." Some people accused Roosevelt of using Japan as an excuse to enter WWII in denfense of Britain and France.

Harry Truman- "The German leader Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin only two weeks into Truman's presidency and the allies declared victory in Europe on May 7, 1945. The war in the Pacific, however, was far from being over; most experts believed it might last another year and require an American invasion of Japan. The U.S. and British governments, though, had secretly begun to develop the world's most deadly weapon -- an atomic bomb. Upon its completion and successful testing in the summer of 1945, Truman approved its use against Japan. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the U.S. Army Air Force dropped atomic bombs on two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, immediately killing upwards of 100,000 people (with perhaps twice that number dying from the aftereffects of radiation poisoning). Japanese emperor Hirohito agreed to surrender days later, bringing World War II to a close. Significant foreign policy challenges persisted into Truman's second term. The President committed the United States to the defense of South Korea in the summer of 1950 after that nation, an American ally, was invaded by its communist neighbor, North Korea. The American military launched a counterattack that pushed the North Koreans back to the Chinese border, whereupon the Chinese entered the war in the fall of 1950. The conflict settled into a bloody and grisly stalemate that would not be resolved until Truman left office in 1953."

John Kennedy- Cuba "An invasion of Cuba was to be sponsored covertly and carried out by CIA-trained anti-Castro refugees. Assured by military advisers and the CIA that the prospects for success were good, Kennedy gave the green light. In the early hours of April 17, 1961, approximately 1,500 Cuban refugees landed at Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on Cuba's southern coast. A series of crucial assumptions built into the plan proved false and Castro's forces quickly overwhelmed the refugee force. Moreover, the Kennedy administration's cover story collapsed immediately. It soon became clear that despite the President's denial of U.S. involvement in the attempted coup, Washington was indeed behind it. Soviet Union-The misadventure cost Kennedy dearly. Still recovering from this humiliating political defeat, Kennedy met with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961. Khrushchev renewed his threat to "solve" the long-running Berlin problem unilaterally, an announcement that in turn forced Kennedy to renew his pledge to respond to such a move with every means at his disposal, including nuclear weapons. In a surprise move two months later, in mid-August 1961, the Soviets and East Germans constructed a wall separating East and West Berlin, providing the Cold War with a tangible incarnation of the Iron Curtain. Vietnam-America had been sending military advisers there since the mid-1950s to help prevent a Communist takeover of the Southeast Asian nation. In 1961, Kennedy increased this allotment and ordered in the Special Forces, an elite army unit, to train the South Vietnamese in counter-insurgency warfare. But war continued to spread, and by the end of Kennedy's presidency, 16,000 American military advisers were serving in Vietnam."

Lyndon Johnson- "When Johnson took office, he affirmed the Kennedy administration's commitments. He quickly approved NSAM 273, a national security agency memorandum, on November 26, 1963, which directed the U.S. government "to assist the people and Government of South Vietnam to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy." When counterinsurgency failed, Johnson began to escalate U.S. commitments. On February 13, 1965, Johnson authorized Rolling Thunder, the sustained bombing of North Vietnam. On March 8, 1965, two Marine battalions, 3,500 troops, went ashore near Da Nang to protect the airfields, with orders to shoot only if shot at -- this was the first time U.S. combat forces had been sent to mainland Asia since the Korean War. On April 3, Johnson authorized two additional Marine battalions, one Marine air squadron, and an increase in logistical support units of 20,000 men. He also authorized troops to go on active "search and destroy" missions. By mid-April, Marines had moved to full-scale offensive operations. By November 1965, there were 175,000 troops and by 1966, an additional 100,000. The number would surge to 535,000 by the end of Johnson's presidency." People still accuse Johnson of lying about the Gulf of Tonkin attack in order to escalate the war.

William Clinton- Somalia- "What started out as a humanitarian mission to combat famine grew into a bloody military struggle, with the bodies of dead American soldiers dragged through the streets of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu in October 1993. Public support for the American mission waned, and Clinton announced a full withdrawal of U.S. forces, which took place in March 1994; United Nations (UN) peacekeeping troops remained in the country until the spring of 1995. The intervention ultimately accomplished little in Somalia: warlords remained in control and no functioning government was restored in the country after the United States and the United Nations left. The failure of American troops to be properly equipped for the mission led ultimately to the resignation of Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, and created the impression of a President ill-prepared for foreign affairs." Rwanda, "In April 1994, a vast killing spree broke out in Rwanda, a nation located in central Africa. An estimated 800,000 Tutsi and their defenders were murdered in a government-sponsored genocide. With the failure in Somalia still very much in the minds of American policymakers, neither the United States nor the United Nations moved aggressively to stop the slaughter. In 1998, the Clintons embarked on an extensive six-nation tour of Africa, during which the President stopped briefly in Rwanda to meet with survivors of the civil war and to issue an apology for actions not taken." Balkans- "Clinton sent a peacekeeping force of 20,000 American troops (part of a larger NATO deployment) into the region to enforce a cease-fire that was to be followed by free elections in September 1996. American and NATO troops enforced an uneasy settlement that stabilized war-torn Bosnia with no American casualties." Eleven years later our troops are still there. Serbia- "In 1999, Clinton moved with NATO to begin a massive bombing campaign against the Serbian government to end its "ethnic cleansing" of Albanians in the Kosovo region. With no American battle casualties during the fighting, U.S. troops joined British, French, and other NATO forces to occupy Kosovo as peacekeepers under an agreement worked out with Yugoslavia." As of 2007 our military is still there. During Clintons 8 years in office the United States or its interest abroad was attacked by Al Qaeda countless times with little or no response. This left the United States looking weak or unwilling to defend itself from aggression.

Before throwing stones at the present President, ask yourself is he really any different than past leaders responding to what they believed was in the interest of our country.