"Keenan Wellar" wrote in message
. ..

"riverman" wrote in message
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"Keenan Wellar" wrote in message
. ..
I think you guys are getting hung up on semantic technicalities.

Actually, it's the other way around. I think ou are playing semantics
around the idea of when the US was at war. They were at war the first
time they took a shot, which is particularly obvious in a discussion
about US willingness for involvement in WWII as compared to other
countries.


Well, you can look at it that way, but I look forward to hearing you
explain how the term 'legally' had nothing to do with laws.
:-)

Heh. I'm talking about what meaning people associate with "being at war."
I think for most people the standard is:

1) You declare "we are at war with country x"
2) You gather up a bunch of weapons and hurl them at country x

Well, for the record I agree with your assessment that 'waging war' is the
usual litmus test for whether or not you are 'at' war. But I think that what
a US president is able to do before he manages to sway (or win) public
opinion so that they will not flinch when he sends their kids off to fight
depends a lot on how committed to 'waging war' a country is. Once the
congress has declared war, its pretty much no-holds-barred. But before that
happens, a President (or PM, or whatever) is a bit more careful about how he
'wages' war, because he can easily lose his job if he ****es enough people
off.

For example, Britain certainly declared War much earlier in WW2 than the US
did, and for them, it was total commitment once they did. Our 'ambivalent'
time was similar to the time when Neville Chamberlin did his dancing around,
trying to avoid actual confrontation. But once Britain was into it,
Chamberlain was outed, and Roosevelt did some fancy footwork of his own
because the US public did not feel that we had a dog in that fight.
Personally, I think the Brits (along with the French, for as long as it
lasted) were braver than **** for taking on the German empire!! I think that
the US, not knowing how history would portray the whole thing after the
fact, were a bit late in pitching in....if you can actually say that someone
was 'late in pitching in' to a WAR!

There's a longstanding moral paradox in the states. One side of our brains
says 'wars are bad, avoid wars at all costs.' The other side says 'when
there's a fracas going on, be on the Good Guy's side.' For our own national
ego, we had to convince ourselves that Europe needed us 'over there' to
straighten things out, and that we delayed as long as was morally proper,
but eventually we were the heroes of the day. Of course, less
US-nationalistic minds realize that we just snuck in at the last second and
stole the limelight, because the Brits and others (especially the Brits) had
been toiling all along for years waiting for us to get off our hands. But,
to us Americans, we are the center of the Universe. :-(

--riverman