"riverman" wrote in message
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"Keenan Wellar" wrote in message
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"riverman" wrote in message
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"Keenan Wellar" wrote in message
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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

An interesting post! To be fair, I think growth of US isolationist sentiment
was due to many factors, and not an altogether unreasonable position. In
fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see another round of it. Depending what
George W does over the next 4 years, Americans may become exhausted with
being cast in the role of unilateral global police force, and another
isolationist period might emerge.