Why do Conservatives think only they understand War?

Question

Last time I checked, the Biggest Wars ever fought were World Wars One and Two.

Last time I checked, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were two of the biggest liberals who ever sat in the White
House.

Last time I checked, America won both of those wars.

Last time I checked, the guy in charge when we lost our biggest war (Vietnam) was Nixon, one of the most conservative presidents we ever had. He decided to "cut and run" to use a popular conservative term.

Kennedy was a liberal. He was a war hero.
Jimmy Carter was the last true liberal in the White House. He graduated second in his class from the Naval Academy and served on board a nuclear submarine. Jimmy's son Chip, served as a lowly private in the infantry in the Army in Vietnam.
Probably the most liberal person who ran for President in living memory was George McGovern. He flew bombing missions over Germany.

Woodrow Wilson died of a stroke trying to get everyone to join the League of Nations. Last time I checked, you conservatives hated the UN.

F.D.R. was the biggest proponent of the welfare state in American history. Last time I checked, you conservatives didn't care for that.

By the way, Teddy Roosevelt graduated 22 in his class at Harvard, out of 177.

Eisenhower kept us out of war? I thought someone with a grey bread would have heard of the Bay of Pigs fiasco that he dumped on Kennedy.

Hoover kept us out of War? What? Was the Weimar Republic going to invade us?

Answer 1

I suppose you would call me a liberal. However, I believe that you are generalizing way too much. And the first two answerers have some very good points. In my experience living in the U.S. and observing politics of Reps and Dems, and others, it seems to me that almost always there doesn't seem to be much difference in the way either party looks at war or defense. However, whichever party is out of the White House during a war, the other party will always use it against them in any way they can in order to get into power.

Winning WWII had nothing to do with whether we had a Democrat in the White House or not. Vietnam was clearly not a Democrats war. Nixon happened to get us out, but it was already in the works. Eisenhower kept us out of war, and he also warned of the future "military industrial complex" that I would guess is more of the realm of his own party's members. However, if he lived today, he would probably become a Democrat, as Ret. General Wesley Clark is.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's just wrong to blame one party over another or give either credit for any wars. It's just not that simple. However, there might be one exception, and that is the war in Iraq, since Bush's father started the first one, which we all agree was an O.K. one to start, so that we could protect the oil flow from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. And the second one was started by his crazy a.ss son, a dry drunk, stupid, fool. But here again, the Democrats had to fund the war, or at least they had to vote to fund it along with their Republican counterparts.

Come to think of it, Eisenhower probably wouldn't become a Democrat if he were alive today.

Answer 2

I'm sorry, but there are some things I'd like to explain to you. First of all, you are assuming that Liberals of today equal Liberals of the early 20th Century. This cannot be further from the truth. If Woodrow Wilson was alive today, he'd be considered a raging Conservative. If J.F.K was alive today, he'd be considered a moderate.

Also, I'd like to point out that it was L.B.J., NOT Nixon that got us invovled in Vietnam. A flaming liberal brought us into that conflict. Quite possibly the most liberal president America has yet had.

Another thing to understand is that Liberals of today are isolationists. This is not historically the case. Throughout American history, it has typically been the democrats that were more foreign policy involved, while the Republicans focused domestically.

And pointing out liberals who served in the military means NOTHING! I can do the exact same to you with conservatives. Dwight Eisenhower. He was the freaking Supreme Commander of the the Allies! John McCain spent how many years as a POW? Teddy Roosevelt was a famous military officer who graduated FIRST in his HARVARD class. Suck on that Jimmy Carter. Seriously, you have no argument here.

Answer 3

You could look at it a diferent way:

President Eisenhower not only kept the country out of war but worked to break down the relationship between those who gained from war and the government.

President Hoover not only kept the country from war but had worked to assist those suffering from World War I.

To look at this as a political party ability or lack thereof in terms of waging war is a very narrow and incorrect perspective on war. If that was the case one would have to consider the Republican President Lincoln who waged one of the most terrible wars the country has ever faced (in terms of percent of the populace killed and wounded).

There are far to many contributing factors to consider this perspective as realistic or valuable.

Answer 4

Because a large part of the liberal movement defined itself as an antiwar voice to the Vietnam War, and this has manifested itself as an integral part of the Democratic party. Nixon argued that he had a secret plan to win the war (versus McGovern, who just argued for us to get out of the war, and the populace overwhelmingly supported Nixon). Reagan marketed himself as a strong anti-Soviet, which contrasted itself to Jimmy Carter, under whose watch US diplomats were taken hostage in Iran and his perceived weakness against the Soviets culminated in US weakness abroad.

Also, Nixon may have been in charge when we lost Vietnam, but it was under LBJ that Vietnam escalated from an isolated regional conflict receiving US influence to a front-page war with full US involvement and developed into a quagmire.

Kennedy was an exception among Democrats at the time, a hawk who defined himself as fiercely anti-Soviet.

Carter may have served on a nuclear submarine while in the navy, but his presidency was defined by overtures toward ineffectual peace with the Soviets at a time when Brezhnev was increasing Soviet capabilities. He was not seen as a strong president (name any lasting US policies from his State of the Union addresses, the last two of which were perhaps the most depressing addresses of any president in the modern era).

A whole generation of Democrats had defined themselves by their antiwar approach, so successful in the 60s but clearly by the 1970s it appeared they had tied their cart to the wrong horse. In the meanwhile, the growing conservative movement in the Republican party sought to market itself as strong on security, fiercely hawkish in dealings with the Soviets, and therefore the only capable leadership in securing US strength abroad when seen against the antiwar camp in the Democratic party.

Note that Howard Dean was fiercely against the Iraq war, John Kerry may have earned purple hearts for shrapnel wounds on his swift boat missions over the course of a month, but he quickly returned home and became a leading figure among the Veterans Against the War. In the Democratic primaries of the last two elections (plus the run-up in the current election), the Democrats fought over one another to show they are at heart anti-war candidates (note how many showed they were against the war as the Iraq War was the central focus of the early primary races this year). This was always a play for the support of the anti-war far left, among the most actively politically interested in the Democratic party (moderates aren't aroused by nature and don't see politics as such an epic struggle). The winner of the Democratic primary then made a sharp turn toward the center. So in the eyes of the common voter, who doesn't take much history into account and relies so heavily on sound-bites and stereotypes of both parties, Democrats are easily associated as a party more "dove" in nature while the Republicans have, since Eisenhower, defined themselves first by their strong commitment to US security, and two generations of realists followed by another generation of neoconservative idealists (with its rebuild the world by might if necessary) have led the Republican party.

So you're answer is the Conservatives were busy painting a picture of themselves as strong in regards to wartime powers, and this could only happen because of the shortness of the Kennedy administration, the massive failure in Vietnam of the Johnson administration and the perceived impotence of the Carter administration, and of course underneath it all the growing importance and influence of the anti-war segment of the Democratic Party in the last forty years.