In WW2 and Afghanistan, the United States was attacked at home. That is what Kerry means by "had to". Since in a previous post, you asserted that only 1812 could be considered a ware the US "had to" fight. You must be saying that only if we are physically invaded, with gound troops on US soil, do we have to fight. That is an extremely isolationist viewpoint for someone who is yanking Kerry's chain for isolationism.

Pearl Harbor was the Axis best shot at us and it was totally ineffective. We decided to crush them anyway, though most Americans opposed fighting Germany.

9-11 was an operation by a few guys who died and a paymaster or planner or two. The Taliban was no threat. We got rid of them because we were pissed.

We fight cause we like to.

Sometimes fighting is the right thing to do. It's the same argument as pacifists put forward to justify their inaction in the face of evil-- doing the right thing. Except It seems that the US is sometimes willing to have its people die for its principles, while pacifists are only willing to let others die for their princples,.

oj:

Since neither WW II nor the Cold War were necessary, because both Naziism and Communism would have collapsed under the weight of their own incompetence, isn't intervention in Sudan also completely unnecessary ?

Nothing Khartoum does will in any way affect the progress of Western Civilization.

If we accept that ending the suffering of a million people is worth some effort, then why not free the French and Chinese from the Germans and Japanese ?

My list upon hearing that ridiculous line during the speech was Afghanistan and the Civil War. I don't recall the specifics of how we got tangled up in the war of 1812, but I have some hazy memory of it being avoidable.

Michael:

Yes, it's unnecessary.

So, OJ, what would situation would have to arise to qualify as a necessary war that we have to fight?

What Orrin is getting at, I think, is that some wars that are morally just are, in purely strategic terms, unneccesary.

Brandon:

Necessary would be just that, necessary to our survival. We've not had many of those--maybe 1812, but it's not as if the British could have held us even if they'd "won."

The Revolution: All the reasons given look, two centuries later, rather petty and their are worse things than being an English colony. Claimed by the left to have been an usurption by rich reactionaries.

The War of 1812: We declared war because the English were stopping our ships and taking (putatively) English deserters they found. The English had enough on their plates with Napolean and weren't really looking for a war with us.

The Mexican War: A purely imperial war for territory.

The Civil War: The opinion of a sizable portion of the north, when the south seceded, was "good riddance" and President Buchanan said there was nothing he could do about it. The south made the mistake of firing on Fort Sumter, but Lincoln could have avoided the war.

The Spanish-American war: Our second imperial war. Claimed by leftists to have been caused by WR Hearst in an attempt to boost newspaper circulation.

Various South American and Carribean adventures and the annexation of Hawaii: Purely voluntary. Claimed by leftists to have been fought out of a combination of vicious racism and to benefit the Big Fruit and Big Sugar.

World War One: A war we had no business in and, uniquely, the war in which our interference left the world worse off. Directly attributable to the hubris of our most nearly evil President.

World War Two: Cleaning up the mess left from WWI, but Germany had no intent or ability to bring the war to us and Japan felt that our oil embargo, imposed because of their adventures in China, left them no choice but to attack our Pacific colonies.

Korea: A European war being fought by proxy in Asia. Another offshoot of WWI that could have been avoided if Wilson hadn't been such a jerk.

Vietnam: See Korea.

Grenada: As it turns out, surprisingly important to the collapse of Communism and the coming of American hyperpower, but entirely voluntary.

Gulf War I: The Iraqis would have been happy to sell us Kuwaiti oil. Basically, a war used as an excuse to form a coalition.

Somalia/Yugoslavia: No one has ever suggested these were necessary wars, though with hindsight we might, if we had handled these wars differently, have avoided 9/11.

Geez, I forgot our only war of absolute necessity: The Indian Wars.

The real reason for the War of 1812 is most likely to cancel British treaties with the Indians in trans-Appalachia. It goes a long way to explain why all the Warhawks were people in the states beyond the Appalachia mountains, and why the states whose people were most likely being pressganged, New England, was against the war.

Weren't Korea and Vietnam fought because, lacking perfect hindsight, the West was afraid that the Communists might take over the world if they were un-opposed ?

If that's the case, then they were "necessary", in the best estimation of the time.

Desert Storm wasn't fought to re-claim Kuwait, but to protect Arabia.
I've long believed that if Saddam had taken Kuwait, pillaged Kuwait City, and then withdrawn his troops from inhabited areas, keeping the oil fields but making it plain that he would advance no further, he would have avoided the war with the USA.

It is integral to the Kerry Doctrine that we get to use hindsight to second-guess the rationale for war.

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