America and war: the long, long list
I am still in the process of watching on Sky Atlantic the series “Oliver Stone’s Untold History Of The United States”. It’s a fascinating, if controversial, project and I have now viewed eight of the 10 episodes.
One can certainly challenge some of the judgements Stone makes of individuals and events in his review of the last 70 years of US history, but one cannot question his fundamental assertion that American foreign policy has been overly aggressive and involved countless wars and military interventions, many of which were ill-judged and counter-productive.
Last year, I visited the National Museum of American History in Washington DC and my account of this American holiday records:
“Roger spent most of his time in this museum looking around a large section titled “The Price Of Freedom: Americans At War”. In fact, Americans have spent a long time at war including the French and Indian War, the War of Independence, the 1812 war with the British, the Civil War, the First World War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, the first Iraq war, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the second Iraq war. So there was a lot to see and a lot to learn. Clearly the recent invasion of Iraq is a sensitive issue since the display explained the cause simply as “because of concerns over Saddam Hussein’s regime”. No mention of weapons of mass destruction here.”
So, just how often has the USA gone to war or used its military might? You can check out the full list here.