Damned Lies – Nine Wars Started Under False Pretexts

This article is slanted, revisionist garbage. It is true that wars have often been started with a lie & pretense. The victor always determines the historical write ups concerning the conflict for at least the first generation or so and this certainly quantifies that no real history can be written accurately within about a century of the events, give or take a decade or two. Release of historical records, government archives, after action reports, etc. all need to be released for historians to ponder the data. This brings it back to this article, citing inconsequential facts and acting like this sort of thing is a new problem, unforeseen in human history and so the pomposity of the author reeks.
Every war in human history has had some deception attached to it. Leaders galvanize the troops and fire up the national morale into a frenzy for one purpose: to win the fight. The writer cites various wars fought within the spectrum of World War 2 along with its precursor fight with the Japanese invading Chine in the 1930's. Propaganda for the Axis powers was so vital that each one of those powers had entire government ministries dedicated to spreading their "news." Other wars used were the Spanish American War, the Vietnamese War and the Iraq invasion of 2003. No news here that the presidents in power at the time beat up the drums of war but not any where close to other war escalations. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a dicey operation, full of "he said, I said" innuendo. President Johnson already had a sizable force ashore and he reacted to battle reports. The blowing up of the USS Maine appeared at the time to be the work of Spanish militants; however, forensic evidence plus examination of the hull of the battleship revealed an ammunition bunker exploded due to a poor design of having explosives too close to the boilers. Yellow press journalism in the US editorialized the population to the point that action was demanded. The Iraq invasion of 2003 was proven to be a bad idea. Saddam Hussein himself was a weapon that dispensed mass destruction upon his own people and he needed to go. His heavy hand of allowing no dissent also worked to keep the terrorists at bay and so you shoot the guard dog so then the foxes eat up all of your chickens. That invasion certainly has had long range ramifications as do all military actions but President Bush acted in good faith, within the law, and so the terrible results reinforce the wisdom of looking ahead while counting the costs of an operation.
Finally, this article pontificates and whines concerning forces outside the citizens' control. We vote, we serve our nation with our toil, and we strive to know the past dealings of our leaders so as to scatter those who delight in war. We as a nation would be wise to request that presidents keep the sword sheaved until national interests are directly threatened. Drivel such as this posted article should be ignored as inconsequential.

there is always ulterior Motives...

Archduke Ferdinand found alive! World War I a mistake!