originally published at truth-out.org/speakout
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It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
---Albert Einstein
Wars throughout history have been killers. What in earth could justify such inhumanity to humanity? If at least one war can be identified and justified as being a just war or necessary, then the argument that no war can be just or necessary is repudiated. Let's put war through 11 litmus tests.
1. WWI?
President Woodrow Wilson tried to sell WWI to the American public by calling it "the war to end all wars." His hype didn't work; only 75,000 men volunteered for an Army that needed one million of them. So Wilson was forced to ask Congress to enact conscription to force participation or be imprisoned.
WWI was a result, the late historian Howard Zinn said, of "imperial rivalries, greed for more territory, a lusting for national prestige, the stupidity of revenge, and mediocre leaders [who] had neither the courage nor the will to stop."
2. WWII?
FDR, of course, masterfully sold most of the American people on the necessity of America's entrance into WWII by secretly maneuvering to provoke Japan into striking first, a treasonable act if there ever was one.
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