George W. Bush referred to himself as a "war president," putting himself in the company of American leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The conflicts overseen by these men were vastly different in nature, but one fundamental reality -- the terrible sacrifices made by those who fought in them -- remains the same.
As we honor the fallen this Memorial Day, their sacrifices remind us not only of lives lost but of the causes for which they died. The reflections of generations of commanders in chief demonstrate that many of the same issues confronting Americans today, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind on, were bedeviling the country decades and even centuries ago.
It's hard to read James Madison's second inaugural address, circa 1813, without being chilled by the parallels to current events. In the midst of a second war with Britain, Madison noted that what distinguished this country from its enemy was its honorable conduct -- Britain's unfair treatment of U.S. detainees and its use of Native Americans as proxies to commit atrocities such as torturing captives (today some would opt for calling this "enhanced interrogation") shocked his conscience. Equally prescient is a speech Richard M. Nixon gave in 1971, urging the nation not to be distracted by allegations that U.S. troops were engaged in brutal acts overseas.
We close with Bush's defense of the United States' invasion of Iraq, where American soldiers continue to give their lives.
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The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend on God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.
-- George Washington, orders to his officers, July 2, 1776
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As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed. The war has been waged on our part with scrupulous regard to all these obligations, and in a spirit of liberality which was never surpassed. How little has been the effect of this example on the conduct of the enemy!
They have retained as prisoners of war citizens of the United States not liable to be so considered under the usages of war. They have refused to consider as prisoners of war, and threatened to punish as traitors and deserters, persons emigrating without restraint to the United States, incorporated by naturalization into our political family, and fighting under the authority of their adopted country in open and honorable war for the maintenance of its rights and safety. ... They have not, it is true, taken into their own hands the hatchet and the knife, devoted to indiscriminate massacre, but they have let loose the savages armed with these cruel instruments; have allured them into their service, and carried them to battle by their sides, eager to glut their savage thirst with the blood of the vanquished and to finish the work of torture and death on maimed and defenseless captives.
-- James Madison, second inaugural address, March 1813
second inaugural address,
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We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world, as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us.
-- Woodrow Wilson, address to Congress, January 1918
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If ever there was a time to subordinate individual or group selfishness for the national good, that time is now. Disunity at home, bickering, self-seeking partisanship, stoppages of work, inflation, business as usual, politics as usual, luxury as usual -- and sometimes a failure to tell the whole truth -- these are the influences which can undermine the morale of the brave men ready to die at the front for us here.
