“We’re at War!” — And We Have Been Since 1776: 214 Years of American War-Making
To put this in perspective:
* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.
* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president. Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”
* The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.
* The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.
President Barack Obama repeated the now infamous words of George W. Bush, declaring: “We are at war…” Yes, and we have been, ever since 1776.
Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.
It goes without saying that I am not arguing that all of America’s wars listed above were wars of aggression and therefore unjustified–but arguably the vast majority of them were.
To put this into greater perspective, Iran has not invaded a country since 1795, which was 216 years ago. (h/t LW’s Ilisha)
[1] Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States, p.297
[2] Steuter, Erin. At War with Metaphor, p.43
[3] Chomsky, Noam. Deterring Democracy, p.34
[4] Mraz, John. Looking for Mexico, p.60
[5] Ching, Erik. Reframing Latin America, p.228
