A DIstant Mirror

I borrow the title of one of Historian Barbara Tuchman's books
to write here about a new book from Newsweek editor Even Thomas, called The War Lovers.
This is a terrific retelling of how America got into the Spanish American War and what came out of it... focused on three "war lovers," Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Randolph Hearst and two peace lovers, Speaker of the House of Representatives Tom Reed and Harvard Philosopher William James. Evns writes in his introduction, "The Spanish-American War is little remembered now. But more than the Civil War or World War II, it was a harbinger, if not he model, of modern American wars. It has some eerie parallels to the invasion of Iraq, another "war of choice" not immediately vital to the national security but ostensibly waged for broader and sometimes shifting humanitarian reasons."(page 12)

AMong the "eerie parallels,"

--- The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor was blamed, falsely, on the Spanish, just as Sadaam Hussein was blamed, falsely, of harboring weapons of mass destruction.

--- Roosevelt, Lodge and Hearst were determined to take the country into a war, just as Bush, Chaney and the Neo-Cons inside their administration and in the media were determined that America would invade Iraq.

--- The Spanish were accused --- often accurately --- of atrocities in Cuba, just as Hussein --- often accurately --- was accused of atrocities against the Shiites and the Kurds.

--- The war was easily won with few American casualties. But the fighting dragged on for decades, in the case of the Spanish-American War, in the newly acquired Philippines. The insurgency there dragged on for many years, costing 4000 American and many, many more Philippine lives.

--- The Philippine insurgency led to atrocities on both sides. As occurred at Fallujah in 2004, Philippine insurgents mutilated the bodies of American soldiers. Both sides resorted to torture. Waterboarding was invented during the conflict... by the Philippine insurgents, but adopted by the American troops.

For better or worse, Thomas seems to be right in contending that the wars in Vietnam and Iraq are part and parcel of a pattern in American history, which perhaps could include the Indian Wars, but which certainly dates at least to 1898.

Similar points are made by Max Boot in
and Caleb Carr's