Warless Commander In Chief, President - 2

Military suicides @all time high

This is supposed to be a season of peace, so today we review an issue we talked about in a Dredd Blog post on this date in 2009.

One of our presidents warned us that war was an illness, yet in our War Colleges we are taught that war is an art.

Since that warning from President Madison and a later one from President Eisenhower, we have gone from having no standing army to having a military that has war bases in 191 countries around the world.

We were the number one arms dealer last year, and the longest war in U.S. history continues even in the face of it being very unpopular.

Anyway, here is that post from December 2009:

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It may be hard to believe, but some of the Presidents of the United States did not partake in wars during their time in office.

Here is a list of non-wartime Commanders In Chief whose military was at-ease, yes, U.S. Presidents who could focus on helping their own people, their own nation, at home:

* John Adams (2nd)
* John Quincy Adams (6th)
* Zachary Taylor (12th)
* Millard Fillmore (13th)
* Franklin Pierce (14th)
* Andrew Johnson (17th)
* Ulysses Grant (18th)
* James Garfield (20th)
* Chester Arthur (21st)
* Grover Cleveland (22nd)
* Benjamin Harrison (23rd)
* Grover Cleveland (24th)
* Theodore Roosevelt (26th)
* William Taft (27th)
* Calvin Coolidge (30th)
* Herbert Hoover (31st)
* Jimmy Carter (39th)

(Wikipedia). This is roughly 39% of those holding that office.

Which means that roughly 61% of the time U.S. Presidents are influenced by war, which James Madison (2 yr War of 1812, 4th President) called our greatest enemy.

Equally of note is that since Jimmy Carter left office, on January 20, 1981, we have been involved in wars.

That is about 28 years in a row with presidents involved in war and the war ideology, our worst enemy.

As we proclaim to the world that we are the exceptional nation of peace, our war budgets involve more war money than all of the rest of the nations of the earth combined.

Is it any wonder that we have a serious credibility problem?

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In addition to that 2009 post above, also consider the following video which discusses why we're now a nation of continual warfare:

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Meanwhile a U.S. Naval attack force has moved off the coast of Syria, which has a mutual defense pact with Iran.

Both Russia and China are on the side of Syria and Iran, and have warned of serious consequences should current U.S. intervention become an invasion.