20th Century When presidents lie to make war

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It's interesting how popular memory warps the perceptions of certain events. The USS Maddox was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin by DRV torpedo boats - but on 2 August, not 4 August, and it is disputed as to who fired first, and the extent to which the DRV was provoked. It's the attack on 4 August that didn't happen - a possibility the Johnson Administration was clearly aware of at the time.
 

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The_Reaper said:
Didn't Germany actually declare war on the USA and not the other way around?

And poor little Japan got what it deserved in WWII anyway.
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Correct, USA had been supplying arms and other support to England and transporting it on passanger liners, Germany said this was an act of war and susbequently declared war on them. The USA was about as close to being at war without declaring it as anyone ever in history, the only thing they hadn't done was put troops on the ground.
 
Slax said:
Correct, USA had been supplying arms and other support to England and transporting it on passanger liners, Germany said this was an act of war and susbequently declared war on them. The USA was about as close to being at war without declaring it as anyone ever in history, the only thing they hadn't done was put troops on the ground.
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Yes, the US was supplying a lot of arms to the Brits (and Russians) before they entered WW2, but I think you're confusing your wars. Germany declared war because their 'ally' in the anti comintern pact (basically an anti-communist alliance) had been attacked and Hitler, being the fool he was declared war even though Japan hadn't joined his war with the commies...

The passenger ship(s) was WW1 (the Lusitania). The size and volume of stuff they were shipping to the Brits in WW2 required transport ships (which is why they started building liberty ships).

People have gone a lot closer to war without declaring it...
 
CountryRace said:
all the main players were (first?) cousins FFS!

inter-bloody-family dispute

more so you cant just have a world war. they were all building armies for what purpose? tea party?
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They look great in parades.
 
Some interesting s**t from the MILnet about a 'Gulf of Tonkin' incident that finally made NATO's air war over Serbia/Kosovo in 1999 possible.

strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB123.pdf

(from the chapter 'War and Revenge', page 240)

...Predictably, as Serbian forces pulled back as agreed, KLA fighters moved forward to occupy the vacated terrain. Soon sporadic fighting had resumed. In December, Serbian “training exercises” near Podujevo, undertaken without prior notification to the OSCE, developed into larger scale offensive operations against KLA units in clear violation of the October understanding.

The seminal event in the new escalation occurred on January 15, 1999, in the village of Račak in the rebellious Drenica region, where a Serbian punitive action left 45 civilians dead, including two women and a 12-year-old boy.

The question of what exactly happened in Račak has been hotly contested. The version of events announced to the world in the immediate aftermath of the killing suggested that Serbian units in pursuit of a small KLA contingent occupied the village and massacred its inhabitants as an admonition to those tempted to offer sanctuary to the guerrillas.

One of the first international observers to arrive on the scene was the former U.S. ambassador William Walker, now serving as head of the OSCE KVM force. Upon viewing the corpses of the victims, Walker flew into a rage, accusing the Serbian side of conducting a willful massacre, and announcing his convictions via telephone to U.S. leaders.

There was some impropriety in Walker’s communication with American decisionmakers in view of his primary responsibility to the OSCE, but it is the substance of his report, and the political uses to which it was put, that is, most vividly disputed.

Broadcast around the world, Walker’s judgment went far to condition public sentiment for an eventual military campaign against Serbia. Within days, the U.S. Department of State would condemn the event as a “massacre of civilians by Serb security forces,” while NATO Secretary General Solana spoke of “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.”

Subsequent international investigations of the incident have however failed to produce forensic evidence that would indicate that a massacre occurred, and suggest that it remains possible (as Serb observers had argued at the time) that the cadavers displayed at Račak were those of fallen resistance fighters and innocent bystanders killed in the fighting, gathered together from over a wider area by villagers under KLA direction, and presented as victims of a purposeful massacre with the express purpose of swaying international sentiment against the Serbs.

Whether or not the events at Račak were intentionally manipulated or misrepresented to strengthen the case for Western intervention, they cast discredit on Serbian forces and increased pressure for an international response.

On January 15, with the fighting at Račak underway, the U.S. National Security Council defined its goals in the crisis as to “promote regional stability and protect our investment in Bosnia; prevent the resumption of hostilities in Kosovo and renewed humanitarian crisis; [and] preserve U.S. and NATO credibility.”

General Wesley Clark echoed this conclusion in his evaluation of the impact of Račak by suggesting that in the wake of the killing “NATO’s credibility was on the line.”

All of the U.S. goals were placed at risk by the disintegration in course, and least of all could the Alliance allow the perception that it had once again, as in Bosnia, become complacent in view of a policy of massacre.

Meeting in London on January 29, ministers representing the International Contact Group cut to the chase by demanding that representatives of Yugoslavia and the Kosovar Albanians come together under international auspices for proximity talks at the French châteaux of Rambouillet, located in the environs of Paris.

On January 30 the NAC issued a statement lending its support to the Contact Group initiative and threatening a forceful response in the event of non-compliance.

It also granted NATO Secretary General Solana full authority to approve air strikes against targets within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia if events so merited — an important derogation of responsibility that in effect negated the possibility for a single-member veto to block action...
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Happy Mastenator said:
What's the point of this? If you've ever spent any time in that region or talked to people there you can see/hear that intervention was necessary.
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Oh, I don't doubt that the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia produced many horrors. I don't think anyone can say it didn't. I'm just highlighting the fact that the 1999 NATO air war may well have been triggered by a fabrication.

And the bigger picture? If governments wage war based on fabrication - if soldiers as well as civilians are put under the gun because of artificially enhanced facts, isn't that a problem as well?

Or is accountability not a 'thing' worth worrying about?
 
Geelong_Sicko said:
Oh, I don't doubt that the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia produced many horrors. I don't think anyone can say it didn't. I'm just highlighting the fact that the 1999 NATO air war may well have been triggered by a fabrication.

And the bigger picture? If governments wage war based on fabrication - if soldiers as well as civilians are put under the gun because of artificially enhanced facts, isn't that a problem as well?

Or is accountability not a 'thing' worth worrying about?
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Yes, it is, but at the same time, creating an excuse so they can try and stop (reduce?) a humanitarian disaster/crime against humanity, I can live with.
 
telsor said:
Yes, it is, but at the same time, creating an excuse so they can try and stop (reduce?) a humanitarian disaster/crime against humanity, I can live with.
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I think we need to expose every fabrication that leads to war. ANY war. The committing of forces to war should never be a decision taken lightly - especially if its based on lies. If I was a family member of one of the 4,000+ U.S soldiers killed or the 10,000+ injured during 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' I'd be incensed that fabrication led to their deaths and I would consider the U.S Government culpable in their deaths.

There are many question as to how bad Serbia's actions really were in Kosovo. Some may never be answered. It was part of the mess of conflict and humanitarian tragedy caused by the breakup of Yugoslavia, true, but it was a different action to that of the Bosnian Serbs or the Croats during 'Operation Storm', and would have come under a different mandate.

History's jury is still very much 'out' when it comes to NATO's 1999 'Operation Allied Force', which was never sanctioned by the United Nations.
 
Geelong_Sicko said:
I think we need to expose every fabrication that leads to war. ANY war. The committing of forces to war should never be a decision taken lightly - especially if its based on lies. If I was a family member of one of the 4,000+ U.S soldiers killed or the 10,000+ injured during 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' I'd be incensed that fabrication led to their deaths and I would consider the U.S Government culpable in their deaths.

There are many question as to how bad Serbia's actions really were in Kosovo. Some may never be answered. It was part of the mess of conflict and humanitarian tragedy caused by the breakup of Yugoslavia, true, but it was a different action to that of the Bosnian Serbs or the Croats during 'Operation Storm', and would have come under a different mandate.

History's jury is still very much 'out' when it comes to NATO's 1999 'Operation Allied Force', which was never sanctioned by the United Nations.
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If UN sanction is required for the use of military force, you'd only get what the permanent members of the security council all agree to...

While I agree with the general sentiment, some secrets are best kept.
 
telsor said:
If UN sanction is required for the use of military force, you'd only get what the permanent members of the security council all agree to...
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Even within NATO. That bit I quoted detailed how NATO's usual internal debating procedure was entirely bypassed.

telsor said:
While I agree with the general sentiment, some secrets are best kept.
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Yeah, some truths are VERY dangerous. I understand what you're saying.
 
Lebbo73 said:
I will have to find out what the book is called that says a British ship saw the Japanese Fleet heading towards Pearl Harbor. Apparently Churchill was notified and he ordered that British ship to be sunk. He wanted, sorry he needed the US to join the war against Germany.
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So who did he order to sink the British ship? Another British ship that happened to be nearby?
 
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