America War Years Since 1776

http://www.sott.net/article/316825-Addicted-to-war-Since-1776-US-has-been-at-war-93-of-the-time-Thats-222-out-of-239-years

[SIZE=1.25em]The U.S. has only been at peace for 21 years total since its birth[/SIZE]

In 2011, Danios wrote:
Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America's wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.

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.
For a year-by-year timeline of America's major wars (1776-2011) go here.

In most of these wars, the U.S. was on the offense. Danios admits that some of the wars were defensive. However, Danios also leaves out covert CIA operations and other acts which could be considered war.

Let's update what's happened since 2011:
2012 - War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen
2013 - War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen
2014 - War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine
2015 - War on Terror in Somalia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine
So we can add 4 more years of war. That means that for 222 out of 239 years - or 93% of the time - America has been at war. (We can quibble with the exact numbers, but the high percentage of time that America has been at war is clear and unmistakable.)

Indeed, most of the military operations launched since World War II have been launched by the U.S. And American military spendingdwarfs the rest of the world put together.

No wonder polls show that the world believes America is the number 1 threat to peace.

Comment: Rather staggering, don't you think? Also, for many of the war years, the US had multiple opponents. After all this war practice, we might rightly expect a simple bombing raid on ISIS to produce results. But, win or lose, the American Military Industrial Complex just keeps cranking out war profits in a permanently war-driven economy, for a permanently imperialistic and mechanically self-serving society.

 

If you do not have an enemy, you must create one, and that is just what the US does and has always done. The US government would quickly lose its perceived legitimacy as a world superpower if it went too long without there being an outside bogeyman to "protect" us from. It also keeps the military-industrial complex thriving and always developing new weapons which we are told is for our own protection. America is an empire, but as history has proven, empires do not last forever, and the American empire is nearing its end. Unfortunately, the people behind these empires never lose power once their empire topples, rather they simply move on to creating another empire, as has been the case throughout history.

 

Uhmm, while your at it why not pull up similar stats for the British, French, Portuguese, Spain or any nation that engaged in any type of anything outside of their borders.
These lame assed folks always pointing fingers and proclaiming "OOOH look how evil America is" are myopic fools and obviously have never cracked open a history book.

EVERY nation or civilization has it atrocities and skeletons.

same shit, different era and address, but still the same shit.



oh may I point out that a very large number of the wars America has been involved in, especially in the 20th century were in the defense of allies and not actually aggression started by America.
actually I think every fucking war of the 20th/21st century that America has been involved in has been America going to another nations aid, WWI WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc,etc.................................
The 2nd Iraq war was the first time in a long time that we took the initiative and attacked and were not defending an ally, but lets not open that festering can of worms.

 

***YAWN*** (oh gawd, not this bullshit again)
you realize most of us completely disregard what you say except for it's comedic value.

 

I understand your point and has been taken and to another point, I agree.

However, the point I was proceeding to was to the relative infancy of America. Those you have mentioned have at least a 1000 yrs on America.

You have to admit that coming to the 'defense' of an ally, has not always been out of niceness but out of 'what can they do for me if they lose our guy in office'. The history books do not emphasize that, they spew out the whole Democracy routine (referencing Americas cause anyway). War is always about Land, money (oil,gold,minerals etc) and positioning.

Rat is right, Empires eventual fall, even that is in the History books.

Point taken on the Iraq 2 but again that was greed infused, Afghanistan should have been your reference point, that was out of Defense.

 

Don't go there.

 

Why? It is supposed to a beautiful vacation spot.

 

Yeah, BUT you have to consider the technology of the times in question.
when a ship can get you across the world in two weeks as opposed to 3-4 months, there will tend to be "more" of everything happening in a given time period.
If they had the technology of the last 100 years, you don't seriously think the wars of the past would have lasted as long as they did, often many, many decades. When it takes a year or longer to get from home to the front lines, wars tend to last longer in general. Hell, a simple siege could last years.
so overall while it appears to be valid noting the time differentials, but in reality it doesn't weigh as heavily as you think, if at all.

now if you wanna talk body counts and such, America has a very loooooooong way to go to catch up to Britain, Spain, Portugal. etc, etc.......
Remember, since the time of the Roman Empire, the British Empire has been by far the most murderous and villainous.

 

Unfortunately it doesn’t prove a thing, we’ve been at each other’s throats since the dawn of human kind


hotwater

 

Yes, I didn't take into account the Tech side of History. So including that I see your points. On a whole, America has been very virulent on the defensive side in modern history.

You may say their geographical positioning on the map helps with the comfort of being able to interfere and not receive the impending backlash of said enemy.

Totally agree with the British Empire.

Although the Egyptians of our Ancient past did pretty good, tech wise, with copper chisels, rocks and an inferior mental capacity. //sarcasm//

 

Spanish-American War is an often overlooked example. Americans were told by the media that the USS Maine was attacked in Havana Harbor, but experts were unsure of the cause of sinking. Modern divers were able to observe that the explosion came from inside the ship.

 

Interesting thread thanks Xenxan

OK

I think a lot more Americans these days understand that the US is an Imperial power that has acted just like past imperial powers, it is not exceptional or have a ‘manifest destiny’ excuse. This view was not always the case amongst many Americans (if not the majority) they really believed that the US was the ‘bastion of liberty’ and ‘protector of the free world’. There were many Americans arguing something like that just before the Iraq invasion and early occupation.

For example to justify the ‘imperialist’ invasion and occupation of the Philippines President McKinley said that it was necessary so as to "uplift and Christianize" the Filipinos when it was pointed out that the majority of Filipinos where Catholic he supposed relied ‘exactly’.

But there is one thing that was slightly different about the US, it was/is an Imperial Power but it is a democratically elected democratic power, its people had to go along with the imperialism and often did.

I think another consequence of being a ‘democratic’ imperial power was/is the use of covert operations that many Americans knew little or nothing about as a means of circumnavigating public opinion. It wasn’t unknown in other imperial powers but wasn’t as necessary or prevalent as in US history.

(Overthrowing democratically governments like in Iran and Guatemala, training and financing guerrilla units like the contras etc, this website is instructive http://www.zompist.com/latam.html )

 

[SIZE=11pt][/SIZE]

In their imperial period none of those countries was a democratic, for example not until 1918 did Britain the majority of British citizens get the vote, about the point when the empire was dying and was dead 40 years later.

That is not to say that they wouldn’t have been imperial powers with democracy but not been democratic often made imperialism easier.

In the British Empire actually the big killer was the establishments free market economic thinking, which caused the death of millions in Ireland and India.

[SIZE=11pt]For example –[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]In 1877 five million died in India after monsoon rains failed. Schama says British officials could have saved many, but were ideologically opposed to intervention. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]'What made the scale of suffering so obscene was that it was happening at a time of surplus in other parts of India,' Schama will say. 'But the Government was so fanatically devoted to the iron law of the market that it refused to liberate those supplies, for fear it would artificially bring down prices. Common sense [and] common humanity was sacrificed to the fetish of the market and millions abandoned to perish.' [/SIZE]
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/may/26/jasonburke.theobserver

 

That is rather disingenuous often such requests were figleafs and often as pointed out many times imperial involvements were covert.

Other times it is more complex for example many Americans cite WWII and the US coming to the aid of its ‘ally’ Britain but it has to be remembered that Hitler’s Germany had to declare war on the US for it to reciprocate. The American people were not really bothered by Hitler’s rise and without Roosevelt’s personal commitment many historians believe that if Hitler hadn’t declared war the US may very much have been tempted not to become involved in Europe.

In Vietnam at the beginning US basically supported the French against a popular Vietnamese independence movement which had unlike the French fought alongside the US against the Japanese and later supported its ‘ally’ an unpopular puppet Vietnamese government.

http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/18487-the-president-lied-to-start-war/

 

To a certain extent I agree with Rat

I’ll let people recover from that statement before carrying on.

Having a foreign enemy to fight can be used as a means of selling a certain action or agenda.

Here is something I wrote in the thread ‘liberalism and why I despise it’ posted by one Pressed Rat

Thing is that the USA was and still is an imperialistic power working in its own self interests, but the American people do not see themselves or America as such.

They see themselves as the good guys the ones in the white hats doing the right thing. So for governments to act as they want they need black hats, the bad guys. Evil communists filled that role well and allowed them to push their interests around the world since the fall of the Soviets we’ve had Drug lords and terrorists to fill the gap.

Just see how the neo-con faction in the Bush Admin tried to tie Saddam in with Al Qaeda to sell a policy to the American people that had nothing to do with terrorism but a lot to do with neo-con strategical thinking.
http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/453241-liberalism-and-why-i-despise-it/page-2

But what i would add is that the same thing can be done domestically. Here something I wrote in a gun control thread

I’ve been pointing out ‘threat/fear’ as a control mechanism for some time, savage Indians, the yellow peril, uppity blacks, seditious communists, evil drug pushers, crazed terrorists; they merge from one into another throughout US history. The politicians have used such fears to push their agenda or gain influence and pro-gunners have done the same, promoting the idea of the armed citizen, as the bulwark against such threats.
Try
http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/237657-can-guns-save-you-from-suppression/

*

The big one in shaping both foreign and domestic agendas in the US was anti-communism, which was used to assist US interests abroad and suppress left wing ideas at home, as well as fuelling the military industrial complex and the rise neo-liberalism and the corporate state.

 

after posting I thought about that and the "war" with Mexico as well.

 

and I totally agree and acknowledge that as well. The 2nd Iraq war could be taught as an example of this.
the rest of the conspiracy malarky he throws into the mix is a bit :dizzy2:

 

This all goes back a lot further than most people realize. We were taught in public school that in the War of 1812, the British burned the White House in Washington, but they failed to mention that it was in retaliation for us burning the Parliament building in Ottawa. (Canada was still a British colony at the time.)

 

The United States attacked Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Grenada, Columbia, Libya, Iraq, and Iran. It forced the locals off some islands in the Pacific Ocean, so their country could be used for a bombing range. The same was done in Puerto Rico, used their land for a bombing range. Most Indian tribes in the western states say their land was taken by force, and their people were placed in prisoner of war camps. When they tried to leave their reservations, the Indians were forced back on them by the American army. In Iraq, Paul Bremer's second order was to force the people of Iraq to accept America's genetic patenting laws, so Iraqi farmer would be forced to pay for seeds, and not be allowed to use their own natural stock. During the 1980s, America attacked and occupied Lebanon, but there never was a reason given by Ronald Reagan. Today, America has over 6000 troops operating in secret ways in Iraq. The pretext again is the war on terror, which Iraq had nothing to do with.

 

Canada is still under the queen today.