I was listening to Michael Savage last night. [If you listen long enough, he occasionally offers a nugget of interest buried amongst the angry screeds.] Dr. Savage observed that some of what we hear regarding Iraq today sounds similar to what President Woodrow Wilson said regarding World War I.
Here’s part of what President Wilson said before Congress on April 2, 1917, in making the case for war:
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Obviously the parallels are crude, but you do hear a bit of an echo in the marketing campaigns for both wars.
The millions who died in World War I created a world safe for democracy which lasted less than 20 years. Let’s hope today’s sacrifice isn’t so short lived.