... response.

Phyllis, was travelling when you posted this, so I missed it. However, the same message was circulated recently on my West Point email listserve and I prepared a lengthy response there, which I will repeat here. I am not trying to pick on you, but this kind of nonsense gets passed around all too often and it makes me nuts -- doesn't anyone ever check the accuracy of these things before posting them (here or elsewhere)?

My response:

The (obviously Republican) writer of the letter to the Durham, NC, newspaper has some of his trivia/facts just plain wrong. Others were deceptively selected and/or stated to embellish his (obviously conservative) point.

>> Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war.

Not everyone who thinks this war should not have been started is a liberal. Or, perhaps opposition to the war defines one (in the minds of the neo-cons) as a liberal?

>> Let's clear up one point: We didn't start the war on terror.
>> Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11.

Let's clear up a couple of other points (briefly here and in detail below):

We (FDR) didn't start WWII. Try to remember, it was started by Germany & Italy in Europe and Japan in Asia years before December 7, 1941.

We (Harry Truman) didn't start the Korean War. Try to remember, it was started by North Korea when it invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, and declared war the same day.

We (JFK) didn't start the Vietnam War. Try to remember, it was started by the Vietnamese in 1946, years before America became involved.

We (Bill Clinton) didn't start the war in Bosnia. Try to remember, it was started when Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and the Yugoslavian army attacked Slovenia, years before American troops were sent there.

In greater detail:

>> 1) FDR (democrat) led us into World War II.

Technically true. He was our commander-in-chief and therefore "led us" when we entered World War II. He did so in immediate response to an attack which was, at the time, every bit as devastating to the country as the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001. I doubt, however, that the fact that he was a democrat had much to do with his decision to ask for a declaration of war (passed with virtual unanimity by congressional democrats and republicans alike).

>> Germany never attacked us ...

Also technically true. However, is there any doubt that joining with our allies in the European theater was the correct decision -- politically, militarily, philosophically and morally?

>> ... Japan did.

Yes. And if the 9/11 attacks justify a "war" on terrorism, doesn't the attack on Pearl Harbor justify a war with Japan?

>> From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Presumably, this is an attempt to refer to American casualties, as estimates of the total WWII deaths (military and cvilian) range as high as 45 million. Even for us, however, the total is inaccurate. U.S. combat deaths totalled 292,000 and non-combat deaths were 115,000, for a total of 407,000 deaths out of more than 16 million who served. As horrific at this total sounds, it pales to virtual insignificance compared to the death totals for other countries.

More important, however: is there one among us who doubts the appropriateness -- nay, the necessity -- of our participation in this war? A war which, BTW, "liberated" a host of European and Asian countries, including France (again).

>> 2) Truman (democrat) finished that war ...

And this is bad for what reason?

>> ... and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us.

Of course, Truman did not "start" the war in Korea. And, while the statement that North Korea never "attacked us" is technically true, it is also deceptive. North Korea did attack South Korea. Two days later, the United Nations (not the United States) passed a resolution authorizing military aid for South Korea. Eventually, American troops were committed to the defense of South Korea, but they were committed as part of a United Nations effort to defend an ally, not a unilateral attack by the United States. Ultimately, communist China joined in the war by attacking UN (& therefore American) forces along the Chinese border in late 1950.

>> From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.

It's not at all clear what this number is intended to refer to. American combat deaths totalled 33,600 and non-combat deaths just 3200, for a total of just under 37,000 American military deaths. South Korean, North Korean and Chinese losses were almost certainly much higher.

>> 3) John F. Kennedy (democrat) started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.

What nonsense! The war in Indochina started in 1946, shortly after the end of WWII. Initially, of course, it was between the Vietnamese and the French. In 1954, after the defeat of the French, President Eisenhower (republican, though I don't think that matters much either) pledged American support for the Diem government in Vietnam. We began training South Vietnamese troops in 1956 and the first American combat death occurred on July 8, 1959.

>> Vietnam never attacked us.

True enough. But, if that is sufficient reason to conclude that we should never have joined in the Vietnam War, I'm not sure how that contributes to the conclusion that democrats, much less "liberals", were somehow responsible for that participation.

>> 4) Johnson (democrat) turned Vietnam into a quagmire.

Johnson did substantially increase the commitment of American troops in Vietnam. What turned it into a "quagmire", however, warrants a whole separate discussion on which many books could be and have been written.

Nevertheless, the war in Vietnam dragged on for more than five years after Richard Nixon (republican) became president.

>> From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Fully one-third of them during the Nixon (republican) administration.

>> 5) Clinton (democrat) went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.

That one's good for a real chuckle! French consent?? The truth is, President Clinton authorized the commitment of US troops in 1995 (more than four years after the war started) as part of the NATO peace-keeping force, with at least tacit UN approval.

>> Bosnia never attacked us.

Actually, I don't think Bosnia ever attacked anybody. The conflict in Bosnia was a civil war among Croats, Serbs and Muslims, which was eventually brought to a more or less peaceful conclusion under UN auspices. The subsequent spread of this war into Kosovo brought further American involvement as part of the NATO peace-keeping effort. Peace negotiations (led by Gen. Wesley Clark, a subject for yet another separate discussion), ultimately brought this part of the Balkan upheavel to an uneasy conclusion.

Notice, BTW, that there is no reference to American casualties in this war. For the record, there were NO American combat deaths.

>> He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan
>> and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the Bosnia-Kosovo conflict, but assume it was intended as another slam of (democrat) Bill Clinton. In any event, it is at best an overstatement. There is reason to believe that Sudanese intelligence had information ("files") on Osama bin Laden that the government of Sudan wanted to share with the US. The Clinton administration, however, was suspicious of Sudan (thought at that time to be a terrorist sponsoring country). In part, these suspicions were based on what the Drudge report has called "wildly inaccurate" CIA intelligence reports. Sound familiar??

>> 6) In the two years since terrorists attacked us,
>> President Bush has liberated two countries ...

While this much is arguably true ...

>> ... crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida ...

... these remain to be seen.

>> ... put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot ...

The nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea are/were actually UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and they were not "put" into those countries by GWB. In fact, the inspectors in North Korea, who had been monitoring a 1994 (Clinton, democrat) agreement freezing the North Korean nuclear weapons development program, were expelled in December 2002.

>> ... and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
>> We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 30 a year.

Huh? Did I miss something? Have we been in Iraq for 20 years?

Funny he didn't mention Grenada (Reagan, republican), Panama and the Persian Gulf War (both Bush I, republican).

>> Worst president in history?

Surely, it is much too soon to assess GWB's position in history (or for that matter, the relative positions of Clinton, Bush I and even Reagan). Proper perspective on this issue requires some distance in time (and, for Bush II, completion of at least this term of his presidency).

As for the question of who is the worst president in history, there have been many surveys on this subject, perhaps the best known being the Arthur Schlesinger study (first conducted in 1948 and repeated in 1996). There is no absolute consensus as to who were the best and worst of our presidents, but names which commonly appear on the best list include:

Abraham Lincoln (republican), FDR (democrat), George Washington (federalist), Teddy Roosevelt (republican), Harry Turman (democrat) and Thomas Jefferson (democrat republican).

Commonly on the worst list are:

Warren Harding (republican), U.S. Grant (republican), Richard Nixon (republican), James Buchanan (democrat), Andrew Johnson (democrat) and Franklin Pierce (democrat).

Pretty difficult to draw any partisan conclusions from either list.

----- jim o\-S