In light of President Bush's recent Russia trip to celebrate victory over Germany in World War II - or the "Great Patriotic War" as the Soviets called it - it is useful to ask: Why do historians, pundits, journalists, politicians the world over, and even Hollywood, celebrate World War II as the last "Good War" in American history?
How does that conflict distinguish itself from Korea and Vietnam, wherein we faced anti-war opposition both at home and abroad? Why do we today face such vicious resistance to the Global War on Terror from many of these same sources?
At first, the disunity of our war effort today seems inexplicable given the unity that existed during World War II. The similarities between the two are striking.
In both wars, we joined with global allies to fight fascistic fanatics who committed mass genocide. In both cases, we were attacked by surprise, completely without warning, in a strike that killed thousands. In fact, 9/11 can be seen as the more barbaric, since the attackers chose defenseless civilian targets. In both cases, Western civilization itself was targeted.
The stock answer is that during World War II, we were all united in a common cause: to counter an imminent threat from a barbaric enemy and defeat the only genuine "Axis of Evil" that ever existed.
Simpson goes on to examine the political left and why they found it in their hearts to support World War II. And why they are opposed to the Global War on Terrorism. While the original post on Defensewatch is gone, some wise poster on the Military.com forums had the foresight to post the column there in it's entirety. You can check it out here. And just in case it dissapears from there too, the Google cache of the text is located here.
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