Is A Leftist Necessarily Anti-War?

One of the interesting revelations in the recently published memoir of former Obama Administration Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama opposed the 2007 troop surge in Iraq for political reasons.  The two were then contesting their party’s presidential nomination for 2008.  Each plainly recognized that a pro-war stance would be harmful to his or her candidacy among the liberals who constitute the bulk of the Democratic Party.

My how things have changed.

Historically, the American left was not hostile to U.S. military action.  The Progressive Movement, the progenitor of modern liberalism, first gained significant influence under President Theodore Roosevelt of “speak softly – carry a big stick” fame.  He was hardly leery of using U.S. military forces around the globe.

In 1917, President Wilson, another domestic liberal, joined World War I promising to “make the world safe for democracy”.

[An ironic twist – nearly a century later, President Bush cemented his bête noire reputation on the left by waging war in Iraq to “bring democracy to the Middle East”.]

Liberal icon FDR aided the war efforts of England and the USSR prior to Pearl Harbor despite promises that he would keep America out of World War II.  [Interestingly, in light of present alignments on questions of which party is inclined to use military force, GOP members tended to be isolationists prior to Dec. 7, 1941.]

Harry Truman, another man of the left, sent U.S. forces to Korea to counter the North Korean invasion of the South.

 

JFK, liberalism’s darling, promoted U.S. participation in Vietnam.  And LBJ, the father of the massive governmental expansion embodied in the Great Society, increased U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. 

This history of the left and the employment of military power should not be a surprise.  If anything, one would expect liberalism and support for force overseas to go hand in hand.  The left favors the expansion of government at home; the military is a tool for exercising the power of the U.S. government abroad.

Political philosophy,therefore, does not explain the aversion of modern day liberals to asserting U.S. authority overseas.  So why, as a practical matter, are they opposed to the use of military force?

Do liberals like America?  I don’t mean to suggest that most are anti-American.  But maybe the U.S. position in the world, still pre-eminent, generates feelings of embarrassment and guilt on the left, as if that dominance is undeserved.  Do they lack pride in the country of their birth?

Remember the President’s response in 2009 when questioned in Europe about America’s sense of exceptionalism?  “I’m sure others think their countries are exceptional, too.”

One could explain that response as merely a display of good manners (not wanting to give offense) in a foreign land.  But President Obama’s broad  record suggests that he was merely being candid.  He doesn’t believe the U.S. should consider itself to be exceptional.  The President views our standing in the world as a matter of luck and geography and is not the result of national character and moral superiority as most Americans prefer to believe.  His fellow leftists agree.

Naturally, therefore, today’s liberals challenge the assertion of U.S. authority:  we have no right to do so.

 

How did the left come to take a view of America’s purported goodness so different from that of fellow liberals 50 years ago and earlier?  Was it the turmoil of the 1960s which saw sharp hostilities over Vietnam and, among many, a desire for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese enemies to win?  Was the frequent burning of U.S. flags by leftists an expression of their hatred for their country?

Actress Jane Fonda traveled to Hanoi to lend her support to her hosts.  Later she was wildly applauded by the Hollywood crowd at the Academy Awards.  At the time, she was married to hard core-leftist Tom Hayden.  Was she expressing a hatred for America echoed by many others on the left?

 

Did Vietnam “cause” a sea change in the left’s attitude toward what had been viewed previously across ideological boundaries as America’s destiny to provide a beacon for the rest of the world?

 

The history of the past fifty years would say so.

Consequently, one can predict today the left’s reaction to future involvement overseas.  If efforts are seen to advance America’s interests, the left will be opposed.  Consider the recent past.  Name the area:  Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran.  The response was always the same.  The negative reaction was paramount despite genuine human rights’ concerns that the left highlights.  (Does anyone believe that recent advances for women in Afghanistan – school attendance, for instance – will survive the return of the Taliban which will almost surely follow our withdrawal?)