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To the editor ...
Dr. Sniegoski's point #2 could easily be expanded. He wrote: "Liberals have championed America's past wars — World War I and World War II — viewing them as vehicles for progressive global reform."
Many other wars and interventions could have been named. Thus:
1. The Korean War — begun under the presidency of Harry Truman.
2. The Bay of Pigs invasion — carried out under the presidency of Kennedy, though planned under Eisenhower.
3. Intervention in Laos — carried out under the presidency of Kennedy.
4. Interventions in the Dominican Republic and Guatemala — carried out under the presidency of Johnson.
5. The Vietnam War — begun under Kennedy and Johnson. While there were liberals (particularly in the Senate) who proclaimed an opposition to the war, there were plenty who supported their presidents. Moreover, few liberals actually voted against funding it.
6. Deliberate destabilization of the government of Afghanistan by sending aid to the nascent Taliban to provoke the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan — carried out under the presidency of Carter. (Here's a discussion at Future of Freedom Foundation of Carter as hero of peace.)
Any number of other interventions in Europe, Central and South America, Africa, and Asia could be named, all taking place under liberal presidents and with little or ineffective opposition from other liberals. That's to say nothing of various CIA operations, including the assisting of South African-backed rebels in Angola under Carter.
It is worth remembering also that Lyndon Johnson's vice president was the ultra-liberal Hubert Humphrey, whose own candidacy for the presidency in 1968 could hardly be termed antiwar. And that George McGovern declared that the United States should go to war to defend Israel, if Israel needed that kind of help.
Liberals have quite an undeserved reputation for being antiwar.
Ronald N. Neff
Senior editor, TLD
May 17, 2003
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