An Answermug friend sez "war is necessary sometimes". Of course if you are attacked you have to defend. That I get. But who starts it?

But the example you give is to SAVE LIVES Walt. Not to take land or oil or whatever. But we don't invade when genocide occurs in oil-free lands did we? We only invade when it pays us financially to do so in some way. Never just out of human kindness. And do you think we would have invaded Germany to stop the holocaust/genocide going on? Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. What if we had been left entirely alone and remained unharmed? I read that FDR might have known about the Japanese heading to Pearl Harbor and what was coming but did nothing because he wanted the American people to be on board entering the war. I don't know if that's true. I hope it isn't because American lives were sacrificed that might have been saved. I'm certainly not an historical buff. I do remember I was a little girl when I heard FDR on the radio say "today is a day of infamy.... I was "helping" my mom do laundry. I was 4. She started weeping. I don't know where my dad was. That memory is frozen in my mind's eye. We were sorting laundry in the kitchen which was adjacent to the utility room where our washing machine (old ringer type) was hooked up. No dryer. We hung clothes on the backyard lines set up for that. The radio was on the kitchen table and whatever we were listening was interrupted. That's 78 years ago and I remember it very vividly. I don't know why. It's spooky. Thank you for your reply Walt! :)

If you've ever read Thomas Moore's Utopia ... y'know, when people talk about want a Utopian society? ... that "idealistic" society would actually invade other nations, if they believed the resources weren't being utilized correctly.

So yeah, most people who talk about wanting a Utopian society have no clue what they're asking for.  LOL

I have heard that theory about Pearl Harbor, as well.
Though from what I've seen/heard, they believed there would be attacks by infiltrators.  Which allegedly explains why the planes were on the tarmacks rather than under cover.  It's easier to protect planes that way, since they are more visible.  If you're expecting an attack from above, the planes would have been under cover.

I don't think we could have avoided war.
We were actively shipping material to Britain, and being targeted by German submarines.  The next logical step would have been German warships sinking our transports.  Totally legal under conventions of war.
We were also interfering in Japan's war against China, going so far as to allow volunteers to fight for China.

So, we were like a guy at a fight ... who keeps hitting one of the combatants.  At some point, they are going to hit back.

I'm trying to think of a time we "went it alone" to attack a country for non-resource reasons.
There aren't many.

South Korea is the only major one I can think of.

We ATTACKED south korea? Why? I thought the north was always the bad guy? Oy vey. Why did we attack? Thank you for your reply Walt! I'm so not up on all this stuff. I appreciate that you are! :)

I meant we went to war to help South Korea (without having any resources to claim).

If I'm looking at who we attacked ... without first being attacked ... I can't think of any.
Unless we count the Confederacy - in which case they attacked first. 
But then again, that was about claiming territory so wouldn't count.

Oh. Apologies for the midsunderstanding. Mitt Romney is currently telling us why he will VOTE TO IMPEACH. If he ran I might just vote for him for prez! I'm not joking. He is showing he has a spine and character and a conscience and a reverence for what is right. Right now the Dems are fighting among themselves and I don't know who is who or what I'll do. At least ONE GOP Senator is worthy of my admiration. Thank you for your reply! :) This post was edited by RosieG at February 5, 2020 12:12 PM MST