• Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    “moral war” excuse only cropped up after we were attacked

    I think a lot of people would agree that the US had at least some moral authority to enter WWII after pearl harbor. Did it happen because we used diplomatic and economic policies in provocative ways that essentially amounted to taking a side? Yeah, but it also happened. The people who were killed really did die.

    • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      We are also kind of white washing the US’s imperialist murdering before WW1. We were at war with Spain for dubious reasons and then we invaded the Phillipenes and murdered anyone that didn’t like us extracting wealth and resources from them.
      And that is a single instance.

      We don’t like to call it war when it isn’t against Europeans.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Sure, that said we did not enter the war because it was a moral obligation, we got into the war because we did capitalist bullshit that got us attacked. The only moral war in the last two centuries is arguably the civil war and that could easily be argued to be a economic decision not at all a moral one.

      I imagine I’m going to get pushback about the civil war thing but let me be clear, slavery is immoral no question. It just isn’t actually why we got involved in the civil war, that was purely an economic decision.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I would call WWII a moral war, at least for the allies. WWI was just imperialist bullshit plus an arms race. WWII was a very different beast.

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          It may be because we can look at it from a modern perspective, but yeah, I would gladly sign up to kill some nazis. At the time, many, many Americans were actually sympathetic to the nazi party. Pearl Harbor is what galvanized us against the Axis.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          We did not enter either way for moral reasons. There’s also no moral war but that’s another issue entirely given wars throughout history tend to be for land or resources with the occasional excuse otherwise.