lincoln, wilson, fdr?

[WalterMitty]

were all 3 war criminals?

discuss.

[Bono]

Well, they are certainly the three worst presidents ever.

[Nym90]

No, they were three of our best Presidents, though Wilson was overly idealistic and this helped to bring about the defeat of some of the policies that he championed.

The other two certainly weren't perfect by any means but both ultimately did what had to be done in service of a truly great cause.

[Boris]

It depends. Was the fire-bombing of Japanese cities specifically ordered by FDR, or was it merely decided by General Curtis LeMay and Robert McNamara?

I don't know of any abuses Lincoln committed during the Civil War (my knowledge of the Civil War is rather basic), but I'm sure StatesRights could point out some

What did Wilson do that would consider him a war criminal? The Phillipine-American War ended in 1913 if I'm not mistaken. We entered World War I in 1917, but what abuses were seen there? Most of the U.S. involvement in World War I was with the Treaty of Versailles and the Fourteen Points.

[Dr. Cynic]

Well, none of them were any more criminals than any other politican.

I think the most criminalistic thing done was to censor public opinion, which was never done by FDR. Wilson made it a crime to speak out against the war, and Lincoln censored newspapers.

[The Dowager Mod]

Lincolns suspension of Habeus Corpus was pretty close to criminal.

[??????????]

Lincolns suspension of Habeus Corpus was pretty close to criminal.

How about shutting down the Maryland press and arresting legislators of the state of Maryland without any hope for any sort of trial?

[The Dowager Mod]

Lincolns suspension of Habeus Corpus was pretty close to criminal.

How about shutting down the Maryland press and arresting legislators of the state of Maryland without any hope for any sort of trial?

Same thing.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I don't know about Wilson, but yes to Lincoln & FDR (and Truman for that matter), but the winner is never tried for war crimes.  If the Nazis had won, we'd have been tried, and if the Japanese had won, we'd have been tried by them.

[kashifsakhan]

If u think Polk (Mexican war), Kennedy-Nixon (Vietnam war), GW Bush (Iraq) are criminals, then so are Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR.

In my opinion, the worst criminal of the 3 would be Lincoln, then FDR, then Wilson.

[Max]

Lincoln: Don't know

Wilson: As far as I know, the Amerivan troops commited no war crimes.

FDR: I say no, though the bombing of strategical unimportant Japanese and German cities was unneccessary and brutal. But in a war against the pure evil I wouldn't call it a war crime.

[adam]

Well, they are certainly the three worst presidents ever.

[??????????]

Wilson: As far as I know, the Amerivan troops commited no war crimes.

World War I itself was a huge war crime and it's a shame the US picked the wrong side.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

World War I itself was a huge war crime and it's a shame the US picked the wrong side.

There was no "good" side in World War I, save maybe the Belgians.  Going through Belgium was a risky move for Germany that in the end failed to deliver the expected dividends.  If the Germans had honored the treaties that called for Belgian neutrality, then it is entirely conceivable that so long as the Kaiserliche Marine stayed well away from British waters that Britain would have stayed out of the war.  Even if Britain had entered the war, the lack of any legitimate casus belli on its part would have increased anti-British sentiment in the United States.

Wilson was overly idealistic and this helped to bring about the defeat of some of the policies that he championed.

Wilson is often misintrepeted as idealistic by his apologists.  He was nothing of the kind. His policies were intended to increase American power and prestige and included the invasions of Haiti and Nicaraguga despite any authority by either Congress or treaty to do so.  His support of nationalism as a organizing principle in international politics was a cynical tool intended to break up the power of the European powers.  He thought that anyone domestically who dissented with him about his war policies was a traitor. He thought our system of Constitutional checks and balances was quaint and obsolete and wished we had a parlimentary system instead, with absolute power held by the ruling party.

Of any president we've had, I suspect that Wilson is the one who would most readily accept the position of dictator, were it offered him.  Not that there weren't others who would have wanted such power just as much, but Wilson would have thought he actually deserved it.

[Bono]

World War I itself was a huge war crime and it's a shame the US picked the wrong side.

There was no "good" side in World War I, save maybe the Belgians.  Going through Belgium was a risky move for Germany that in the end failed to deliver the expected dividends.  If the Germans had honored the treaties that called for Belgian neutrality, then it is entirely conceivable that so long as the Kaiserliche Marine stayed well away from British waters that Britain would have stayed out of the war.  Even if Britain had entered the war, the lack of any legitimate casus belli on its part would have increased anti-British sentiment in the United States.

Wilson was overly idealistic and this helped to bring about the defeat of some of the policies that he championed.

Wilson is often misintrepeted as idealistic by his apologists.  He was nothing of the kind. His policies were intended to increase American power and prestige and included the invasions of Haiti and Nicaraguga despite any authority by either Congress or treaty to do so.  His support of nationalism as a organizing principle in international politics was a cynical tool intended to break up the power of the European powers.  He thought that anyone domestically who dissented with him about his war policies was a traitor. He thought our system of Constitutional checks and balances was quaint and obsolete and wished we had a parlimentary system instead, with absolute power held by the ruling party.

Of any president we've had, I suspect that Wilson is the one who would most readily accept the position of dictator, were it offered him.  Not that there weren't others who would have wanted such power just as much, but Wilson would have thought he actually deserved it.

Your dislike of Wilson is one of your most redeeming characteristics Ernest,

[dazzleman]

War criminals?  That's absurd.

Winston Churchill opposed the Nuremburg Trials on the basis that war is not a legal issue, and that a dangerous precedent would be set if the winners of a war started to try the losers for 'war crimes.'  He believed that defeat was a political issue, and should be handled in that manner.  He was right, and some of the comments on this thread prove it.

War, in and of itself, involves a massive number of acts that, outside of war, would be criminal.  War is basically mass murder.  Looked at that way, how could it not be criminal, and how could anybody who engages in war somehow not be a war criminal?  By that definition, almost every president would be a war criminal.  The term then loses all meaning.

All three men led the US in a major war.  It was imperative in all cases to win those wars.  Wilson had the greatest amount of short-term choice in the matter; he could have stayed out of World War I, let the Germans win, and then passed the task of dealing with the ugly consequences onto his successor.  FDR and Lincoln were in situations in which they were under attack, and had to either act or surrender.

The best way to lose a war is to worry about whether what one does is legal.  Under FDR, we developed the atomic bomb, and firebombed German and Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilians as deliberate policy.  And they deserved all of it.  They did worse to the people that they attacked, unprovoked, and would have done far worse to us if they could have.  So I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.  The Germans and Japanese got what they had coming to them.  Period.  End of story.  A far worse 'war crime' would have been to lose.

Too many people examine war today without looking at the consequences of losing.  War is horrible, and certainly should not be undertaken if there are no negative consequences of not doing so, or by extension, of losing.  In World War II and the Civil War, the consequences of losing would have been calamitous, and in World War I, they would have been seriously negative. 

It would have been far worse to fuss over the legality of the moves taken to win these wars, and end up losing them, that to have done what it took to win.

Incidentally, that's something we ought to keep in mind in the current struggle against muslim terrorism.  Contrary to what many liberals think, there are consequences to losing this struggle too.  I'd much rather fry the turbans right off the heads of those middle eastern crazies in large numbers than deal with the horrors that they want to impose on the world.  They are the nazis of our era, and we better wake up soon or we could have a major war on our hands, this time nuclear.

[Nym90]

I agree with what Dazzleman has said. I am personally very wary of the idea that the ends justify the means, but in some circumstances, certainly they do, if the consequences of failure are dire enough. This should of course be the exception and not the rule, but one has to have the courage to call evil what it is.

Of course, the problem with this idea is that one has to have good judgement. We have to trust our own judgement about who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are; sometimes it's easy to identify them, and other times not so easy. That's why overarching government power to fight terrorism can become frightening, because the more power government has, the more we have to trust the people in power to use it properly. It really all comes down to a fundamental question of character of the individuals in office (which in a democracy is ultimately a reflection of our own character, of course).

[Michael Z]

The best way to lose a war is to worry about whether what one does is legal.  Under FDR, we developed the atomic bomb, and firebombed German and Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilians as deliberate policy.  And they deserved all of it.  They did worse to the people that they attacked, unprovoked, and would have done far worse to us if they could have.  So I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.  The Germans and Japanese got what they had coming to them.  Period.  End of story.  A far worse 'war crime' would have been to lose.

Sorry, but I don't see how women and children and individuals who did not willingly participate in the policies of their government can in some way be seen as having it "coming to them" when they die in a carpet bombing of the city they happen to be living in.

[Nym90]

The best way to lose a war is to worry about whether what one does is legal.  Under FDR, we developed the atomic bomb, and firebombed German and Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilians as deliberate policy.  And they deserved all of it.  They did worse to the people that they attacked, unprovoked, and would have done far worse to us if they could have.  So I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.  The Germans and Japanese got what they had coming to them.  Period.  End of story.  A far worse 'war crime' would have been to lose.

Sorry, but I don't see how women and children and individuals who did not willingly participate in the policies of their government can in some way be seen as having it "coming to them" when they die in a carpet bombing of the city they happen to be living in.

True, but the alternatives were far worse. I do agree that civilians should not be held responsible for the actions of their leaders, but each action has to be looked at in context.

Obviously it was a terrible shame that so many had to die in the atomic bombings, but it was not as bad as killing far more in an invasion.

[Rob]

Lincoln: Used draconian methods to suppress the antiwar movement; not quite a war criminal IMO.

Wilson: Killed a lot of people by getting the US into that stupid war in the first place, and enacted a campaign against "subversives" as fascistic as anything in our history; definitely a war criminal.

FDR: The indiscriminate slaughter of German and Japanese civilians as a matter of policy in the lovely "terror bombings" marks him pretty clearly as a war criminal, but it can be argued that such terrorism was justified given the opposition; I'm on the fence.

[??????????]

Lincoln: Used draconian methods to suppress the antiwar movement; not quite a war criminal IMO.

A lot of leftists say the same thing (not necessarily you) but then they go on rants about how horribly oppressive GW Bush is. Do you think with their attitude they would have supported Lincoln in 1862? I think not.

[Max]

Wilson: As far as I know, the Amerivan troops commited no war crimes.

World War I itself was a huge war crime and it's a shame the US picked the wrong side.

There would have been war crimes if Wilson gave an order to kill prisoners of war or to kill civilians intentionally. Nothing like that happened, as far as I know.

By the way, do you think the US should have fought on the side of Germany and Austria? Why were they the "right side"?

[??????????]

Wilson: As far as I know, the Amerivan troops commited no war crimes.

World War I itself was a huge war crime and it's a shame the US picked the wrong side.

There would have been war crimes if Wilson gave an order to kill prisoners of war or to kill civilians intentionally. Nothing like that happened, as far as I know.

By the way, do you think the US should have fought on the side of Germany and Austria? Why were they the "right side"?

Austria had a legitimate reason to declare war with the assasination of one of their leaders.

[Virginian87]

Wilson: As far as I know, the Amerivan troops commited no war crimes.

World War I itself was a huge war crime and it's a shame the US picked the wrong side.

There would have been war crimes if Wilson gave an order to kill prisoners of war or to kill civilians intentionally. Nothing like that happened, as far as I know.

By the way, do you think the US should have fought on the side of Germany and Austria? Why were they the "right side"?

Austria had a legitimate reason to declare war with the assasination of one of their leaders.

Yes, they did.  But it was Germany, not Austria, that pulled us into World War I because they continued to disrupt our trans-Atlantic trade with Britain.

I agree that Germany was screwed big time at Versailles, considering how tough the reparations were.  In fact, Wilson believed the treatment of the Germans was far too harsh and pleaded with Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and other European leaders to scale back the size of German reparations. 

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

But it was Germany, not Austria, that pulled us into World War I because they continued to disrupt our trans-Atlantic trade with Britain.

If you want the U.S. to get into WWI on the basis of who violated the rights of neutral shipping first, then we should have declared war on Britain in 1914 after they placed minefields in the international waters of the North Sea.  That constituted an illegal act of war  (Note: Placing mines in German waters would have been OK according to the rules of war, but the British Navy couldn't have done that because it would have been too close to shore and their mine-laying ships would have been sunk by the Germans.)