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What the title asks. I learned two things recently: that FDR used a highly exaggerated version of the USS Greer incident to help sell the American public on World War II, and that Bush I used an entirely fake congressional testimony about Iraqi soldiers ripping babies out of their cribs and leaving them on the floor to die in order to get involved in the Persian Gulf in 1991. So, to my knowledge, here is a list of wars and distortions used to sell them:

• Spanish-American War: Remember the Maine! A coal explosion in the Maine's bunker is said to be caused by a Spanish mine, driving the public to clamor for war.
• World War I: The Lusitania. The ship was smuggling arms to Britain, but the act was sold as a cold-blooded atrocity.
• World War II: The USS Greer. Unprovoked, the Greer tailed a U-Boat for two hours, radioing its position to a British warplane, which dropped depth charges on it. After the U-Boat, in desperation, tried to torpedo the US ship, it attacked and laid down its own pattern of depth charges. Sold as an unprovoked German attack on a US warship.
• Vietnam: Tonkin. 'nough said.
• Persian Gulf I: As above.
• Persian Gulf II: WMDs.

Does anybody know anything about Korea or any of the wars in the 19th century? This seems to be a rather pervasive pattern in the last hundred years.

The US got into WW1 because the German Government(in bad faith) was using US State Department-owned cables to transmit "Stab the US in the back" offers to Mexico and Japan.

Lonestar wrote:The US got into WW1 because the German Government(in bad faith) was using US State Department-owned cables to transmit "Stab the US in the back" offers to Mexico and Japan.

I'm talking about the reasons the government used to sell the public on the war; and to my knowledge, the Lusitania got more people outraged than the Zimmerman Note. But even so, the use of the Lusitania as propaganda means that the sale to the public was not entirely above-board.

Surlethe wrote: [*]World War I: The Lusitania. The ship was smuggling arms to Britain, but the act was sold as a cold-blooded atrocity.

It effectively was. The U-boat captain had no way of knowing that the 45,000 ton liner had some boxes of rifle ammo onboard, and the German government literally advertised the fact that it intended to sink the ship before it departed! Those wonderful German U-boat commanders also sank several other liners around the same time, killing quite a few people, those sinking also made big headlines at the time but have all be forgotten today. The Germans also later deliberately sank at least one hospital ship, though by then the US was already in the war.

Anyway Lusitanian sure as shit didn’t sell America on the war, notice how the Germans called off the unrestricted campaign, the American public and government calmed down, and the US stayed out for another two years. It was only after the Germans went back to unrestricted U-boat warfare yet again AND the Germans tried to talk Mexico into attack in the US (Mexico had about the same size army as the US at the time) that it became war. Even then after we got involved the war was a very hard sell to the American public, and a rather epic scale propaganda campaign was required to win them over to the idea that we now needed to mobilize, it makes anything Bush did look like jack and shit. Gangs were actually organized to go around beating dachshunds to death; hamburgers became liberty steaks or sometimes liberty sandwiches, sauerkraut became victory cabbage, German measles became liberty measles, they had others but I cant recall them offhand.

[*]World War II: The USS Greer. Unprovoked, the Greer tailed a U-Boat for two hours, radioing its position to a British warplane, which dropped depth charges on it. After the U-Boat, in desperation, tried to torpedo the US ship, it attacked and laid down its own pattern of depth charges. Sold as an unprovoked German attack on a US warship.

So what? That had fucking ZERO effect on the US entry into WW2. Germany declared war on the US.

[*]Vietnam: Tonkin. 'nough said.

Tonkin was a pretty bullshit excuse, but hell by then the US was already very deeply involved in the war, tens of thousands of Americans already served in the south and many had died. A major factor in American support for intervention which is often overlooked n the modern day BTW, was the very public persecution of Vietnamese Christians by the communists in the years surrounding the north/south split.

[*]Persian Gulf I: As above.

What the fuck? Gulf I is like Tonkin how exactly? Saddam invades Kuwait, just three years after then end of his last war which killed a million people. World doesn’t like this, world spends months trying to negotiate and Iraqi withdrawal, Iraq refuses, and half million American troops backed up by over a quarter of a million coalition including Syrians troops kicks them out. What’s the fucking deception? No one made any secret of the need to NOT allow Saddam to then roll into Saudi and control half the world’s oil supply and saving Kuwait from being ruled by a guy who killed his own people like flies was icing on the cake.

Does anybody know anything about Korea or any of the wars in the 19th century? This seems to be a rather pervasive pattern in the last hundred years.

No it seems like you not even making any attempt at an argument on half of these, and are profoundly ignorant how the US entered the largest war in history and many other things.

Korea BTW was an absurdly unpopular war and the US public was never ‘sold’ on it, the Truman Administration simply ordered intervention in respond to blatant and unprovoked communist aggression from an utterly brutal regime, the wonders of which last to this day in the form of people fucking eating grass.

The first Gulf War had a bullshit agitprop campaign comparable to Gulf War 2. A PR firm got the niece of a Kuwaiti Embassy honcho to go on TV and in front of Congress, pretending to be a nurse who somehow escaped from Kuwait, and with a bullshit story about Iraqi soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies off incubators.

No such thing ever happened, but it was such a Goebbelian masterpiece that it was used to sell TWO wars. Clever, no?

Whilst there was undoubtedly a low-intensity war in the North Atlantic that the public was not informed of, Skimmer is absolutely right - what sold the American public was that a few days after Pearl Harbor Germany declared war. Doesn't get much more blatant than that.

Surlethe wrote: I'm talking about the reasons the government used to sell the public on the war; and to my knowledge, the Lusitania got more people outraged than the Zimmerman Note. But even so, the use of the Lusitania as propaganda means that the sale to the public was not entirely above-board.

As Skimmer already pointed out, the Lusitania sinking almost certainly did not get used to ell the war to the American Public, especially as the Kaiser effectively killed the U-Boat campaign after Wilson threatened to break off relations(I might add that the Lusitania was listed as an auxiliary merchant cruiser in Jane's, which was duly checked before the U-Boat opened fire).

Having said that, there was a gap of 2 years before unrestricted submarine warfare resumed, and it was a combination of that AND the Zimmerman Telegram AND what Wilson felt to be a personal betrayal of trust by the Germans using State Department cables for such fun.

Castles of Steel is a fascinating read, you should check it out.

Elfdart wrote:The first Gulf War had a bullshit agitprop campaign comparable to Gulf War 2. A PR firm got the niece of a Kuwaiti Embassy honcho to go on TV and in front of Congress, pretending to be a nurse who somehow escaped from Kuwait, and with a bullshit story about Iraqi soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies off incubators.

No such thing ever happened, but it was such a Goebbelian masterpiece that it was used to sell TWO wars. Clever, no?

I’ve heard of that, they spent about 10 million bucks on propaganda, not the most overwhelming of campaigns, certainly nothing compared to the world beating propaganda campaign we had after entering WW1.

The incubator shit might not have happened, but Saddam was having people shot in the streets and generally not being nice. The Iraqis even went so far as to ship home the corpses of Egyptian workers they’d shot dead with notes saying they’d died in industrial accidents… brilliant logic. Most of this was very deliberate, until the final withdrawal most Iraqi army troops actually behaved pretty well but the Special Republican Guard and intelligence services had long lists of people to kill.

The UN BTW then authorized using all necessary means to end the occupation a month and a half before the US Congress did. The Soviets even considered sending troops at one point and Syria, the bestest best friend of America, actually did (a whole mechanized division too, not a token force); the world was not going to just let Saddam have Kuwait.

Why are the contents of the Zimmermann telegram seen as so bad? The way it's talked about, I'd thought it was a request to attack the U.S. unprovoked until I read the telegram itself. Were secret defensive alliances seen as particularly bad back then?

I had not known about the misuse of cables before reading this thread. How important was that aspect in the public view?

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:Why are the contents of the Zimmermann telegram seen as so bad? The way it's talked about, I'd thought it was a request to attack the U.S. unprovoked until I read the telegram itself. Were secret defensive alliances seen as particularly bad back then?

I had not known about the misuse of cables before reading this thread. How important was that aspect in the public view?

You missed the part about "an understand on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona?" I mean as blatnat statement that Germany would support by alliance a Mexican military incursion aimed at reclaiming those states would pretty much piss everybody off.

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:Why are the contents of the Zimmermann telegram seen as so bad? The way it's talked about, I'd thought it was a request to attack the U.S. unprovoked until I read the telegram itself. Were secret defensive alliances seen as particularly bad back then?

It did.

That said, such alliances were hardly seen as a good thing, especially on one's doorstep, given that they had pitched Europe into a bloody war. That alone would have assured the US would be quite annoyed. The last thing any of them wanted was to see that kind of thing extending to North America.

And of course the US had just got done unsuccessfully chasing Pancho Villa around. I'd say that the US would hardly welcome anything more destabilizing forces.

CmdrWilkins wrote:You missed the part about "an understand on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona?" I mean as blatnat statement that Germany would support by alliance a Mexican military incursion aimed at reclaiming those states would pretty much piss everybody off.

I was under the impression that expansionist and, especially, revanchist aims were seen as typical at the time. Would a similar telegram supporting French annexation of Alsace-Lorraine or German annexation of Poland have set off a war during that time period?

Stormbringer wrote:That said, such alliances were hardly seen as a good thing, especially on one's doorstep, given that they had pitched Europe into a bloody war. That alone would have assured the US would be quite annoyed. The last thing any of them wanted was to see that kind of thing extending to North America.

So it wasn't that it was seen as a particularly underhanded measure in itself, but that the U.S. was willing to use force to keep that sort of diplomacy out of its territory and neighbors?

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:Why are the contents of the Zimmermann telegram seen as so bad? The way it's talked about, I'd thought it was a request to attack the U.S. unprovoked until I read the telegram itself. Were secret defensive alliances seen as particularly bad back then?

I had not known about the misuse of cables before reading this thread. How important was that aspect in the public view?

There was a lot of bad shit going down along the border at the time. The Texas Rangers alone murdered between four and five thousand Hispanics along the Rio Grande (most of whom were American citizens) in order to steal their land. There's a pretty good documentary about it called "Border Bandits". There was a great deal of panic in the southwest about Mexican Bandits at the time, and Pancho Villa's raid didn't help (It sounds almost quaint, but then dark-skinned, mustachioed killers hadn't been dubbed "terrorists" yet.). This panic was then used as cover for what in today's language would be called ethnic cleansing, or ''evaporations'', as they were called back then.

So the idea that a foreign power that was already on Uncle Sam's shit list might offer aid to the "Meskins"...

I suppose the one that, without looking at it, would be pretty hard to distort would be the Civil War. There were people claiming that this was a war against slavery, although the line out of Lincoln's office was that it was a war to restore the Union and that the South's real offense had just been leaving, which they certainly did do. Unless we want to call into question Lincoln's constitutionally unprecedented step of raising an army of his own volition and obtaining approval from Congress ex post facto, I think the Civil War would pass the test.

As for the Gulf War... well, just a handful of years you have Rummy shaking hands with Saddam Insane and the US turning a blind eye when the Iraqis started gassing Iranians. Heh.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:As for the Gulf War... well, just a handful of years you have Rummy shaking hands with Saddam Insane and the US turning a blind eye when the Iraqis started gassing Iranians. Heh.

Do you know the history behind that hand shaking? It occurred in early 1983, three years into the Iran-Iraq war. This was after Saddam withdrew from Iranian territory, and attempted to end the war with an offer of 70 billion in reparations. Iran rejected this, and America’s best Iranian friend Khomeini then declared his intention to invade Iraq and capture Bagdad.

During the first three years of the war the US severed all ties with Iraq, diplomatic and economic because Saddam had started the war as such a blatant act of aggression. Rumsfelds hand shaking trip was part of the reestablishment of relations because it was not in our interest to see a decisive Iraqi defeat now that any hope for Iraq overrunning part of Iran was dashed. Likewise we did not desire an Iranian defeat; if either nation won overwhelmingly they would then dominate the gulf and probably go on to invade Kuwait and Saudi and thus dominate half the worlds oil supply. This fear would be heightened later in the war when Iran overran Al-Faw and began shelling northern Kuwaiti oil fields, not to mention the tanker war.

Following the reestablishment of relations US began providing Iraq with carefully filtered intelligence and with some loan guarantees so that Iraq could buy American food, its own agriculture having been heavily disrupted by fertilizer and labor shortages. Iran meanwhile was sold rather large numbers of missiles and spare parts for American made weapons by way of Israel, a level of direct military aid which Iraq simply never got.

In terms of chemical weapons, it simply wasn’t seen as the big deal it is today, when we fear chemical weapons mainly because they are likely to only be used against civilians Iraq had by 1983 only used chemicals only on the battlefield and only then on a limited and unverified scale. Halabja was to be gassed only in 1988, and this was only after Saddam found out the US had sold arms to Iran. After that he never trusted (more like actively hated) the United Sates. Course by WW2 or Korean war standards Halabja would have been a legitimate target anyway, it was occupied by Iranian and Kurdish troops. Overall gas weapon casualties amount to only a tiny portion of the several million total for the war.

US meanwhile actually still developing new chemical weapons. We had the BLU-80/B Bigey binary VX nerve gas bomb project in preproduction, though this, the ultimate chemical aircraft bomb, was never ready for full scale production. Work was also ongoing on the XM135 binary nerve gas rocket for MLRS. Full scale production of the M687 binary Sarin gas 155mm shell would commence in 1987. IIRC we also did some work on a binary nerve gas warhead for what later became ATACMS.

It was only in 1990 that the US and USSR agreed to abandon and destroy all deployed chemical weapons. This led directly to the 1993 world Chemical Warfare Convention in which all parties agreed to totally destroy their chemical stockpiles and all production facilities. The treaty entered into force only in 1997. Iraq never signed.

Mind you Kennedy's bill to declare war on BRITAN over 1916, and the imprisonment of Americans who were smuggling guns into Ireland, only failed by two votes.....

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:

Stormbringer wrote:That said, such alliances were hardly seen as a good thing, especially on one's doorstep, given that they had pitched Europe into a bloody war. That alone would have assured the US would be quite annoyed. The last thing any of them wanted was to see that kind of thing extending to North America.

So it wasn't that it was seen as a particularly underhanded measure in itself, but that the U.S. was willing to use force to keep that sort of diplomacy out of its territory and neighbors?

The Zimmerman Telegram wrote:"On the first of February, we intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep the United States of America neutral.

In the event of this not succeeding, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and make peace together. We shall give generous financial support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details of settlement are left to you.

You are instructed to inform the President [of Mexico] of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence with this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Japan and ourselves.

Please call to the attention of the President that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England to make peace in a few months."

Note the part in red, German was definitely maneuvering towards a possible, indeed, probable war with the United States in North America. To say that the US felt that such a thing was underhanded is understating it. This was clearly an attempt to negotiate a military alliance against the United States. There was little chance of things going well between the US and Germany at that point, specifically because of things like the German U-boat campaign.

My point was that the US understood this for what it was, an offer to back Mexico in an attack on the US southwest.

Surlethe wrote:[*]World War I: The Lusitania. The ship was smuggling arms to Britain, but the act was sold as a cold-blooded atrocity.

In addition to what's already been said: It has never been proven that the Lusitania was smuggling arms to Britain. The ship did carry non-explosive munitions and while the smuggling hypothesis was forwarded as an explanation to the ship's sinking, the wreck does not show any signs of internal explosions. The second explosion was must likely caused by coal dust or sea water coming into contact with the boilers.

Mange wrote:

Surlethe wrote:[*]World War I: The Lusitania. The ship was smuggling arms to Britain, but the act was sold as a cold-blooded atrocity.

In addition to what's already been said: It has never been proven that the Lusitania was smuggling arms to Britain. The ship did carry non-explosive munitions and while the smuggling hypothesis was forwarded as an explanation to the ship's sinking, the wreck does not show any signs of internal explosions. The second explosion was must likely caused by coal dust or sea water coming into contact with the boilers.

Whether or not the ship appeared to have exploded due to the munitions is irrelevant. The question lies in whether or not there exist records that show that the ship carried munitions at all.

And given the ship was torpedoed below the waterline, the explosives might well be above the waterline and hence didn't cause the ship to blow.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:

Mange wrote:

Surlethe wrote:[*]World War I: The Lusitania. The ship was smuggling arms to Britain, but the act was sold as a cold-blooded atrocity.

In addition to what's already been said: It has never been proven that the Lusitania was smuggling arms to Britain. The ship did carry non-explosive munitions and while the smuggling hypothesis was forwarded as an explanation to the ship's sinking, the wreck does not show any signs of internal explosions. The second explosion was must likely caused by coal dust or sea water coming into contact with the boilers.

Whether or not the ship appeared to have exploded due to the munitions is irrelevant. The question lies in whether or not there exist records that show that the ship carried munitions at all.

As I mentioned, the ship did carry munitions that were non-explosive (such as cartridges) which were legal. The fact of the matter is that there weren't any space left in the cargo holds for any large amounts of contraband. However, it's important to have in mind that the ship was a legitimate military target.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:And given the ship was torpedoed below the waterline, the explosives might well be above the waterline and hence didn't cause the ship to blow.

Where would the munitions have been placed above the waterline?

Mange wrote:Where would the munitions have been placed above the waterline?

They could have placed themabove the waterline at the center of the ship. Depends on how they want to distribute the top weight. The waterline merely marks the level at which the ship floats on the water. Since the torpedo typically strikes under the waterline and is the explosive isn't large enough, the munitions could have escaped damage.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:

Mange wrote:Where would the munitions have been placed above the waterline?

They could have placed themabove the waterline at the center of the ship. Depends on how they want to distribute the top weight. The waterline merely marks the level at which the ship floats on the water. Since the torpedo typically strikes under the waterline and is the explosive isn't large enough, the munitions could have escaped damage.

I'm very well aware of that. However, the cargo holds on the Lusitania were located below the waterline. Furthermore, why would the Admiralty and the Cunard line conspire to smuggle munitions illegally in the very small cargo holds of a passenger liner rather than legally using one of the Cunard lines freighters?

Mange wrote:I'm very well aware of that. However, the cargo holds on the Lusitania were located below the waterline.

Well, in theory, they could do remodelling of the interior to store the cargo above the waterline. Cargo ships in general pile their cargo from below to above the waterline.

Furthermore, why would the Admiralty and the Cunard line conspire to smuggle munitions illegally in the very small cargo holds of a passenger liner rather than legally using one of the Cunard lines freighters?

That.. you have to ask them.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:

Mange wrote:I'm very well aware of that. However, the cargo holds on the Lusitania were located below the waterline.

Well, in theory, they could do remodelling of the interior to store the cargo above the waterline. Cargo ships in general pile their cargo from below to above the waterline.

The Lusitania wasn't a cargo ship and I can't frankly see any way to extensively remodel the ship without the ship spending a considerable amount of time at a ship yard. You can't simply move for example the boilers or move coal bunkers and condensers (which restricted the sizes of the cargo holds). The Lusitania arrived in New York on April 24 and departed on May 1.

When Titanic's older sister ship Olympic was fitted with a double skin after the Titanic disaster, the funnels had to be removed (the entire refit took eleven months to complete. When the Olympic was converted to oil burning after WWI and the boilers were removed, the refit took even longer).