If we look at primary documents from Presidents who are asking to use force or threaten to use force against foreign powers, we see that with respect to the rhetoric of war, not a thing has changed over the past century. The primary reasons or justifications given by Bush, Johnson, Roosevelt and Wilson are so similar that whole paragraphs could be interchanged among them without differing from the originals. George Orwell warned against the empty rhetoric and meaningless phrases of political oratory, especially in times of war, in his famous essay Politics and the English Language. In these documents we see that all of the presidents use such phrases. Justification for the use of force or for threatening the use of force revolves around four central principles in all four documents. These principles are as follows:
The to bring peace to America and other nations
The characterization of the enemy as “evil”
If we look at Woodrow Wilson’s war message of 1917, we see that he makes an appeal to democracy and freedom, “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations” (4). Wilson argues that Germany’s warfare is a threat to “mankind” and that without American involvement the peace and security of the world is in jeopardy. The goal of Wilson’s reason for involving America in war is very similar to the objectives we will hear from the other presidents in this research, “To vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power” (4). Wilson then makes an appeal to democracy by saying that a lasting peace or a real progress toward it can never be achieved with a “partnership of democratic nations” (4). Earlier in his address, Wilson argued that American government has the right to keep the people safe against “unlawful violence” (2). These reasons will be mirrored by others as we shall see.