Wednesday, July 16, 2014

On Pancho Villa and President Wilson

While it is undoubtedly true that the former was a total piece of garbage (a murderer and a thief who had absolutely zero regard for the soldiers who followed him) and that, yes, Carranza was most infinitely preferable, the fact of the matter is that it wasn't until Mr. Wilson decided to offer American assistance to Carranza (which, quite frankly, Carranza never asked for and ultimately rejected) that those legendary Villa raids into Arizona and New Mexico really got percolating.....................................................................................And if that wasn't boneheaded enough, Wilson of course had to compound the matter by sending General Pershing and some 10,000 troops into Mexico looking for Villa in what was probably one of the most ludicrous foreign policy initiatives in U.S. history (and one that was also thoroughly condemned by Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and most of the rest of Latin America); the fact that they literally had no idea where Villa was, utilized a rail line that was essentially useless, were totally humiliated at the Battle of Carrizal, etc..........................................................................................Of course, if it was simply just Mexico in which Wilson intervened, maybe, MAYBE, we could forgive the guy. But the fact that Mr. Wilson also intervened in Nicaragua (1914), Haiti (1915), and the Dominican Republic (1916) AND thoroughly got America enmeshed in what was an idiotic European bloodbath (World War 1) leads me to think that this guy really needs to be rated near the very bottom of American Presidents.

4 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

But he was a progressive, and as everybody knows progressive equals good. League of Nations... original birth of the one world government concept.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

The modern day progressives are a little bit divided on 'em, it seems. Guys like Octopus recognize that they cannot defend the indefensible (the Sedition Act, WW1, segregating the federal work force and the army, etc.) and have dumped the guy while some of the more idiotic and partisan amongst them have shamelessly spun for him. I obviously have a lot more respect for the former group.

Les Carpenter said...

Good point Will, glad you brought it up.

BB-Idaho said...

An obscure but interesting historical note: among the US
troops under Black Jack Pershing,
were some young officers, who later became 4 star generals in WWII-
George S. Patton- 7th US Army
Courtney Hodges- 1st US Army
Carl Spats-8th & 15th Air Forces
William Simpson- 9th US Army
Leslie McNair- Normandy C of S--
all in Europe. Hodges started as a private in 1905. McNair was killed in the US carpet bombing prior to the St. Lo breakout..only his shoulder stars were found; tragically, McNair's son, 77th
Division chief of staff, was killed by a sniper on Guam 2 weeks later. We note the startling resemblance to the earlier Mexican war (1846-47)
where a plethora of young officers
rose to high rank in the Civil War, among them Lee and Grant.
Grant later wrote that he considered the Mexican War unjust
on the part of the US.
Among other young West Pointers
cutting their teeth in the earlier
Mexican War, Jefferson Davis,
Braxton Bragg, W.T. Sherman,
George Meade, PGT Beauregard,
James Longstreet and George McClellan. Sorry, Will, we history buffs get off track!