The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I

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Summary: Parallels between WWI and the war with Iraq
Review: There is a lot of parallels between the war with Iraq and Thomas J. Fleming's book "The Illusion of Victory:America in World War I." One of which I noticed was when Fleming mentioned how we seem to think it was automatically ok for us to attack Germany in WWI because of the dictator in WWII. But infact we really had no reason at all, because the Germans were merely sticking up for their ally in Austria when the arch-duke of Austria was assassinated by terrorists from Serbia's Black Hand org. So Fleming presents the real case in that there was two completely different situations in World War I and World War II. Rather than Germany being the agressor they were being the defending country which was completely reversed in WWII. Another case is that Wilson was not the only president to blame. Though it is easy to point a finger at him because he abandoned his 14 points when the French (in the bitter thought) told Wilson that what Germany did was unforgivable as well as flew Wilson into the country and had shown him the damage the Germans had done, but the book also shows that Teddy Roosevelt was also at fault for some of the issues of pressure Wilson faced because he was advocating that we send troops to Paris to help with the war efforts. Like today, we easily blame Bush for his involvement in Iraq. Though it may seem like we do not belong there, one person who is partially to blame for this "illusion" is Clinton himself who infact really did nothing except bomb sites in Iraq as opposed to what should have been done when he was in office. There is no doubt Saddam has or at least had Weapons of Mass destruction, but it very well could have been taken care of in the Clinton administration and the burden would be lifted off Bush for the fact that he has yet to find any in Iraq. This book definitely opens your eyes to show you that you don't necessarily have the whole truth and that usually problems in one's administration came from the previous administration.