War, "The Price of Freedom"?

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War, “The Price of Freedom”? Originally uploaded by Tolka Rover.

The slogan for the “Americans at War” exhibition at the National Museum of American History is a bit simplistic. The wars covered in the exhibit included ones that were not really about freedom: the Spanish American war which was mostly about extending American colonialism, the Mexican war which was about westward expansion, and the Indian wars which were at best ethnic cleansing, and at worst genocide. As for the Vietnam War and the current Iraq war, let’s say that opinions differ on whether those were about freedom. Still the exhibit itself was in general well presented and is worth seeing.