Mexican-American War vs. Iraq War: More of the Same

I am currently reading Doris Kearn Goodwin's A Team of Rivals about Abraham Lincoln. Interestingly enough, there is a section in the book referring to Lincoln's time in the House of Representatives, which happens to correspond with the years of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Apparently, back in the day, this was one of those gung-ho patriotic type wars with everyone signing up to fight. Polk announced that the Mexicans had fired on us, but Lincoln called on him to tell the nation on which side of the border this had occurred: the Mexican side(indicating a U.S. intrusion on Mexican territory) or the U.S. side (which would have signaled an invasion by the Mexicans). Polk avoided the topic and never gave the American public a straight answer. What were we fighting for? Well, in the end, most Americans didn't care, because we ended up with a lot of new territory--what we now know as the southwestern United States to be exact. So Lincoln ended up on the unpopular side of what was a popular war. Needless to say, Lincoln was a one-term Congressman.

Right now, we are questioning what is going on in Iraq. It may not be turning out as "positively" as the Mexican-American War did for the United States. Either way, we went to war for questionable reasons. Straight answers were and still are hard to come by from the current Bush Administration and people rushed into the war with a patriotic verve that many feel was misplaced. The jury is still out on how this one will come down, but there are very interesting parallels.

Additionally, it was an interesting tidbit of information to come across during the current immigration debate, since so many of the illegal immigrants in question are from Mexico. What an interesting history our two countries have.