Reagan Skips Over War of 1812

President Reagan told visiting Western Hemisphere legislators Thursday that there has “never been a war between two free countries.”

The President’s reading of history apparently skipped past an era of early American history, the War of 1812, in which an independent United States declared war on Britain, one of the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies.

The Boer War at the turn of the century was fought between Britain and Dutch settlers in South Africa, and, more recently, the democracies of Israel and Egypt have fought. Also, Chile and Peru, in addition to El Salvador and Honduras, have had wars in recent years.

Reagan’s declaration was a flat one: “There has never been a war between two free countries.”