Of all the lies the conservatives love to tell, the most basic to their existence is that they are strong on national defense.
This is, of course, completely false. Let's run down the list.
--Revolutionary War: They fought on the British side, against America, end of story.
--The War of 1812: The conservatives found the war bad for business and held a treasonous convention at Hartford, trying to make a separate peace with the enemy.
--The Mexican War: The conservatives badly managed the war and took 25% casualties fighting a deeply divided and extremely weak third-world country.
--The Civil War: The conservatives opposed the war, exhibited Southern sympathy with the Copper Head movement and prolonged the conflict.
--The Spanish American War: Conservatives favored the Spanish side in the Cuban revolution, hoping to protect their sugar interests. McKinley was dragged into the war only after the Maine blew up.
--World War I: The Republicans opposed President Wilson's entry into the war. (From this point on, the term Republicans and conservatives become synonymous.)
--World War II: Again, the Republicans were largely isolationists until Japan actually attacked. That is a little kind to the Republicans. Some of them were pro-Hitler.
--Korean War: Republicans were sympathetic to the insubordinate actions of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who sought to attack China and expand the war.
--Vietnam: Richard Nixon ran on a platform of a secret plan to end the war. His plan led to the conquest of Saigon by the North Vietnamese. (There will be criticism of this one, because liberals opposed the war. But since we are commenting on conservatives here, it is fair to look at how they managed the war to its end.)
--Lebanon: Saint Ronald Reagan sent Marines into Lebanon for no particular reason. Force protection was lax and many were killed in an explosion.
--Bosnia/Kosovo: Republicans (including George W. Bush) criticized President Clinton's intervention to stop the killing in the former Yugoslavia, saying Clinton lacked an exit strategy.
--Afghanistan: Bush invades Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, but fails to provide sufficient force to capture Al Qaeda operatives or hold the hard-won ground captured from the Taliban.
--Iraq: Bush invades Iraq with inadequate force, allowing the country to degenerate into violence and chaos.
Republicans are strong on national defense if by that you mean collecting money from some French aircraft maker who wants to sell unneeded planes to the government. On actually defending the country, they could hardly be worse.