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Is It Time For a New War?

by TChris

Charlie Cook argues that the November elections will hinge on what voters are talking about in the days before they cast their ballots. Republicans enjoyed a modest approval bump in late August when the president made threatening speeches about terrorism. After the NIE judgments became public and Bob Woodward began his book tour, the focus of public discourse shifted from terrorism to Iraq. New military casualties in Iraq and continuing criticism by retired generals (not to mention the country's instability, which is unlikely to improve before November) will probably keep Iraq on voters' minds, and most people aren't buying the president's attempt to link the war in Iraq to the botched war against terror.

The longer the Foley scandal stays in the news (it shows no signs of disappearing, and it probably won't unless Dennis Hastert walks the plank), the more voters will be reminded that Republicans would rather cover up wrongdoing than take responsibility for it. Polls were encouraging to Democrats even before the Foley scandal. Now Foley's seat is in play, and the scandal may touch other races, including Tom Reynolds' reelection campaign.

The president is still whining that Democrats are soft on terror, but voters are likely to be more interested in understanding why he's standing behind Dennis Hastert. Is it time for the White House to start another war to get voters to renew their support of an all-Republican, all-the-time government?

< Foley E-Mails Get Worse | Hastert Under a Time Gun >
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  • Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#2)
    by John Mann on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 03:07:15 PM EST
    Might as well start another - this one's FUBAR.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#1)
    by Byron Wayne on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 03:49:32 PM EST
    Any truth to the rumors that a 2nd carrier group is headed to Iran?

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:03:19 PM EST
    Byron, Yes. Navy Times, October 03, 2006 Ike group leaves Norfolk, mission to be determined
    But the story's premise -- that the "bristling" group is headed off to the gulf in order to take part in a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities -- reflects what some experts and pundits regard as inevitable...


    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#7)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:22:00 PM EST
    Wait! I know. The Repubs are gonna start a draft1

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:32:26 PM EST
    It is time for a war, though October 21 seems to be when everyone gets to the party. Clinton might not start a war at the end of a term, but ... http://www.drunkduck.com/Taking_Stock

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#12)
    by Edger on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:50:05 PM EST
    Is Desperate Cheney Scheming Nuclear Sneak Attack on Iran?
    Senior U.S. military and intelligence sources canvassed by EIR do not rule out the possibility of a White House-ordered "Global Strike" unprovoked sneak attack against sites inside Iran before the Nov. 7 midterm U.S. elections. In fact, a number of particularly well-placed military and intelligence professionals identified the period from Oct. 4-18 as a possible window for just such a pre-election "preventive strike."


    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:53:17 PM EST
    The president is still whining that Democrats are soft on terror And the democrats need to be nailing every single gop candidate nonstop from now to the polls about why they countenance torture and fascism. Keep them on the defensive about it. Make them deny it. Over and over and over. And when they do continually and unmercifully rub their noses in the stink of it. Question their morality on it. Make them squirm and don't let up. Torture is a Moral Issue Accessories To Torture

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#5)
    by Byron Wayne on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:53:17 PM EST
    Thanks, another question Whats the time to eta

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#6)
    by Edger on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:53:17 PM EST
    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:53:17 PM EST
    I think that the public's reaction to a pre-election attack on Iran will be along the lines of "that idiot did WHAT? Now he's gone too far."

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#9)
    by kdog on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:53:17 PM EST
    A war on sexual predators might be tough...and the public may be tiring of war on middle eastern countries. War on drugs is kind of played out too. War on poverty was a born loser. That leaves war on mexican labor and war on gambling. Both are awaiting Bush's foregone signature. I don't think they can pull off Iran just yet...too bold even for them.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#11)
    by Edger on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 04:53:17 PM EST
    Is Desperate Cheney Scheming Nuclear Sneak Attack on Iran?
    Senior U.S. military and intelligence sources canvassed by EIR do not rule out the possibility of a White House-ordered "Global Strike" unprovoked sneak attack against sites inside Iran before the Nov. 7 midterm U.S. elections. In fact, a number of particularly well-placed military and intelligence professionals identified the period from Oct. 4-18 as a possible window for just such a pre-election "preventive strike."


    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#13)
    by Sailor on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 05:35:01 PM EST
    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 07:03:51 PM EST
    PPJ: Wait! I know. The Repubs are gonna start a draft1 No. They'd only do that if they cared about winning a war more than they care about winning elections.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 09:21:50 PM EST
    Yes, long overdue, I would hate to think that this was written in vain. The Green Fields of France. Well, how do you do, Private William McBride, Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside? And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun, I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done. And I see by your gravestone you were only 19 When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916, Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene? Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly? Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down? Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus? Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest? And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined? And, though you died back in 1916, To that loyal heart are you forever 19? Or are you a stranger without even a name, Forever enshrined behind some glass pane, In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained, And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame? The sun's shining down on these green fields of France; The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance. The trenches have vanished long under the plow; No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now. But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land The countless white crosses in mute witness stand To man's blind indifference to his fellow man. And a whole generation who were butchered and damned. And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride, Do all those who lie here know why they died? Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?" Did you really believe that this war would end wars? Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain, For Willie McBride, it all happened again, And again, and again, and again, and again. File under "Mankind is a bollocks"

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#16)
    by Madison Guy on Tue Oct 03, 2006 at 11:56:36 PM EST
    The corruption this time is so deep and so visible, that a new war would be too transparent a diversion before the election. Because, really, this is so sad and the picture says it all. BW photograph of a truly shameless moment. There's a deep sadness here -- layers upon layers upon layers of meaning in this iconic Buffalo News photo that perfectly sums up and symbolizes the whole damn Foleygate scandal, which has rapidly moved beyond the "merely" sleazy, salacious and corrupt. Now it's an utterly surreal, blame-shifting mass abdication of all personal responsibility. Above all, there's the deep, visible moral rot that anyone can see. Look at the children in the photo. Look at the man (Rep. Reynolds) at the microphone. See the face of a party that uses children to score "family values" points but doesn't give a damn. At all.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#18)
    by Che's Lounge on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 12:13:32 AM EST
    Too bad if the Dems win in November they will be saddled with an immediate dilemma. There are only two diametrically opposed "solutions" to the situation in Iraq. Either increase troop strength or redeploy. I am guessing that the Dem establishment will cave to the coporatocracy. Some type of "event" will spur the whole thing on. They will introduce legislation in 07 and restart the draft. The rift within the party will widen and culminate in riots during the 2008 conventions. If the Democratic party wants to survive the coming elections, they need to be unequivocally united for redeploying the troops immediately. There can be no alternative. Escalation will only lead to failure. Failure is not an option. The military has not failed. They succeeded in their mission in May of 2003. Technically Bush was correct to say Mission Accomplished. SH was gone and the country was no longer a threat. Then the politicians proceeded to undue what had been done. If you take Bush's original set of reasons for the invasion, then there is no further role for our military forces in Iraq. But I am being deliberately naive. Those of us who know the true modern history of the US foreign policy know that we will not leave.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#19)
    by Che's Lounge on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 12:17:03 AM EST
    Correction: Iraq was NEVER a threat.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#22)
    by theologicus on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 10:19:21 AM EST
    Iran: the politics of the next crisis Paul Rogers openDemocracy 28 September 2006
    The George W Bush administration, embarrassed by intelligence leaks and under siege over Iraq and Afghanistan, may seek electoral fortune by raising tensions with Tehran. ... ... Iran's rising confidence is a source of frustration in Washington, but also makes it more difficult for the US to entertain a cost-free, open military confrontation. An artificially induced sense of crisis, especially one organised for late October, is a more feasible proposition. Recent naval deployments suggest one way it might be engineered. The aircraft carrier battle-group centred on the USS Eisenhower has reportedly been ordered to deploy to the Arabian Sea in the week beginning 2 October; it is due to arrive around 21 October, a month earlier than originally planned (see Dave Lindorff, "War Signals?" The Nation, 21 September 2006). There, it will join a second such group centred on the USS Enterprise. If that group is held on station after the Eisenhower arrives - and especially if a third carrier battle-group from the Pacific fleet is also forward-deployed - the signals would begin to look ominous. It is worth emphasising that even a gathering of all three battle-groups would not of itself be evidence of impending attack on Iran. Many within the US military's senior ranks are opposed to any pre-emptive strike, so much so that even Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld may be unable to override them in the short term. Yet it is not unthinkable that an enormous concentration of military power near Iran, accompanied by numerous embedded journalists, might combine with new "reports" of Iranian nuclear developments to induce a sense of crisis in the immediate pre-election period. After the votes are in, tensions could be allowed to ease. A scenario is different from reality on the ground. But it is dangerously easy for those who might try to turn one into the other to forget that the United States is not the only player in the game, and would not be able to control how an "artificial" crisis develops. Iran has a stake in any contest; and within Iran there are groups (especially in the Revolutionary Guard) that would find some low-level confrontation with US naval units in the Gulf rather attractive. The risk is that a "crisis" orchestrated for American domestic political needs could turn into the real thing. This is only one of several reasons to choose another path - but the political pressures on the Bush administration may just make this one too tempting to resist.


    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 12:32:05 PM EST
    DanS. Nice to hear that. Watching the incessant TV coverage of the obscene carnage and slaughter during the 'Nam era forever put me in the peacenik camp. When the body count of gooks (read innocent peasants) was, on a daily basis, the measure of how well the war was going was truly sickening. And what can I say of McNamara? but this. His attendance at the same school of denial as Bush and his steadfast refusal to accept that the mighty US military was getting it's arse kicked by a rag tag bunch of skinny brown people resulted in the final debacle and humiliation. Helicopters on the roof, and thousands thrown under the bus. In some other post PPJ opined that Nixon, though he had his faults, was still a patriot. Such a patriot that, in scuppering the Paris peace talks,the next thirty five thousand dead that you speak of, lay down their lives for the enhancement of Nixon's political career. Should you be interested you will find a previous comment on contempory US military losses here. And my opinion of US military culpability in civilian murder. 'Tis a pity but for the life of me I cannot find a fairly recent comment I posted on the crimes against humanity committed by the US military, and not least the millions of tons of munitions and dioxins it rained down on the civilian population of Vietnam. This bio of one of the Great War's poets may be of interest to you. How bitter the irony that it was written so so long ago, for it could have been penned today. Siegfied Sassoon, A soldier poet of the Great War. After his stay at Craiglockhart Hospital, Siegfried threw his Military Cross into the Mersey river while waiting in Liverpool to find out what his commander's were going to do about his open letter titled "A Soldiers Declaration" he denounced the war. His commanders later responded by having him declared temporarily insane. This effectively prevented him from getting a fair hearing and also cut him off from his men. Eventually Sassoon relented and was allowed to return to the front where he was later wounded. "I AM making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation., I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize." Siegfried L. Sassoon...July 1917 And then the bitterest of ironies, his most famous poem. Suicide in the Trenches I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go. S. Sassoon

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 12:46:36 PM EST
    GOOD LORD! Have we lost our collective minds??? Here we are debating what the politics & outcomes of 2006 & 2008 might possibly be while seemingly-forgetting that young paul & paula down the street are already DEAD today! MAKE UP YOUR MIND! Either this Iraq War is wrong and demands immediate street-action NOW (TODAY!) or we are just palavering BS at each other. Did you not understand what I related above about MORE being KILLED after the'powers that be' had already-concluded that the War was already lost? I've been here daily for perhaps almost a year now & I understand that most of you are Lawyers & such: Well I mean no insult to you, but just talking the talk in the face of gross injustice (such as this War is) is simply not enough! I'm a College Professor of 30+ years at a major University & would never dream nor dare of bringing anything political into my classroom .... -but that has never stopped me from volunteering at my local VA Regional and organizing my fellow Vets around what they've given & what's due them from "A grateful American Citizenry." Those conversations and efforts always boil down to an essence that is essentially: "We thought we were doing something that would help America." It's instructive (and perhaps helpful) to understand that they don't read here and barely read anywhere else. If you TRULY support our brave troops, DO SOMETHING WITH THEM that supports both them and the Mission of getting them home; a mission that would keep them alive & unwounded a few more years. Please, DON'T let what happened in 1968 happen again here in 2006. The War is OVER! The War is LOST! Instead of thinking like Gary Cooper @ High Noon, I beg of you to think more like a master of judo. The unstability of the opponent is more than enough of a daily-accomplishment.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#23)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 11:04:00 PM EST
    Why has'nt anyone considered that Bush is hoping to provoke Iran into doing something stupid to justify attacking them.. It's been done in the past with other presidents and would play well in the MSM.. the sight of an American ship burning and sinking off the coast of Iran would surely arouse the American public for some payback and allow Bush to gain polical capital.

    Re: Is It Time For a New War? (none / 0) (#24)
    by Sailor on Thu Oct 05, 2006 at 07:37:00 AM EST
    Why has'nt anyone considered that Bush is hoping to provoke Iran into doing something stupid to justify attacking them.
    He doesn't even have to do that, he just has to say it happened, see Gulf of Tonkin.