Oh, wait, this isn’t Rosie O’Donnells blog - sorry.

While a person can take virtually any event in history and skew them to fit their current political purpose it would not be accurate or historically correct to do so. Particularly for a journalist who suggests that the current President may attack another nation for purely partisan reasons.

For example:
Gulf Of Tonkin — (as Rosie would say, “Google it!”) In 1995 General Giap admitted that the first attack of August 2 DID in fact occur. The NSA report specifically said the report was NOT political but was intended to cover up intelligence errors — the Johnson administration was not given correct information, they did not massage the info to initiate a war.
USS Maine — You yourself admit:

So, who or what caused the Maine to explode and sink? To this day, the U.S. Navy says it doesn’t know.

In addition the Maine was NOT used as causus belle. As a matter of fact it was the media that latched on to that in an effort to pressure McKinley to war that HE DID NOT WANT.
Pearl Harbor — despite 10 investigations to date not one piece of evidence has been found proving foreknowledge by a member of the administration.
Iraq — The Iraqi resolution contained more then 20 justifications. In addition a study in 2006 of the pre-war debate discovered that the media was the first to use the term, “imminent threat,” and that was picked up by Democrats in congress but was never used by the administration which specifically said it was not yet imminent. (This has been investigated and debated repeatedly — If you want to start a debate I will leave that to you.)

Strange you didn’t mention Clinton’s attacks on Iraq or Bosnia in your, “wag the dog,” scenarios. Or were those beyond reproach?

While I agree that war and almost everything every government does is political from a historical perspective your suggestion of multiple political conspiracies falls apart when the historical facts are included in the narrative, particularly the available contemporary facts.

We all make the best decisions we can with the information available at that time — while history may not always validate that decision that in no way means the decisions were conspiracies.
David

Paranoid? Please. As Reagan would say, “there you go again.”

I remain intrigued WRT to Pearl Harbor, having watched two movies on it recently. I believe the administration knew something was about to happen, but I do not believe they had precise knowledge of time, date and place, and deliberately stood down. I think there mistake was more political - they did not have the foresight to see how desperate Japan was becoming.

As for this fall, well, I have to agree you’re sounding a bit paranoid.