Waging a new military campaign to elect McCain
May 8th, 2008 at 10:30pm Chuck Sweeny
How will the Republicans help John McCain win in November? Here’s what might happen. I don’t raise this to the level of prediction. Right now it’s just a hunch.
Democrats, especially if they nominate Obama, will be painted as the appeasement party, not to be trusted with the role of commander in chief of the world’s most formidable military. Obama, McCain is already saying, is the favorite candidate of Hamas, the terrorist organization. (McCain, you may remember, says he abhors negative campaigning.)
That might not do the trick, however. Americans are focused on the economy, and they’re not too concerned anymore with the war in Iraq and the “War on Terror.” The GOP can’t win unless they scare people to death.
The only way to refocus Americans on the bogeyman of danger — International Terrorism — is to do what George W. Bush may do, in an effort to help McCain win the presidency and the GOP to avoid disastrous losses in Congress:
Sometime this summer or early fall, an “incident” will occur that causes the U.S. to retaliate, probably with air-strikes, possibly escalating to sending in Marines.
Inevitably, the “incident” will be in the Middle East region, most likely Iran, or maybe Syria, or it could be an attack on Israel by Iran.
Do I think the incident will be staged? Obviously I don’t know. But my knowledge of history informs me that we’ve done it before.
LBJ had his Gulf of Tonkin attack. The story at the time said that North Vietnamese gunboats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Turned out this was a “Wag the Dog” attack because it didn’t happen. That’s not my opinion. That’s what the declassified U.S. government report concluded.
Nevertheless, it was ballyhooed in the media at the time, and it gave Johnson a reason to send 500,000 troops to Vietnam.
Or how about the explosion that blew up the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor, back in 1898. The American press, led by Joseph Pulitzer (the yellow journalist they named the prize after ) and William Randolph Hearst, immediately hit on a slogan “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain” to sell papers and stoke fires of resentment against the colonial power that ruled Cuba.
That resulting hew and cry gave President McKinley the cover he needed to wage the war against Spain that kicked the colonial power out of Cuba, and out of the Phillippines, as well. Both countires became American protectorates, so that the U.S., the nation begun as a revolt against the British Empire, ended the 19th century as a colonial power.
So, who or what caused the Maine to explode and sink? To this day, the U.S. Navy says it doesn’t know.
In 1941, the American people remained isolationist despite the twin terrors of Hitler ravaging Europe and the Imperial Japanese forces marauding China and the South Pacific.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, causing the U.S. to finally enter the war that had been raging for two years in Europe and longer in Asia. Britain, undergoing severe bombing by the Luftwaffe, was begging us to join the fight to smash Hitler before he controlled the entire European continent.
Debate continues to this day over whether President Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance that the Japanese were planning to attack, but did nothing to prevent it in order to change public opinion in favor of war against the Axis powers.
(I must add that I agree with Winston Churchill, who, when asked if he thought the Americans would join the war, said, “The Americans will always do the right thing — after they`ve exhausted all the alternatives”)
In more recent history, we have the Bush administration’s “weapons of mass destruction” argument for invading Iraq. Turns out there were no such weapons; the administration embellished — fictionalized — parts of the intel reports.
No, I don’t believe we staged the 9-11 attacks, and I believe our invasion of Afghanistan was fully justified. We should have stopped there, however. The Bush spin machine, unfortunately, used 9-11 to gin up war fever to invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9-11.
Betcha didn’t learn any of that in high school histroy class.
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8 Comments Add your own
1. Sense of Five | May 9th, 2008 at 12:41 am
This paper is becoming paranoid. McCain will win because he\’s McCain. It is interesting how his most vocal supporters eight years ago are his biggest critics! It shows that they found McCain useful, as an opponent to the Republican nominee and President-elect. What Rush has been saying for eight years is true.
2. Chuck Sweeny | May 9th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I’m just saying that it is not unusual for governments to stage or instigate incidents to justify wars they want to start. History is replete with such incidents. I just touched the surface.
3. John Biltmore | May 9th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Chuck, seems to me that of the examples you cited, only one seems clearly a “wag the dog” scenario (Tonkin.) As you said, the evidence is unclear for both Pearl Harbor and the Maine. As to Iraq, well, that one to me falls on the cusp of arrogance and incompetence rather than a purposeful instigation (not that that makes it any better.) By that I mean the administration saw what it wanted to see — fooled itself into believing the weapons were there. I suppose that’s just semantics on my part.
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.
4. Chuck Sweeny | May 9th, 2008 at 9:17 am
The Japanese should have known that you can’t take over Asia without your own supply of oil.
Paranoid? Please. As Reagan would say, “there you go again.”
5. ROTStar | May 9th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
No Rosie, there YOU go again!
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:
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
6. ROTStar | May 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Chuck, what did you pull your, “uh huh,” comment?
David
7. Chuck Sweeny | May 11th, 2008 at 1:48 am
I thought it was in poor taste, so I yanked it.
8. ROTStar | May 12th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Okay, thanks.
David
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