When Political Editors Go Bad -- Rockford's Own Rosie Edition

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.

Yep, the not so rare quadrennial, "evil Republicans will attack to retain power," BDS has made its appearance here in Rockford -- at our very own Register Star Blogs! Chuck Sweeny's own Sweeny Report. He then proceeds in listing, "wag the dog," incidents (Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, USS Maine, Iraq).

While there may end up being a justified attack, does anyone not afflicted with BDS really think that this would benefit McCain at this point? The media has so denigrated Bush for 5 years on Iraq that there is no reason to believe it wouldn't be spun to demonstrate his falling down on the job and McCain's support for Iraq endangered us all -- our only salvation is Obama!

The sad thing is Chuck's knowledge of history that he mentions is really lacking.

Here is a copy of my reply:

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:

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.

DKK