Bush's astounding speech

Pearl Harbor (4.00 / 2)

http://news.yahoo.co...

Today Bush used a Pearl Harbor reference to make his case for staying in Iraq.  Of course, to make the analogy accurate, FDR would've had to declare war against Peru in response to the Japanese attack.

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by: Dartmouth Dem @ Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 17:00:42 PM CDT

Maybe, he meant... (0.00 / 0)

...that Pearl Harbor was the model for the neocon strategy of "pre-emptive warfare"?

What better way is there to subdue a sovereign nation that might pose a threat to your strategic interests?

Some that study History are determined to repeat it!

SGS is Jack Mitchell of Lowell, MA. The symbolism of the "sleeping giant" is based on my HOPE for America.

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by: Sleeping Giant Stirs @ Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 18:13:55 PM CDT

The problem with learning from history (4.00 / 1)

is that men tend to think they can do better and the better of bad just happens to be worse.

Iraq is worse than VietNam, if only because jungles grow back a whole lot quicker than cities.

I've put up a diary on KOS which expands those thought somewhat.

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by: hannah @ Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 09:08:26 AM CDT

Amazed too (0.00 / 0)

I don't even know what to say about this speech. I used to have shock and outrage at the stuff they pull, but now I just feel numb. I can't even get a small bucket of outrage out of the well for this one. The well is officially dry.

The analogy to Vietnam in purely political and has nothing whatsoever to do with facts or persuasion. I think he's using it because a lot of right wingers that you talk to, older guys, say the same thing about Vietnam. "We could have won it there if the politicians had let us." This speech in lieu of the district select ad campaign to stiffen the resolve of defecting Republicans seems to inflame that spirit.

And you're not supposed to pull the knife out until your in the emergency room or have a doctor. The most dangerous thing you can do is remove the knife. However, anyone with a knife sticking out of them is pretty much going to a hospital immediately. They're not waiting a year or two to schedule a routine knife-ectomy when they get some time to rehab.

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by: mbair @ Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 10:40:45 AM CDT

What nobody wants to admit (0.00 / 0)

is that the prize wasn't a kewpie doll; it was a string of semi-permanent bases from which the Indian Ocean basin and the south Pacific could be controlled.  Why would we want to do that?  Well, for one thing, it would make it a lot easier to pursue our commercial and industrial interests in Africa and the Far East.  After all, China doing business in South America and Africa has to traverse the Pacific and Indian Ocean sea lanes.  It's hard to keep track of the traffic from submarines and aircraft carriers.

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by: hannah @ Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 13:22:49 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

We need a war to build a base? (0.00 / 0)

I have trouble with that notion. Perhaps you've heard of Guantanamo.

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by: JimC @ Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 13:41:55 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Leases. (0.00 / 0)

In July 1901 the U.S. Government selected Guantanamo Bay as the site for a naval station and in 1903 the land on both sides of the entrance was leased from the Cuban Government.  The Naval Base facilities were expanded tremendously just prior to and during World War II, and today Naval Operating Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is the major U.S. naval installation in the Caribbean.

Saddam Hussein refused to grant basing rights.  While the current controversy highlights the failure of parliament to grant oil leases, the leases for the land on which the basis sit is just as important.
At present, the U.S. is in Iraq under a "mandate" from the U.N. to provide "stability" and supervise the development of a fully sovereign government.  Since most U.N. inspectors and personnel have been absent from the conflict zone, there's no way for them to perform an independent evaluation of what's actually going on.  Which, of course, is how the Pentagon wants it.  The biggest sectarian conflict is between those who want the U.S. to keep them in power and those who want them to leave.

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by: hannah @ Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 15:43:43 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I have trouble with that notion too (0.00 / 0)

...but, you know how we acquired Guantanamo, right?

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 15:47:12 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I do now (0.00 / 0)

Thanks Hannah.

It strikes me as only common sense that Hussein would not grant basing rights, since we had 24-hour patrols over his country.

But as strategic as Iraq is, geographically, I have to believe Hussein would allow a base before he'd let his regime be toppled. I just don't buy it as a war rationale.

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by: JimC @ Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 17:16:40 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Looking for a war rationale (0.00 / 0)

is an exercise in futility. There was a convergence of different interests and different parties with different objectives. There was not one big reason for the war in Iraq, there were different reasons for different people to move the idea forward.

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows.

As far as Guantanamo Bay, we won the Spanish-American war and making available land for a naval station was a condition of the Platt Amendment, which granted Cuba quasi-independence.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 17:59:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]