Democratic Primaries

The authorization resolution was a quite clever political trap. Recall the Democrats had a mere tie in the Senate, secured by defection of a single Republican shortly after Bush was allowed to take office. Had the resolution been defeated, the looming campaign would have been fought on the line of 'Democrats are soft on Sadam! Democrats side with the enemy!" The result would have been great success for the Republicans, a decimation of our Senate cadre. The Republicans would not have gained two but perhaps a half-dozen seats. The first business of the new Senate would have been passing the authorization resolution, to great patriotic, support our President, fanfare, and all this done in plenty of time for the scheduled invasion to proceed as planned. A unanimous vote by Democrats against the resolution would not have slowed the thing by so much as one hour. It was correctly assumed by many Democrats, especially those with ambitions higher than the Senate, that a vote against the resolution would tar their prospects badly. It is only with a fairly small clique of left radicals a vote for the resolution is seen as evidence of perfidious thirst for war and blood, and a reason to saddle any who did not vote against it with full responsibility for the actions of the Bush administration.

Iraq is best invaded in early spring, if it is going to be done at all. I have some interest in Great War history, and am familiar with Townsend's campaign in 1915. He did not begin moving north till the end of May. He ran into flooding and terrible heat that greatly hampered his operations. Late March is a sort of 'sweet spot', and you may be sure anything I know is well known to our military staffs. Mounting an operation of this sort is not a whim of the moment. It takes months to get everything assembled and ready for action, half a year at least. There is no room whatever for doubt, given when the invasion did occur, that preparations for invading Iraq were underway before the authorization resolution was even presented to the Senate. The thing was going to happen, it had been decided on, and had been set in motion.

Most 'further left' comment on this matter is marked by naivite not only about politics but about military operations.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."