About the fact that nobody declares war any more, CL says,

“Since this is a seminar, I’ll unashamedly add some other thoughts on this topic:”

“All of these banana republics (from Korea to Iraq) that we’ve attacked–but haven’t “declared war” on–have had -0- capability of performing a real military operation in the United States. Is it possible a “declaration of war” would only be considered for an “equal?” Bullies don’t usually make a big deal of beating-up a pipsqueak.”

“To follow the question of what constitutes a “real military operation” in the nuclear age would take the discussion way off course.”

“But maybe that’s another reason “declarations of war” aren’t used anymore: Did the end of the “conventional warfare” era make such declarations obsolete?”

“And we haven’t established what the actual purposes of such declarations were–other than as matters of convention, I mean. Did they have a purpose other than pomp and circumstance? If not, wouldn’t today’s omnipresent media be more effective rousing for war than a carnival barker type declaration to be reprinted next week on the front page of the county newspaper? Maybe it’s not the new military age, but the new propaganda age, that has made declarations of war superfluous.”

Comment by CL — 12/22/

CL, as to your first sentence, I like to think I have bravely led the way.

If somebody has the guts to hand out the BS I so often write with complete shamelessness, you have complete license, too.

You have hit on oint I mentioned but never thought of. I wrote a piece below about how at least part of the rationale for “nonproliferation (Anonymous some points about that)” is that we take it for granted that former colonial powers can handle nukes but their former colonies can’t.

I agree with that, but all the people who are against proliferation now called my attitudes evil and racist.

You started by referring to the countries we are fighting in a banana republics and you also said, with perfect legtimacy, that we don’t declare war on such people. You said, “Is it possible a “declaration of war” would only be considered for an “equal?” Bullies don’t usually make a big deal of beating-up a pipsqueak.”

That is very much the attitude everyone takes for granted. The United States of America does not declare war on pipsqueaks, any more than General Lee would have dueled with a hunk of white trash.

Lurking behind this is an attitude. And it is not YOUR attitude, it is one you have pointed to.

Yes, a declaration of war would imply an equality we do not even consider granting.

But I repeat, if the Gospel we preach that every country is equal and sovereign, why do we NOT declare them EQUAL?

Let me repeat this for Anonymous’s benefit. If you hire less than the required number of minorities, it is assumed that racism is at least ONE of your motivations.

But if no non-white country should have nukes, if all those fully sovereign little countries ar enot worth a declaration of war because it implies equality, no one assumes that any part of the motivation is racist.

Not a bit of it.

As to the PURPOSE of a declaration of war, we have had a demonstration of how practical a matter that is at Gitmo.

Many, many things used to change the moment war was declared.

But your last sentence has made me think of what might be the clincher.

In Vietnam only the poor people who couldn’t dodge the draft in college were sent out to die. In a state of war, Jane Fonda and all the college protestors would have been subject to charges of collaboration.

To put it simply, once war is declared it directly affects EVERYBODY. In Korea and Vietnam and Iraq we could do anything we wanted to with the grunts, but the media and everybody who counted were left out of it.

Could it be that a major explanation of the absence of war declarations results from class distinctions among those who declare they are against all class distinctions and racism among those who denounce racism?

CL, you sure helped me get some thinking done.

That’s the worst advice in the world.

My doctor brother used to make a comment every time he watched Jack Webb’s 1970s TV show about emergency medics. In the middle of a desperate situation, they didn’t go charging in rubbing the plates together and shouting “Clear!” They first talked to the people there and found out exactly what was going on.

My brother has been handling life-and-death emergencies for fifty years now.

He didn’t like the intro to the Ben Casey, MD show that started with the emergency room doors slamming open and a patient being rolled in with a doctor sitting on his chest slamming away at it.

But when he saw Jack Webb’s shows, he would say, “That’s the way a real emergency is handled. You find out what is going on.”

The first thing you learn in a CPR course, STEP ONE, is to look around and find out why the person is lying there with his heart stopped.

If he is lying on a live power line, it won’t do him a hell of a lot of good if you start CPR and end up lying on the ground with YOUR heart stopped.

This same advice is critical in politics. What happened after September 11, 2001 was exactly what I predicted on September 12, 2001.

My brother knows about emergencies because he’s been in the game a long, long time. I know about politics for exactly the same reason.

It didn’t take America long to smash Al-Queda-ruled Afghanistan. Then the Bush Administration had to do something else. All America was outraged at the out-of-control Arabs who had turned to terrorism.

So they had to “Do SOMETHING!”

Well, Saddam was a definite stereotype of everything Americans were up in arms about.

There were two choices, 1) we could do what Bush, Senior did and get out or 2) We could “Do SOMETHING!”

I will never forgive Bush, Senior for his betrayal of the Shiites and the kurds. But selling people out is what moderate Republicanism is all about.

Bush should have pulled out without betraying anybody. But I have been telling moderates that for fifty years.

Now let’s forget all those dying and tortured people and turn to the POLITICAL choices Bush, Junior faced once Afghanistan was taken over in a month or two.

Bush Junior was at the same 90% popularity rating his father had been at after the previous Iraq War. His father lost reelection.

Big time.

Someone restated Lincoln’s saying this way, “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. But if you can do it once it lasts four years.”

Bush followed the national demand that he “Do SOMETHING!” and it lasted long enough to get him reelected.

Of course it didn’t hurt him that the Democrats nominated ANOTHER Massachusetts liberal to run against him, but everybody screaming “Do SOMETHING!” was his real ticket to four more years.

Sorry, gang. It’s not just the Jews or the neocons.

A democracy is a system where people get what they DESERVE.

And anybody who shouts “Do SOMETHING!” is asking for death.

The people asked for it, and the neocons gave it to them.

IN MY OPINION, that invaluable praise my best readers keep repeating, the worst thing that has happened to the Bush war machine to date has been the capture of Saddam.

He is no longer a looming presence, hidden in the vast reaches of terrorism. He was found to be a terrified, gaunt-looking ghost of his former self, as all bullies tend to be once they lost their power.

The one huge thing the Bush Adminstration had in pushing the Iraq War was The Face to Hate, a haughty, obviously mentally unbalanced man who was seen as part of the conspiracy that brought down the Trade Center.

Right now the WORST thing that could happen to the neocons and their little boy Bush would be the capture of Osama Ben Laden.

If the Bush Administration didn’t know that before they know it now that Saddam is in jail.

If I know anything about politics and the (giggle) intelligence community, nobody is really going after Bin Laden. Hand some mercs a few million up front and a real bundle when he is captured and you’d have him in a couple of weeks.