Republicans Literally Want To Push Obama Into A War… So They Can Blame Him For The Inevitable Consequences

Drunken Speaker to ravenous GOP funders: "Somebody's boots have to be on the ground"

Call me crazy but I didn't get the idea Obama was all that enthusiastic about jumping into another amorphous Middle East war, especially with traditional allies England, Germany and Turkey all saying "good luck but we'll sit this one out, if you don't mind." The Times responded to Obama's speech very differently from the way the congressional warmongers did by pointing out that "as President Obama prepares to send the United States on what could be a yearslong military campaign against the militant group, American intelligence agencies have concluded that it poses no immediate threat to the United States. Some officials and terrorism experts believe that the actual danger posed by ISIS has been distorted in hours of television punditry and alarmist statements by politicians, and that there has been little substantive public debate about the unintended consequences of expanding American military action in the Middle East."

The response from Congress has been less about rational deliberation and more about ugly partisan calculations. And it's not just knee-jerk bloodlust sociopaths like McCain and Lindsay Graham. Of course they want war… they always want war-- anywhere and everywhere. They're both mentally unbalanced.

Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department’s top counterterrorism adviser during Mr. Obama’s first term, said the public discussion about the ISIS threat has been a “farce,” with “members of the cabinet and top military officers all over the place describing the threat in lurid terms that are not justified.”

“It’s hard to imagine a better indication of the ability of elected officials and TV talking heads to spin the public into a panic, with claims that the nation is honeycombed with sleeper cells, that operatives are streaming across the border into Texas or that the group will soon be spraying Ebola virus on mass transit systems-- all on the basis of no corroborated information,” said Mr. Benjamin, who is now a scholar at Dartmouth College.

Mr. Obama has spent years urging caution about the perils of wading into the Syrian civil war, a position that has led critics to argue that his inaction has contributed to the death and chaos there. Now, he faces criticism that he has become caught up in a rush to war with no clear vision for how the fighting will end.

In his speech Wednesday night, the president acknowledged that intelligence agencies have not detected any specific plots aimed at the United States. ISIS is a regional threat, he said, but if the group is left unchecked it could ultimately directly threaten the country.

…Kenneth Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst now at the Brookings Institution who rose to prominence in 2002 for advocating the toppling of Saddam Hussein and later expressing regret for that position, said in a July interview that he had deep reservations about sending the American military back to the volatile region for fear of “opening Pandora’s box.”

Now, some of Mr. Pollack’s concerns appear to have taken a back seat to his alarm over ISIS and the destabilizing impact of Syria’s civil war. In the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Pollack wrote, “the rationale for more decisive U.S. intervention is gaining ground.”

Its a stretch to call CIA agent Ken Pollack "an analyst" or assert that his CIA ties are somehow "former." That said, Paul Waldman at the Washington Post reviewed the evidence that many of the worst Republicans in Congress are relentlessly pushing for war again. And it went considerably beyond McCain's embarrassing senior moment on TV when he started shrieking at Jay Carney or what sounds increasingly like Ted Cruz advocating we just nuke everyone-- even if brilliant GOP foreign policy strategist, McCain's handpicked candidate for vice-president, agrees.

Sarah Palin wrote on her Facebook page: “War is hell. So go big or go home, Mr. President. Big means bold, confident, wise assurance from a trustworthy Commander-in-Chief that it shall all be worth it. Charge in, strike hard, get out. Win.” Which is about the “strategy” you’d get for defeating ISIS if you asked a third-grader.

The only one who was clear on what they would do instead, oddly enough, was Dick Cheney. He pronounced Obama’s strategy insufficient in a speech bordering on the insane, in which he essentially advocated waging war in every corner of the earth.

At least we know where he stands. But other Republican critics have to get more specific if they’re going to present a credible case against the President’s plan. You can claim that Obama should never have ended George W. Bush’s war, but what is it that they support doing now? If they believe we have to re-invade Iraq with a force of tens or hundreds of thousands of American troops, they ought to say so. If that’s not what they support, then what is it? The hints we’ve gotten sound a lot like, “Pretty much exactly what Obama is proposing, just, you know, more.” He’s using air power, so more air power. He’s saying we’ll be bombing not just in Iraq but in Syria, so they want that, but more. He says we’ll be training and supporting Syrian rebel groups to act as a counterweight to ISIS, which Republicans like, but they want more.

…In this context, if you look carefully at what Obama said last night, you can see that he was trying to put this conflict in a more sober context. There was no talk of “existential threats,” or American cities engulfed in flames. He spoke about both the danger, and the action we’ll be taking, in limited terms. After September 11, George W. Bush ramped up the fear we were supposed to feel and promised a grand victory. Obama is doing neither.

That in itself no doubt infuriates many Republicans. But if what they’re after is a full-scale war, they ought to have the courage to say so.

And don't forget, spending more on the Military Industrial Complex means more cash flowing towards slimy conservative warmongers in Congress-- more profits = bigger campaign contributions and bigger bribes, legalistic or not. And more money spent on war means less money spent on programs and policies that promote any degree of economic equality, anathema to all Republicans and their financiers. Progressives are, impotently, demanding a vote before any substantial monies are spent on war. Warmongers-- on both sides of the aisle-- are adamantly opposed. Greg Sargent is already hoping maybe we can get a vote after the midterms, which circumvents democracy entirely. Establishment leaders from both parties have figured out a way to muddle through this without a real war vote before the midterms, completely circumventing basic democracy. The Boehner/Hoyer scheme is to sneak a vote to authorize arming so called "moderate" Syrian rebels into the CR that keeps the government from shutting down on October 1. Brad Sherman (D-CA): "We're likely to end up with the sneakiest of maneuvers. We'll pass that package. The president will claim that since we funded and authorized the training of Syrian dissidents, we voted for his entire plan… Members of Congress can say they had no choice but to vote for the Syrian provision but didn't actually like it, never voted for it, they just voted to keep the national parks open." Take a look at this stream of tweets from Fox News DC Bureau Chief Chad Pergram: