Gingrich, getting the message out

[LeeG]

I bet Newt and Billy Kristol have been having late night phone sessions.."I'm soooo excited about the war, AREN'T you?!"

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/archives/2006/07/gingrich_says_its_world_war_iii.html

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so. In an interview in Bellevue this morning Gingrich said Bush should call a joint session of Congress the first week of September and talk about global military conflicts in much starker terms than have been heard from the president.

"We need to have the militancy that says 'We're not going to lose a city,' " Gingrich said. He talks about the need to recognize World War III as important for military strategy and political strategy.

[John of Phoenix]

But he won't. Ever.

So when the Dems take back the House and Senate the first order of business should be to formally declare war. But they won't. Ever.

Too much money at stake to upset the status quo. They're hooked on that pork that eveyone hates so much.

[TomF]

With any luck nobody in power will call it WWIII, 'cause it's not.

We've got a nasty regional war going on in Iraq, and something slightly less in Afghanistan. And we've got the potential for things to heat up into another regional war with Israel and its neighbours, but in the absence of the proxy-state Cold War thing, it won't go worldwide either.

The attacks on the WTC, London, Madrid, Bali, and the planned stuff in Canada and elsewhere is ugly, but really more on the scale of action of the Red Brigades back in the day,

If this was WWIII, we'd see casualties on the scale of the Somme, the Eastern Front, or Dieppe. While folks could argue that Fallujah or Baghdad has some equivalence to Dresden or Coventry ... for this to be a "Great War," there'd need to be equivalent threat to the Allied homeland. No cities or large populations are under threat outside of Iraq and Afghanistan themselves. All rhetoric aside, there is no such threat to, say, Atlanta or Minneapolis, or Fredericton.

Calling this "war on terror" the equivalent of either of the two Great Wars of the 20th Century trivializes them, and demeans the losses of all the nations involved. My $.02.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

I suggested the same thing yesterday on the "On Israel...." thread and got blown off.
Ya' think all the Neocons hereabouts are gonna' stick pins into their Newt Gingrich dolls?

Charlie

[Chris Coose]

Try to imagine the position America might be in if we were not occupying two countries in that region of the world.

[ljb5]

With any luck nobody in power will call it WWIII, 'cause it's not.

It's got nothing to do with whether it is or isn't.

It's about giving it a catchy brand name for marketing purposes.

[paladin]

at the rate things are going someone izz gonna nuke someone else...just depends on who has the first one to expend....personnally I think Tehran or N'oth Kohreeeah should have a nuclear accident....maybe even Syria..

[LeeG]

Try to imagine the position America might be in if we were not occupying two countries in that region of the world.

takes a lot of imagination,,I drive to the store and get my stuff, no war here. It's all on tv.

In the mean time I get an e-mail from a friend whose dad has just left Beirut,,she's in London with this comment...

"Being in london during this has been strange. The world seems to me an
uncomfortable conflation of shopping and death. There is a tangible
political ambivalence on the glitzy streets. It seems only the extremely
poor and the superpowerful have political beliefs, one with everything to
lose and the other, nothing."

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

To Tom and other doubters.
Remember the "Sitzkrieg" of WWII. War was declared by the British but nothing happened for many months. Except for the barbed wire and sandbags most things appeared normal.
Today we don't want to fight for territory but we may have to fight for OIL. If you have to sell your firstborn to put gas in your car you will quickly come to the realization that, yes, there is a commodity that we may have to fight to obtain.
No oil? No army or navy! Or more precisely, yeah, we got an army and a navy but they can't go where the bad guys are.
They say that Hezballah got mid-range rockets from Iran. A modest supply of those same rockets in launchers along the Iranian side of the Straights of Hormuz could choke our oil supply off in no time. We would, of course, blast a path for our tankers which could bring in a whole lot of players who aren't likely to be on our side. And to hold open the oil routes would cost many lives and a lot of jack.
I certainly don't want to see any of this but the potential is there and no responsible administration could ignore the possibilities.

Charlie

[crawdaddyjim50]

Based on your premise Chuck. I would think the Gov't would turn on the pumps here before pushing the other G-8 countries into making shooting decisions. At least I hope they would.

[Chris Coose]

I love watching dubbya swearing while chewing food with an open mouth.
He's a pip. Glad he is making big decisions.
Tony Soprano makes more sense than him at the dinner table.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

#10733,
Turn on what pumps? I don't understand.
Charlie

[crawdaddyjim50]

Charlie, you know we have more oil here in N.America than all of the Middle East combined. According to a previous topic at 70 plus dollars a barrel the oil in the shale in Colorado is enough for the next few hundred years alone.

Our number one supplier of oil is Canada (U.S. Energy Information Admin.)
#2 is Mexico

[jack grebe]

open the wells we have capped off right here in the states, chuck

[ljb5]

Charlie, you know we have more oil here in N.America than all of the Middle East combined. According to a previous topic at 70 plus dollars a barrel the oil in the shale in Colorado is enough for the next few hundred years alone.


Jim, the fact that this hasn't happened indicates that there is something wrong with your premise.

Either:

there's not as much oil here as you think
it's harder to recover than you think
Bush doesn't want to supply us with cheap oil
or Bush doesn't see an real downside to war.


----------------------------------------------------

Despite all your theories and your deductive logic, here's reality:

The Republicans control the entire U.S. Government.
We are paying record prices for gas.
We are experiencing war.
Exxon-Mobil and Halliburton are making record profits.

[TomF]

Point #2. Oil deposits in oilshale/tarsands are extensive, and expensive. There's some real discussion about where the break-even point is.

t.

[LeeG]

open the wells we have capped off right here in the states, chuck


those wells are capped because of the cost of recovery, our production peaked thirty years ago. Sure there's a theoretical amount of oil in the ground, there's a theoretical amount of electricity available from solar generation. Some theories are more applicable for practical application than others.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

When we talk oil let's keep it to oil that's available on short order. Oil sand, oil tar, oil shale, oil that's in the ground but the pumps can't get is pie in the sky until the per barrel price makes it's recovery profitable. And if oil prices shot up to $200 per barrel tomorrow the technology is too primative ,yet, to put much gas in the tank.
If our overseas supply is cut we would be on a downward slide in weeks. The mere thought of a major oil shortage would start to tank our economy long before the oil ran out.
Of course, the president can't sit back and let our oil line be cut. The troops would have to dispatched right quick while there is sufficient oil to sustain an army. And that would mean that some civilian supplies would have to be diverted to the war until the supply was flowing again.
Even if we never get near any of what I have speculated about the fact that oil is going up in price in big jumps over short time spans, means that the money that must be divereted to oil products will be money that can't be spent on other less important things. All these less important things are components of a healthy economy and when they wither the economy will wither a bit too.
An economy like our sits high above all others. That means it can fall a lot farther.
Fasten your seat belts.

Charlie

[johnw]

If we're in a world war, where's the draft? Never had one without the draft before. I think this is fear-mongering, pure and simple.

I used to cover the business beat in the Permian Basin, the part of Texas that produces most of the oil. I was there during the oil bust, when the price went from about $32 in November to a low of $9.75 in April. Lots of wells were being capped, and the word was that most wouldn't be recoverable after that. Of course, if it gets expensive enough all kinds of things get recoverable, but it gets more expensive to recover after you've capped it.

We could start shipping Alaska oil to the US instead of asia, but we got rid of the law that required Alaska oil be sold in the US many years ago. And none of the people pushing for more drilling in Alaska have proposed reviving that law. Nor do I see anyone we'll have to make sacrefices because it's war time.

So I'd say nobody is working very hard at putting the country on a war footing. If Gingrich was right, every family would be affected. Right now, the war's just on TV.

[Meerkat]

Republican election spin.

[High C]

Let's see, the "unilateral" US against a bunch of terrorists/insurgents/freedon fighters :rolleyes: in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look at the numbers of casualties. Look at the nations involved. Consider those numbers from either World War.

WWIII? Absurd.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Draft? You wanna' give Karl Rove a coronary? He's been trying to move heaven and earth to bring his bosses poll numbers up and the word "draft" would kick the prez's poll numbers down to 15%. House.
I'll bet #43 would kick Rummy down the Capital steps if he ever had to face the cameras and call for conscription.
Make no mistake, the military does not like conscripts. Having been one of that illustrious group I can tell you the officer corps did not like us one bit. Of the million man army that I was a part of draftees were the least maleable and the first to write letters to their congressman. Since we were civilians who were forced into military service we could spot BS at 1000 yards without a range finder.
And the wear and tear that Rummy has inflected on his all-volunteer army is probably paving the way for the draft to be with us again.
The draft isn't so bad if you survive. For my two years service the government will contribute a flag to cover my coffin. I want the word "draftee" embroiderd on mine.
By the way. The history of our involvement in WWI says we declared war in April, 1917 and the first draft registration didn't occure till June 5, 1917. And the first inductees were called still later. So, the next "world war" can be right on schedual even if there is no draft. Yet!
Got your affairs in order?

Charlie

"Gimme that guitar, boy! Take this rifle."