Watch Out, Democrats!

Today, and perhaps for the next several days, I am going to pretend to be a prophet, a political prophet. This does not make me a real prophet, but it surely makes me a pretentious one. Nor does this imply augury, divination, seeing into the future through blogfeeds or by looking for patterns in the grindings left by burning brakes along the guardrails of the Jersey Turnpike. I am not plying through the entrails of pigeons; I am not pursuing scatology to inform my eschatology. What my pretense means is simple: I am playing. And playing, as you know, is all about having fun.

What could be more delightful, really, than to take a shot at what will happen to the Iraq War should the Democrats take control of the United States Congress?

A DIRE WARNING TO ALL VOTERS (followed by one to all Democrats):

Trust the mighty prophet: The Democrats have no intention of ending the Iraq War -- or "occupation", or "quagmire", or "regime-change strategy" -- or even bringing US troops home in the next two years. Why? Because they need Iraq to remain unstable, unpopular and chaotic so a Democrat can win the White House in 2008. Does anyone really think that the next Congress, one controlled by Democrats, is going to allow President Bush to do as he hopes, which is to win in Iraq and scale back troop deployments? Come now! Who are you kidding? Democrats NEED Iraq to fail, continually, for the next two years. And we know this because they are exploiting the war NOW in order to win the popularity of the masses: a successful Iraq campaign renders the Democrats superfluous and thoroughly impotent. But a quagmire; a mistake built on lies; a botched campaign; a boondoggle; a civil war fomented by incompetence. These are a Democrat's ticket to power!

So, my dear friends, particularly my anti-war friends, prepare yourselves for the biggest political disappointment of your lives. My sources tell me that the Democrats in Congress are poised to bring Washington to a halt with impeachment hearings, you know, Impeach Bush procedures. And those will be followed by Impeach Cheney hearings, and, well you get the picture: political chaos and quagmire for pure political gain, and pure control of US Treasury disbursements. Oh, and there is one more thing: much of the impeachment motivation comes from those who believe Bush was NEVER duly elected. In other words, it's about payback.

But our troops will be hung out to dry by congressional Democrats intent on maintaining their vision of a better governed world.

AND HERE IS THE CRAZY WARNING TO DEMOCRATS: Look for the offsides trap

In soccer, there is a defensive play called the offsides trap. It occurs when defenders, pretending to maintain a position between the goalkeeper and the nearest attacking forward, suddenly move to a position behind the forward when a ball is sent into the scoring zone. If a referee is paying attention, the forward will be caught offsides, and the whistle will be blown. The defending team regains possession of the ball with a free kick.

Remember the Vietnam War.

Let's look back at that fine time for a moment. Recall that it was Democrats in the White House (presidents Kennedy and Johnson), and Democrats in both the House and Senate (some of the largest Democratic majorities in modern US history), who escalated US involvement in Vietnam. In fact, both the executive and legislative branches under Democratic Party control escalated US involvement to dizzying heights, so high, in fact, that 50,000 troops would die in that distant land.

But remember what happened in 1968. Republican Richard M. Nixon won the White House at a time when popularity for the war was extremely low. And what did the Democrats do? That's right. They turned the Vietnam War into the Nixon War. They made Vietnam a Republican problem. After all, how many school kids today -- in America -- learn that Vietnam was really a Democratic Party failure? How many kids learn that it was the Democrats who drove American soldiers deep into that jungle quagmire?

So, let's talk payback now. Impeach Bush might be a Democrat strategy for doling out vengeance on the allegedly stolen 2000 election (and the alleged theft of Ohio in 2004). But Republicans not really fighting to keep control of the Congress today might in fact be an offsides trap being played -- in a great gamble -- by Republican strategists as payback for, well, everything (including Vietnam). Iraq, perhaps, is about to become the Democrats' War.

If there were just two types of teenagers in 1968, they were these: those who were anti-establishment, counter-cultural and anti-war, and those who were none of those things. Now, today, those two types of teenagers, 40 years older, are sitting in the White House, in Congress, in the offices of the RNC and DNC; they fill academia and the media. What you are witnessing, then, is a gargantuan struggle between those who believed that Vietnam was a lost cause and those who believed it could have been won (had we only FULLY stayed the course and supported US military actions there). In other words, if George Bush -- the establishment man -- wins in Iraq, it will not only mean that the Iraq-is-a-failure folks are wrong today; they were wrong in the golden protest years of yesterday about Vietnam. And if the anti-establishment hippies of the 1960's who are now in their 60s are right about the failure of Iraq, then, well, they will no doubt feel vindicated about Vietnam.

In reality, what you are seeing is a flashback of 1967-72. There might not be as much acid now as there was then, but there is surely more acid speech. But the Democrats need to watch out for the offsides trap.

Trust me. They don't know what they are about to win.

And remember: I am just a pretend prophet.

One final note to all voters: Does anyone really believe that the Iraq War is unnecessary, a war of mere choice, one completely begun at the President's bidding? For if that was the case, would he not have begun to withdraw troops on the eve of the elections, elections his party will lose? And if Bush and Co. control oil prices and oil fields, don't you think that, if they did so control them, we would have seen gas prices fall back to popularly low levels by now in order to secure political victory at all costs? And does anyone really think that President Bush is holding Osama bin Laden as some sort of ace-in-the-hole as we watch Republican popularity wane? Where, oh where, have the conspiracy theories gone? Were they all false prophecies uttered by false prophets? Are not false prophets supposed to be rejected, condemned; stoned to death outside the city walls?

But we all know they've been stoned before.

Peace, from your favorite prophet.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Democrats