I'm shocked, shocked to see that Connecticut representative Chris Shays has become an antiwar candidate. This week, Shays joins all those those who know war, have participated in war, have studied war, and who care about the health of people and nations. He's on the antiwar team!
Like a wily cast member on any of the nauseatingly common "survivor" shows, Shays and others facing the people this November have discovered that it may pay to temporarily "adapt" their allegiances. Nobody wants to do a Joe Lieberman -- and yet the demos-driven winds blow strongly against the American occupation in Iraq.
Not to be cynical, but for Shays and the rest of the pro-war politicians, why not change boats midstream? Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have successfully built their grand and bristling mini-malls of America located strategically across Iraq, serving up all those flavors of Halliburton ice cream to about 100,000 of 135,000 troops we sent in Iraq. Yes, the other 35,000, mostly Marines, aren't eating much ice cream. Word on that is clearly out, explaining the neo-draft implemented this week by the Marine Corps.
I mean, mission accomplished already! Bases are in Iraq and troops are out of Saudi Arabia. All eyes are on Iran, and U.S. Air Force and naval forces (who missed that magnificent glory of invading and already decrepit Iraq) stand ready, Sadie Hawkins-style, to blow up their old inventory on a bunch of walking dead men, women and children and get new stuff. No single Arab leader remains in the Middle East to show solidarity for the rights of Palestinians. Ok, so Washington didn't see the rise of Hassan Nasrallah, but you can't blame Congress for that! We never elected them for their deep knowledge about the Middle East, right?
Bush-supporting characters habituated to the halls of Congress are secretly wishing and hoping and waiting and wondering about that October surprise. Will it come this year, in time to make a difference for their pro-war Republican and pro-war Democratic track record of doing all in their power to make the world unsafe, expensive, inconvenient, and frightening for Americans everywhere? The world wonders with them, no doubt.
Just in case they don't get an October surprise -- you know, a little something to bump up the fear factor, to make gullible voters push the panic button on those Diebold electronic voting machines (it is voters who push that button, isn't it?) -- it may be a good strategy for Bush-backers like Shays to say they are all about bringing the troops home. And bless his heart, he's on the right track -- bring them home now!
Our media-saturated and narcissistic society has made many of us alert to, and cynical about, team switchers and alliance breakers. This scares George Bush and Dick Cheney, who are responding to the variety of powerful antiwar voting facilitators like Voters for Peace , saying antiwar voters and candidates are an "Al Qaeda" fifth column. They must be getting desperate. I wrote about the real "Al Qaeda Candidate" in 2004. It wasn't the antiwar crowd then, and it sure isn't now.
Vote in peace, my brothers and sisters. It's just, it's good for the country, and in a way seen few times in our history, it's currently fashionable, popular, chic, and I'll check with Paris, but I think it's hot!