The Man Who Sold The World
by digby
So Bush met yet again with some friendly rightwing journalists and impressed them mightily with his intensity and manliness. As usual.
According to Greg Mitchell at E&P he told his sycophants that:
Gen. John Abizaid (“one of the really great thinkers”) was the one who “came up with” the recent construct about the enemy in Iraq, “If we leave, they will follow us here.” Bush then explains that this is what makes the Iraq struggle “really different from other wars we’ve been in.”
More “the oceans don’t protect us anymore” and “this is the biggest threat the world has ever known” crapola. I don’t know what in the hell he thinks he knows but it bears no relationship to reality. The US was seriously concerned with an invasion during WWII and had reason to be:
In Autumn of 1940, the attack on the US was fixed for the long-term future. This appears in Luftwaffe documents, one of which dated October 29, 1940 mentions the “extraordinary interest of Mein Führer in the occupation of the Atlantic Islands. In line with this interest…with the cooperation of Spain is the seizure of Gibraltar and Spanish and Portuguese islands, along other operations in the North Atlantic.”
In July 1941, the Führer ordered that planning an attack against the United States be continued. Five months later, on December 11, 1941 Germany declared war on the United States.
[…]
(Fall Felix) and Operation Sealion, planned the occupation of Ireland and Operation Ikarus, would have provided some support bases for installing the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine infantry seaborne or Luftwaffe Airborne forces for the invasion.
These units, with proper support from the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, were to capture coastal areas in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
On the other hand, the invasion could have come from airborne landings on the Atlantic coast of Canada in the Northwest Territories, Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, with the army then continuing into U.S territory. The Saint Lawrence River was also considered to be a major possible entry point into North America. Another option involved launching seaborne rockets, long range missiles or aerial bombardments, against U.S. territory. The Germans were also considering the development and use of an atomic bomb against the United States.
Air strikes with heavy long range bombers would have not only put the coastal targets of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York within range, but also targets in Ohio and even Indiana.
[…]
For Japanese Naval strategists, an invasion of American, Mexican, and Central American Pacific coasts would have required naval bases in the Aleutian and Hawaiian islands, as well as the Mexican Revillagigedo and French Clipperton islands.
From the Aleutians, Japanese forces would have landed in Alaska and Canada, from Hawaii naval or airborne landings in Washington state, Oregon, and California were considered. From these bases, long-range heavy land-based bombers or flying boat attacks on U.S. territory could be launched. The High Command staff considered bombing San Francisco, Panama, Los Angeles, the Texas oilfields, in coordination with German naval strikes against Boston, Washington D.C. or New York. The use of biological and chemical weapons was also considered.
Or how about this little threat. Bush once said:
“The first lesson is, is that oceans can no longer protect us. You know, when I was coming up in the ’50s in Midland, Texas, it seemed like we were pretty safe. In the ’60s it seemed like we were safe.”
Apparently the moron never heard of this:
The Soviet Union had thousands of ICBM’s pointed at us and we had many more pointed at them. We lived under a doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. I honestly don’t know where this bozo got the idea that our oceans protected us or that fighting someone “over there” keeps them from getting “over here,” but we haven’t been “safe” in those terms since — well, ever. It’s utter pablum and I can’t believe that even Rush and his mouthbreathers believe it. (That General Abazaid coined the silly phrase explains a lot about why everything is so screwed up in Iraq.)
We desperately need some leadership that at least knows the world they grew up in and live in today. But at the very least we need leadership who didn’t watch a bunch of bad cowboy and war movies on TV when they were kids and think they learned history. This is the second Republican president in the last 25 years who has routinely confused Hollywood product with reality and it’s got to stop.
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