NP? echoes...

[Doug Millison]

...of the war fever that gripped the US in the early 60s as Pynchon began
publishing his novels:

Bush's war plans are a cover-up, Byrd says
Saturday September 21, 2002
By Paul J. Nyden
STAFF WRITER

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said President Bush's plans to invade Iraq
are a conscious effort to distract public attention from growing problems
at home.

"This administration, all of a sudden, wants to go to war with Iraq," Byrd
said. "The [political] polls are dropping, the domestic situation has
problems.... So all of a sudden we have this war talk, war fervor, the
bugles of war, drums of war, clouds of war.

"Don't tell me that things suddenly went wrong. Back in August, the
president had no plans.... Then all of a sudden this country is going to
war," Byrd told the Senate on Friday.

"Are politicians talking about the domestic situation, the stock market,
weaknesses in the economy, jobs that are being lost, housing problems? No."

Byrd warned of another Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Passed on Aug. 7, 1964,
that resolution handed President Lyndon Johnson broad powers to escalate
the war in Vietnam, a conflict that cost 58,202 American lives and millions
of Asian lives.

"Congress will be putting itself on the sidelines," Byrd told the Senate.
"Nothing would please this president more than having such a blank check
handed to him."

Byrd said his belief in the Constitution will prevent him from voting for
Bush's war resolution. "But I am finding that the Constitution is
irrelevant to people of this administration."

Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., both praised Byrd
after he spoke.

"It is the height of patriotism to ask such hard questions," Clinton said.
"No one exemplifies that more than the senior senator from West Virginia."

Byrd said, "Before the nation is committed to war, before we send our sons
and daughters to battle in faraway lands, there are critical questions that
must be asked. To date, the answers from the administration have been less
than satisfying." [...]

http://www.wvgazette.com/display_story.php3?sid=200209213