War and economic impact

So who is right between McCain and Obama when it comes to the war in Iraq?

It’s impossible today to predict the political landscape on Nov. 4. But Americans in general vote their pocketbook.

A recent Gallup poll shows 61 percent of Americans saying the economy – not the war in Iraq – is the No. 1 issue.

While the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict may not be on people’s minds as much, the question is what is overall economic impact of its cost? (FYI: The Congressional Budget Office put war’s outlay at $170 billion in 2007– that’s $465,753,424 per day, $19,406,392 per hour, $323,439 per minute, or $5,390 per second.)

A story earlier this year in MarketWatch.com offered pros and cons to the war’s impact on the U.S. economy.

On the plus side, the money spent is a “just a drop in the bucket” compared to overall government spending, while citing that the economy is stimulated due to the extra expenses for the way.

(C)old war strategies switch parties

With war waging in a far-away land, one political party opts to escalate the conflict with higher troop numbers and extend the time commitment to fight. The opposing political party leader decides a better tactic is meeting with the enemy and withdrawing soldiers from the conflict.

John McCain and Barack Obama? No. The above is a simplified version of the Kennedy/Johnson and Nixon administrations during the Vietnam War.

During Vietnam, the Democratic leadership of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson escalated soldiers – which carried the euphemistic title of “military advisers” – from the Eisenhower-era number of less than 1,000 to more than 500,000 by the time Johnson left office in 1969.

Republican President Richard Nixon halved the fighting force by the end of his second year in office and had his foreign policy expert Henry Kissinger begin secret peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese.

Fast-forward to 2008, and it’s the Republican McCain who had made statements about staying in Iraq “100 years” if necessary and the Democrat Obama who wants begin troop withdrawals and meet with foreign governments that pose a threat to U.S. interests.

The problem in affixing general labels to elected officials is that the “party line” doesn’t always fit.

By definition – if not by his actions as a congressman and vice president – Nixon should have been a staunch anti-communist for life. Instead, one can connect the dots on America’s foreign policy achievements back to Nixon, whose mastery of world politics thawed relations and opened doors from China to the Soviet Union to the Middle East.

Until the 1930s, black voters traditionally voted Republican, thanks in large part to President Lincoln’s push to abolish slavery. When Democratic administrations introduced the New Deal and subsequent Civil Rights legislation, blacks switched parties.

That doesn’t mean Democrats always work for the betterment of blacks. “American Pharaoh,” a book by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor about late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, cites references to official and unofficial policies under the city’s Democratic mayors that gave Chicago the most segregated public housing projects in the nation.

D-Day turns 64

The Allied invasion of Normandy began 64 years ago today.

For most of us in our 40s, our parents or grandparents would have been the closest generation to fight in the war. My mother - who was 41 when I was born - quit high school to work in a factory that manufactured shells.

The Ken Burns series "The War" or the opening sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" is about as "in your face" as war can be without having experienced it. Even then, screen images are a poor substitute for the real thing. Fortunately, though, that's as close as most of us get.

That invasion ultimately helped turn the war in the Allies favor. Other notable battles dot the landscape, but D-Day is the one that gets the attention.

Looking at our current situation in Iraq, it's difficult to tell what the "turning point" reference will be 60 years from now when people review the conflict. Maybe it hasn't happened yet, or maybe it has and we haven't realized it. Military commanders and regular folk in 1944 may not have grasped the impact of D-Day while living in the moment. We can only hope the tide-turning moment is in our favor.