IRAQ: Just Another Bloody Monday –updated below–
Oh. My. God. They're finally covering the funerals.
This is dedicated to Joe.
Every single Republican who is tap dancing around the Iraq war should be fired.
That applies double for Lieberman.
The other obvious issue, especially at this point after all the books that have laid it out, which I've covered before, is that containment worked; not in a vacuum, because there were many components to it,
but it worked. By 2000, after Desert Fox, sanctions and the inspections, Saddam
was not only contained but a shadow of the dictator that invaded Kuwait. David
Kay was shocked to find this out, but being a better man than Lieberman or McCain,
he admitted the truth. Ret. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who commanded American troops in the Middle East during Desert Fox, had the same reaction.
Two passages from Thomas Ricks's book are a reminder of just how wrong Bush,
Lieberman, McCain and many others got it.
Zinni was amazed when Western intelligence assets in Baghdad reported that
Desert Fox nearly knocked off Saddam Hussein's regime. His conclusion: Containment
is clearly working, and Saddam Hussein was on the ropes. A U.S. military intelligence
official, looking back at Desert Fox years later, confirmed that account.
“There are a lot of good reports coming out afterward on how he changed
his command and control, very quickly. It was especially clear in areas involving
internal controls.” Interception of communications among Iraqi generals
indicated “palpable fear that he was going to lose control.” (FIASCO,
p. 19)In a series of in-depth postwar interrogations, a score of veterans of Iraqi
weapons programs told Kay's group that the Desert Fox raids had left Iraqi
weaponeers demoralized and despairing. … … More than the physical damage,
it was the devastating psychological effect that had really counted, and that
was what U.S intelligene assessments had missed in examining Iraq during the
run-up to the war, he decided. (FIASCO, p. 21)
But at least many Democrats who got it wrong admitted it and have tried to
correct the blunder.
Not stay the course Joe, who's content to stand by his man; that would be George
W. Bush.
That's why I dedicate just another bloody Monday to Joe “stay the course”
Lieberman. The man who is trying to split every last hair left on his head on
Iraq.
But know this, if Joe Lieberman is re-elected he will vote with the Republicans
on Iraq, and we will stay in Iraq through George W. Bush's reign, handing off this bloody mess to the next president in 2008. It's Bush's plan, because he thinks if he can hand it off he won't get the blame. Joe's helping him accomplish his most important mission. This is what their plans have wrought.
A bomb targeting poor Iraqi Shiites lining up for day jobs in Baghdad's
Sadr City slum killed at least 31 people and wounded more than 50 others,
police said.The bomb tore through a collection of food stalls and kiosks at about 6:15
a.m., cutting down men who gather there daily hoping to be hired as laborers.
Police Maj. Hashim al-Yasiri put the casualty figure at 31 killed and 51 injured.
A vote for Ned Lamont is a vote for change. It is a vote to redirect our efforts, energies and foreign policy in a direction that will help this country and not waste the lives of our troops who long ago accomplished their mission. It will also get us out of the way of the Iraqis who have scores to settle that we cannot begin to stop. Americans cannot end grudges nursed in the deep desert sand of Mesopotamia. To ever think we could was madness.
UPDATE (9:05 a.m.): About Joe “supporting the troops,” well, he's just another Republican on that one.
Yet, most disturbing for someone so ready to send other people's children into bogus wars, is his lack of commitment to those troops once they come home. While Lieberman was once quoted by the New Yorker saying “some of my best friends are neocons,” the same can't be said about veterans.
In 1997, Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond offered a motion to kill an amendment authored by Minnesota legend Paul Wellstone that would have required the secretary of defense to put $400 million into veteran's benefits the following year. Lieberman joined the Thurmond assault on veterans. He also opposed efforts to increase health care spending for veterans by $13 billion over five years in 1996 and an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Harkin to transfer $329 million from defense accounts to the Veterans Affairs Department for health care programs.
He has, however, continued to find billions of dollars to support missile defense programs that have shown as much promise as Tucker Carlson on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Joe Lieberman's Endless Hypocrisy, by Cliff Schecter
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