At least when it comes to the war?
Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians — innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.
If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.
Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus’s security strategy has failed and that the war is “lost.”
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In the two months since Petraeus took command, the United States and its Iraqi allies have made encouraging progress on two problems that once seemed intractable: tamping down the Shiite-led sectarian violence that paralyzed Baghdad until recently and consolidating support from Iraqi Sunnis — particularly in Anbar, a province dismissed just a few months ago as hopelessly mired in insurgency.
This progress is real, but it is still preliminary.
The suicide bombings we see now in Iraq are an attempt to reverse these gains: a deliberate, calculated counteroffensive led foremost by al-Qaeda, the same network of Islamist extremists that perpetrated catastrophic attacks in Kenya, Indonesia, Turkey and, yes, New York and Washington.
Indeed, to the extent that last week’s bloodshed clarified anything, it is that the battle of Baghdad is increasingly a battle against al-Qaeda. Whether we like it or not, al-Qaeda views the Iraqi capital as a central front of its war against us.
Al-Qaeda’s strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. It is trying to kill as many innocent people as possible in the hope of reigniting Shiite sectarian violence and terrorizing the Sunnis into submission.
In other words, just as Petraeus and his troops are working to empower and unite Iraqi moderates by establishing basic security, al-Qaeda is trying to divide and conquer with spectacular acts of butchery.
That is why the suggestion that we can fight al-Qaeda but stay out of Iraq’s “civil war” is specious, since the very crux of al-Qaeda’s strategy in Iraq has been to try to provoke civil war…
The challenge before us, then, is whether we respond to al-Qaeda’s barbarism by running away, as it hopes we do — abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East and ultimately our own security to the very people responsible for last week’s atrocities — or whether we stand and fight.
To me, there is only one choice that protects America’s security — and that is to stand, and fight, and win.
I guess I could have saved some bandwidth and asked you to “read the whole thing,” but there it is.
Why is it that clear thinking, absent partisanship, seems so very novel these day? And does it help to explain why,
For the first time since the (Harris poll) series began, all of the political figures and institutions included in the survey have negative performance ratings.
Probably.
I guess that’s why he lost the primary on his last election bid, ergo, not infected with BDS & able to see clearly the GWOT as it is & not as you wish/declare it to be.
History will remember Joe Lieberman as a true patriot and a brave man. An honorable man when it truly mattered in an age when that had no meaning to the cynical spin doctors.
Quick, how many Copperhead Democrats from the 1860’s can you recall? They were real Important People of the day who hated everything about Lincoln and “his” war. So Important they saw no need to lift a finger to preserve “the last, best hope of Man on earth.”
Yeah, me neither…
I saw this over @ Powerline,(jump down to Lieberman’s long statement against the Bill)
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/017451.php
Senator Lieberman is a class act.
I am staunchly conservative, but have a high regard for the Senator.
I think he and Zell Miller were the only Democrats that figured out that you don’t have to pander to the loony left.
He has definately taken the high road.
God, Duty, Honor, Country, all else is lost without it.
Good day.
I think Geore W. ought to give Harry Reid a call and propose that we’ll trade Arlen Spector and a future draft choice for Joe Lieberman any day of the week.
I suspect that the primary loss was the most liberating thing that ever happened to Lieberman. He doesn’t owe Harry Reid, or the Democratic party a thing. Since they did their best to get rid of him he is free to say whatever he wants. What are they going to do? Oppose him in the next election? And, by the way, if Reid, or anyone else on the Democratic side screws with him all he has to do is change party and Republicans take over the Senate. I have even greater respect for Lieberman because I have to imagine that he has been offered everything imaginable to switch sides, and he stays with the girl who brung him (so to speak). I just wish that he would come to the same realization that Ronald Reagan did. When young he was quite liberal, in fact, he was the president of the Screen Actors Guild. But, as he later said, he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left him. Scoop Jackson must be doing endless eight point rolls these days. Once upon a time you could use the words “Democrat” and “patriot” in the same sentence.
Marine6 Sends
Marine6, I think you hit on something. He’s beholden to those who voted for him, republicans and democrats alike, not the national parties and their respective talking points.
My admiration for Sen. Lieberman is still the same as it was when I voted for him in 2000.
Guliani/Lieberman would be an interesting ‘08 ticket. And Lieberman/Guliani would be an interesting ‘12 ticket.
# 5: Lieberman is the ONLY Democrat today whose name you can put in the same sentence with “patriot.” However, he is going to have to screw up even more courage if he is to have a chance of avoiding Harry Reid & Cos. cherished dream of defeat so that they may “pick up seats” and gain the presidency (For whatever THAT’S worth if they engineer a loss of this war). He will never stop them from his present position, and the only way he has a chance will be to cross the aisle and suffer the hatred and vituperation associated with that move. Stay tuned.
Yes, Senator Lieberman is in fact, an honorable man; albeit somewhat misguided.
“Stand, and fight, and win” is indeed, “clear thinking. ” Over-simplistic, and a politician’s sound bite perhaps, but easily inspirational words.
Nevertheless, the non-politician wonders exactly “where” we will stand, for “how long”, and with “what troops”.
One wonders the “who” we will be fighting; the Sunni, the Shiite, Ba’aath remnants, foreign or domestic insurgents, future warlords, street gangs, or al Qaeda. All, some, or one. (Of course, al Qaeda was not there when we invaded, has grown greatly since, will still be a threat regardless of Iraq’s outcome… and the criminal bin Laden remains alive in Pakistan.)
One wonders what a “win” if it were possible, would actually look like. A partitioned Iraq; a long-term US military presence to maintain the status quo; a civil war with one powerful faction in control by eliminating the others, etc. Certainly a stable democracy is unattainable in our lifetime, if ever.
Lieberman, like most politicians, has no real answer to our quagmire. Just more rousing but simplistic, platitudes. Yet, unlike some others, he is an honest man and can be forgiven.
#9: “…Lieberman, like most politicians, has no real answer to our quagmire. Just more rousing but simplistic, platitudes. Yet, unlike some others, he is an honest man and can be forgiven.”
He’s “forgiven” because he’s not saying he supports the troops out of one side of his mouth, then gives our enemies a timeline & cuts off our soldiers out of the other side. He’s a man of honor & dignity at a time when those qualities seem to be sorely lacking in our political leadership – and yes especially on one particular side of the aisle.
Lieberman lost the primary solely because of his stance on the war, then went Independent and still kept his seat at the table. Says alot about the man and how is home state – the state I live in – feels about him.
Fliterman: One can only assume you didn’t chase up (and read) Mark @ #3’s link… because Senator Lieberman answers some, if not all, of your (rhetorical?) questions in that extensive quote at Power Line.
And I find it supremely ironic that you claim Senator Lieberman (and by inference, the administration) “has no real answer to our quagmire.” As if your side did or does… aside from proclaiming the war “lost” and getting out of Dodge.
sarcasm
Some solution.
/sarcasm
Marine6 – I love your suggestion. I am sick and tired of Arlen Spector throwing people of his own party out of the boat to the swimming sharks. The people of Pennsylvania should be ashamed of him.
If the November ballot in ‘08 were to have Lieberman on the (D) side and McCain on the (R) side, I would have to consider carefully which one to vote for.
Marine6 said: I think George W. ought to give Harry Reid a call and propose that we?
Marine6 said: I think George W. ought to give Harry Reid a call and propose that we’ll trade Arlen Spector and a future draft choice for Joe Lieberman any day of the week.
What a great idea!! I have loathed AS ever since I became old enough to vote, and interested enough to find out why Daddy did (loathe him)
PA suffers, with a lot of decent conservative people being pushed around by a few nasty big-city folks.
I’d take Lieberman in a heartbeat, and buy you and him both a beer!
d
Filterman says:”Certainly a stable democracy is unattainable in our lifetime, if ever.”
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
Pray tell, why don’t you think the Iraqi’s are capable of self governance?
When was the last time you were there?
When I left, thing’s were shaping up quite nicely, thank you very much.
I do wish Sen. Leiberman would just bite the bullet and change party affiliation, just so we could get rid of Reid & Co. as the majority party in the senate. At least it would slow them down a little.