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Lieberman still confused about the war in Iraq

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The president spoke briefly this morning from the White House, heralding the “success of the surge” for creating “sustained progress” in Iraq. Soon after, Joe Lieberman announced that he and Lindsey Graham are “introducing a resolution recognizing the strategic success that the surge has achieved in a central front — the central front of the war on terror against the enemies who attacked America on 9/11/01, and expressing our thanks to our troops who’ve made that success possible.”

Ben at TP did a nice job knocking this down.

It would be an insult to anyone’s intelligence to point out the obvious fact that the terrorists who carried out the September 11, 2001 terror attacks operated out of Afghanistan, not Iraq. And despite the right wing’s insistence, even the Pentagon has confirmed that “no direct link” ever existed “between late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda network.”

But Lieberman’s claim indicates that he does not understand the wider problem — namely that the surge prevented the U.S. from sending more troops where they are needed, in Afghanistan. In January 2007, just one week after Bush announced his surge policy, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that “U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have recommended an increase in U.S. force levels, in part to deal with an expected upsurge in Taliban violence.”

But the troops went to Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan and since then, the security situation there has become worse than its ever been since 2001. U.S. commanders and even Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen have recently acknowledged that they do not have the troops or resources necessary to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaida threat in Afghanistan because of Iraq. Moreover, a new report directly links the troop shortages there to the Taliban’s comeback.

Quite right. I’d add that Lieberman’s insistence that the surge defeated “the enemies who attacked America on 9/11/01” also suggests he thinks al Qaeda is (or at least, has been) the principal cause of violence in Iraq. That’s completely wrong, too.

Last spring, it became painfully obvious that the president started lying about al Qaeda in Iraq as part of a cynical approach to bolstering support for the war. While that was hardly unexpected, the more noticeable problem was that the media started playing along with the White House’s scheme, and began characterizing everyone who commits an act of violence in Iraq as an al Qaeda terrorist.

The New York Times’ public editor, Clark Hoyt, eventually tackled the subject head on in a terrific column; the paper took steps to make amends; and news outlets have generally been more responsible about not equating all Iraqi violence with AQI.

But Lieberman wants to fudge the details in the hopes that Americans don’t know the difference. If violence is down, the surge worked. If the surge worked, we’ve beaten al Qaeda. It’s completely wrong, but it might fool those who aren’t paying attention.

“The U.S. has not been fighting Al Qaeda, it’s been fighting Iraqis,” said Juan Cole, a fierce critic of the war who is the author of “Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi’ite Islam” and a professor of history at the University of Michigan. A member of Al Qaeda “is technically defined as someone who pledges fealty to Osama bin Laden and is given a terror operation to carry out. It’s kind of like the Mafia,” Mr. Cole said. “You make your bones, and you’re loyal to a capo. And I don’t know if anyone in Iraq quite fits that technical definition.”

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is just one group, though a very lethal one, in the stew of competing Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Iranian-backed groups, criminal gangs and others that make up the insurgency in Iraq. That was vividly illustrated last month when the Iraqi Army’s unsuccessful effort to wrest control of Basra from the Shiite militia groups that hold sway there led to an explosion of violence.

The current situation in Iraq should properly be described as “a multifactional civil war” in which “the government is composed of rival Shia factions” and “they are embattled with an outside Shia group, the Mahdi Army,” Ira M. Lapidus, a co-author of “Islam, Politics and Social Movements” and a professor of history at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an e-mail message. “The Sunni forces are equally hard to assess,” he added, and “it is an open question as to whether Al Qaeda is a unified operating organization at all.”

There’s also, of course, the political considerations. Lieberman and Graham, McCain’s two most sycophantic allies, want a resolution recognizing “the strategic success that the surge has achieved in a central front — the central front of the war on terror against the enemies who attacked America on 9/11/01, and expressing our thanks to our troops who’ve made that success possible.” The want that so Barack Obama will be compelled to take a position on it. If he opposes it because it’s based on bogus and ignorant premises, it’s yet another cudgel for the McCain campaign.

I wonder, will there ever be a presidential campaign for grown-ups?

Comments

  • NonyNony

    says:

    I wonder, will there ever be a presidential campaign for grown-ups?

    Sure. When the American public starts acting like grown-ups we’ll get grown-up presidential campaigns.

    They wouldn’t do this stuff if it didn’t work.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    the more pressing question for Democrats: does Reid have the skills, will, and courage to keep it from ever coming to a vote, even in a committee?

    does anyone honestly think a Democrat running a stunt bill like this would have seen the light of day under Lott or Frist (or McConnell)?

  • sparrow

    says:

    Lieberman is a whiney dolt. Of course I know this adds nothing to the discussion, but it felt good to say it.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    you’re going to be close to 14 again today Steve (by my count 1 in the 4:00 hour plus the mini-report will be 13). . . maybe the McCain camp strategy is to wear out the good bloggers 🙂

  • TomB

    says:

    How about a resolution that promises that lawmakers will always be honest? That they will base their judgments on verifiable facts and that they won’t intentionally mislead for political purposes?

  • SadOldVet

    says:

    Stop disagreeing and argue with Joe LIEberman…

    Instead, yell at the top of your lungs: You got it Joe – let’s have that victory parade that the Pentagon set aside funds for years ago – AND GET THE HELL OUT OF IRAQ!!!

  • Patrick

    says:

    I just read something that I haven’t seen anywhere else. I decided to read up on The Project For A New American Century. I know that many people here are better read and informed than I am, but did you know that McCain’s top guy Randy Scheuneman, is listed as a founding director, along with Bill Kristol, whom we are all unfortuately aware of? Has this been discussed? Sorry to post something unrelated, but I found that facinating and horrifying. It was in Wikipedia.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

  • howard

    says:

    i think it’s much too charitable to call lieberman “confused” abour iraq.

    he’s not confused: in his mind, “they” are all the same, and we’re fighting “them” over “there.”

    specific details are irrelevant.

  • joey

    says:

    Liebermann is always trying to get the senate to herald some right wing talking point. A more pathetic combination than McCain, Lieberman and Graham is hard to come by. To even suggest such an outrageous distortion of reality is astonishing.

    Lieberman has nothing to say when confronted with the fact that there was alternatives to the surge that would have accomplished the same results without all the destruction and loss of life. Liebermann had nothing personal to lose…it wasn’t his life or his child’s life on the line so he was quick to send them off to their deaths. Now he wants to say thank you for following our incompetent strategy and luckily surviving…all the contractor profiteering we got you to enable and protect is grateful enough to give you mention (not support a GI bill mind you or longer breaks between deployments but mention) of a job well done.

    Incompetent decision #1) attacking and invading a country that had no WMD or connection to those who attacked us on 9/11 and which our own intelligence agencies stated was not an imminent threat to the US.
    Incompetent decision #2) Firing the Iraq army in spite of their offer to join with US forces in securing and rebuilding Iraq. Which officially “began the insurgency”… and opened the door to the criminal militias to rob and plunder.

    Incompetent decision #3) Troop escalation known as “the surge” which acted more like the splurge because it enabled and protected contractor profiteering, ethnic cleansing, segregation and displacement of Sunnis…while ignoring the results of the Anbar awakening where the Sunnis (army) were once again being employed and “paid” to fight al qaeda and the criminal militias which had the effect of bringing violence down immediately….violence which could have been completely avoided to begin with had mistake #2 not occurred…which could have had the effect of saving nearly 2000 lives of US soldiers. Employing the country to rebuild what we had destroyed was brushed aside so American contractors could reap huge profits delivering shoddy work most having to be redone or abandoned entirely costing the US taxpayers billions and accomplishing little.

    For Liebermann to stand up and say we should honor a policy which broke us financially and wasted American lives while killing all opposition so the war profiteering could continue while still not achieving its goal of political reconciliation is not only shameful but demonstrates the stupidity and incompetent reasoning of narrow minded chickenhawks who are using the soldiers to try to pat themselves on the back. We see through you Liebermann and Graham and McCain and your so called public service time is about to come to an end. Jerusalem Joe has got to go.

  • joey

    says:

    btw…supporting the troops means protecting them and not sending them to their deaths needlessly…using all other options before requiring them to make that greatest of sacrifices. You and yours used them to accomplish goals of self interest and profiteering. To you their deaths were just a means to an end…to them it was the end…and you just don’t get that.

  • Rabi

    says:

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Al Qaida in Mesopotamia only very loosely linked to Bin Laden anyways?

    Either way, Liebermann’s statement (and the attitude perpetuated by both the right and the “liberal” media) is not only a dishonest way to praise the Republican party, but it helps Al Qaida in Mesopotamia.

  • JoeBob

    says:

    Has anybody noticed that the security situation in Iraq has improved dramatically since Rumsfeld was shown the door?

  • JS

    says:

    Wow, now I know why Lieberman and McCain hold hands and walk together, they escaped from the same nursing home, they hope that if one forgets his name the other will bail him out.

  • Coloradoblue

    says:

    “I wonder, will there ever be a presidential campaign for grown-ups?”

    Well, never say never. I never thought I would see the collapse of the USSR and a free Eastern Europe (I was 41 when the wall came down and Yeltsin stood on top of the tank to send Soviet Communism onto the ash heap of history), so I suppose a presidential election for grown-ups is possible.

    But I’m not holding my breath.

  • s,dog7

    says:

    for real,,, if you think the Iraq war was going to be lost you are right,, that’s because i said to them what to do,,,
    i first said you have to go door to door every home once you take 50,000 troops back to Iraq…
    they did that, but i just gave them the idea to make them think smarter then what they where doing////////
    driving back and forwarded getting blown up…..
    The first surge did not work, the terrorist left then came right back,, it was 3 months layter they did what I said,, and this is the letter I sent them .
    i would not believe this if some one posted it.
    Try read it, it is the real letter I sent them almost 2 years, I could not spell at all back then and did not no how to put,,,…?/’; in the right spot,, so read it slowly and put it where it is meant to go..
    I could half re-right now because I no hall to spell much better now and put ,.’ where it goes,,,,, but this is the real thing that I sait to re right,,, letter number 2..

    Iraq war plan read it

    Once you have all your troops in Iraq you must do one area at a time but you have to block off all the roads so no cars can drive down and blow up, then you have 50.000 troops in the suburb all roads blocked off. Go door to door every door and look in every home then bring 1000 sniffer dogs to smell for bombs guns every thing, look under there floor boards they must undo them then do them back up. look up in the men hole, look in there seat’s if you see a hole or a zip open it up and look, and see if any bricks can be moved from the wall’s fire place, look out the back in rain water tank’s look in shed’s and up the top of them look in back yard and see if any dirt has been moved so you no they have dug there, if you have metal detectors look in back yard with them [sniffer dogs] if in Iraq they have drains [where street water goes look under grand]
    Once you are all reader to go door to door do 1 suburb at a time start from a point were there are no homes on one side. Look on my satellite photo and do it like this.
    you have to look at the satellite photo make shore if you do it like map no one crosses the river with bombs, look at photo.
    Now do you see what I mean usa troops go in first then once you have cleaned out bombs and guns from homes bring in 800 Iraq troops and leave 100 usa troops with them say to 30.000 40.000 civilians per suburb use the hole iraq army say 200.0000 men to stay after your troops have locked in every home have trucks ready to take away wepons. you must block of all roads so no car’s cant drive down and blow up you; then say you cant leave all roads blocked off block of all roads and at start of suburb have check point were they have to pull in to 50 meters away then by speakers make them get out and then go up to the car. Make shore at the check point most troops have rocket launcher. or run bus’s only and if you do run bus’s make it if you get on you cant have jacket’s on just t-shirt’s only and once you moved on have Iraq troops at all bus stops and if anyone comes up with jaket on make them lie down with army’s out and wait for 1 min then go look
    Make shore you have tanks every were hi Tec weapon’s grenades give then every thing
    get them gun’s that you don’t have to put your face head out around the corner the gun’s that look around corners I think Australia made them they went back to mires in the scope.
    If you run buses make shore they can’t get any.
    once you go door to door all over Iraq and have done the hole Iraq build base’s all on the border of Iraq every were, say 20 km a part have in each base 200 men but very heavily armed and if you get attacked bring more troops up so have helicopters at every base.
    In the base’s have 10 km scope gun’s but make shore they practice case if you shot it would take time to hit them you have to shoot a head of them so the time it gets there it would hit them get all of them to shoot at once and you will have a big mess
    Now they will not be able to come in to Iraq unless they parachute in from planes or they have dug tunnels in to Iraq.
    You should get a plan to fly all over the desert with metal detectors on them and look for bomb’s and gun’s and on the plan have some thing that can see if they have dug tunnel’s from Iran-Syria in to Iraq,
    And if you do find tunnels don’t blow them up get in side them and shoot any one that goes in there, make shore you look each way they could be coming or leaving,
    That will be one less scumbag if you blow it up you wont kill terroist or should i say Iran army men

    if you want to keep your cities clean you should put 5 cent
    Deposit on chip packs on pie bags on every thing it
    Would work

    that’s 1%,, id cards,, spraying there hands to see if they have shot a gun or touched explosive the cement wall around sadar city,, it was to cut off there weapons and after 3 months they would of run out anyway,, game over..
    But did they say thank you, no,, I have proof of it to, with the dates on my documents on my computer..
    You only see 1%.