Friday, December 29, 2006

Joe Lieberman: Professional Idiot

I have read Sen. Lieberman's op-ed in today's Washington Post a number of times and I still cannot figure out what the hell he is saying. His argument is that we need to increase the number of troops in the country because we can't let the country fall into the hands of al-Qeada and Iran. Yet, I have come to the conclusion that he got some monkeys together and had them type away, and kept any sentence that seemed reasonably coherent. He is not a bright man. To wit:
  • If he is so concerned about Iran then why go to war to begin with? As Anonymous Liberal points out, Iran was essentially a winner once the first troop stepped foot in Iraq. As the new Iraqi government was bound to be friendly with Iran considering the number of Shi'ites in Iraq.
  • He, apparently, is just itching for a fight with Iran. Why? Well, the reasons aren't exactly clear. If invading Iraq has cost us half a billion and thousands of lives- one would reasonably expect Iran to be that much tougher.
  • As Sam Rosenfeld suggests, Lieberman thinks it appropriate to use comic book language to describe the conflict. Rather then trying to understand the complexity of the Middle East, he has a child's understanding of the conflict.
There is a hell of lot more to say, but I fear that continuing to parse his argument will cause brain damage.

1 comment:

paulo said...

In supporting an attack on Iran, the senator is supporting the AIPAC position, i.e. that of the Israeli lobby, and presumably large segments of the Israeli political establishment. Although the enemy of one's enemy might be your friend, not with Iran, Iraq and Israel, since both Iran and Iraq were viewed as threats by Israel as long ago as Netanyahu administration when Richard Perle and Doug Feith formulated the notion of the US taking out Iraq as part of the "securing the realm" formulation. I heard an AIPAC presentation recently in which they as much as said Israel doesn't have the air lift capacity to go to Iran and get back, without us.
While Lieberman has every right to support an Israeli policy despite my misigivings, he doesn't have the right to support it without honestly telling his constituents why he is supporting it and seeing what their response is.