Jun 12, 2007
We have the people of Connecticut to blame.
For Joe Lieberman.
Last November, after Ned Lamont bested Lieberman in the Democratic Party, Lieberman turned coat and ran as an independent and defeated Lamont.
While Lieberman vowed to continue to caucus with the Democrats, on foreign policy he carries water for Bush and Cheney.
He voted to continue funding for the Iraq War, and remains one of the biggest cheerleaders of that war.
And on Sunday, he went even further than Cheney has in advocating expanding that war right into Iran.
Speaking on "Face the Nation," Lieberman proposed "a strike over the border into Iran" to get at what he called a base that is training insurgents who are killing Americans in Iraq.
I, for one, would like to see the solid evidence of that.
And for two, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that Richard Nixon used to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia and Laos.
That action, like Lieberman's crazed idea for Iran, was predicated on the false notion that the major problem is not indigenous.
But it is.
In the case of Iraq, it's mostly Sunni insurgents who are killing Americans.
And Shiite Iran is an archenemy of these insurgents.
Plus, as Juan Cole notes on his blog at juancole.com, "Bush needs Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council in order to avoid immediate and complete defeat in Iraq, and SIIC is very, very close to Iran." Cole goes on: "Lieberman doesn't seem to understand, by the way, that Iraqi Shiites would mind the US bombing their coreligionists and would probably massacre the entire British garrison in Basra as well as interdict US fuel convoys to the north from Kuwait and Basra. His irresponsible warmongering would get a lot of US troops killed for no good reason."
But logic is not Lieberman's forte. Saber rattling is--and so is sucking up to Bush and Cheney.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.
(c) 2007 The Progressive
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Matt Rothschild
Matt Rothschild is the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign at the start of 2015, Matt worked at The Progressive Magazine for 32 years. For most of those, he was the editor and publisher of The Progressive.
We have the people of Connecticut to blame.
For Joe Lieberman.
Last November, after Ned Lamont bested Lieberman in the Democratic Party, Lieberman turned coat and ran as an independent and defeated Lamont.
While Lieberman vowed to continue to caucus with the Democrats, on foreign policy he carries water for Bush and Cheney.
He voted to continue funding for the Iraq War, and remains one of the biggest cheerleaders of that war.
And on Sunday, he went even further than Cheney has in advocating expanding that war right into Iran.
Speaking on "Face the Nation," Lieberman proposed "a strike over the border into Iran" to get at what he called a base that is training insurgents who are killing Americans in Iraq.
I, for one, would like to see the solid evidence of that.
And for two, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that Richard Nixon used to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia and Laos.
That action, like Lieberman's crazed idea for Iran, was predicated on the false notion that the major problem is not indigenous.
But it is.
In the case of Iraq, it's mostly Sunni insurgents who are killing Americans.
And Shiite Iran is an archenemy of these insurgents.
Plus, as Juan Cole notes on his blog at juancole.com, "Bush needs Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council in order to avoid immediate and complete defeat in Iraq, and SIIC is very, very close to Iran." Cole goes on: "Lieberman doesn't seem to understand, by the way, that Iraqi Shiites would mind the US bombing their coreligionists and would probably massacre the entire British garrison in Basra as well as interdict US fuel convoys to the north from Kuwait and Basra. His irresponsible warmongering would get a lot of US troops killed for no good reason."
But logic is not Lieberman's forte. Saber rattling is--and so is sucking up to Bush and Cheney.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.
(c) 2007 The Progressive
Matt Rothschild
Matt Rothschild is the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign at the start of 2015, Matt worked at The Progressive Magazine for 32 years. For most of those, he was the editor and publisher of The Progressive.
We have the people of Connecticut to blame.
For Joe Lieberman.
Last November, after Ned Lamont bested Lieberman in the Democratic Party, Lieberman turned coat and ran as an independent and defeated Lamont.
While Lieberman vowed to continue to caucus with the Democrats, on foreign policy he carries water for Bush and Cheney.
He voted to continue funding for the Iraq War, and remains one of the biggest cheerleaders of that war.
And on Sunday, he went even further than Cheney has in advocating expanding that war right into Iran.
Speaking on "Face the Nation," Lieberman proposed "a strike over the border into Iran" to get at what he called a base that is training insurgents who are killing Americans in Iraq.
I, for one, would like to see the solid evidence of that.
And for two, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that Richard Nixon used to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia and Laos.
That action, like Lieberman's crazed idea for Iran, was predicated on the false notion that the major problem is not indigenous.
But it is.
In the case of Iraq, it's mostly Sunni insurgents who are killing Americans.
And Shiite Iran is an archenemy of these insurgents.
Plus, as Juan Cole notes on his blog at juancole.com, "Bush needs Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council in order to avoid immediate and complete defeat in Iraq, and SIIC is very, very close to Iran." Cole goes on: "Lieberman doesn't seem to understand, by the way, that Iraqi Shiites would mind the US bombing their coreligionists and would probably massacre the entire British garrison in Basra as well as interdict US fuel convoys to the north from Kuwait and Basra. His irresponsible warmongering would get a lot of US troops killed for no good reason."
But logic is not Lieberman's forte. Saber rattling is--and so is sucking up to Bush and Cheney.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.
(c) 2007 The Progressive
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