1 Boring Old Man

• Certainly, the 911 attack on the Twin Trade Towers in New York as an essential ingredient. Without the resulting outrage, there would never have been sufficient support to mount this war.
• We now know that the Administration that was elected in 2000 was populated from groups that had long advocated a "regime change" in Iraq as the centerpiece for a new foreign policy for the United States, a policy of American Dominion in the world as the only remaining superpower after the end of the "Cold War."
• The stated reason for invading Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had nuclear and biological weapons that were a threat to the United States, and that he had connections with al Qaeda, the radical Islamic group behind the attack in New York. We now know that none of those things were true, and it is a near certainty that our government knew that they weren’t true before the invasion.
• Almost immediately as the war began, our stated Mission changed from national defense to liberation from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a Democracy in Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom.
• Iraq sits atop the one of the largest oilfields on the planet. Our Vice President, a major proponent of this war, is an oil executive who spoke frequently about this oil reserve before being elected. Many of us suspect that the real goal in invading Iraq was to gain access to these oil resources.

What is this new war? It was called The Insurgency at first, advertised as Jihadists – foreigners streaming into Iraq to battle with us, maybe al Qaeda. Then it became clear that there was a reliogious Civil war between the Shia and Sunni sects, with armed militias. They were fighting each other, and neither cared much for us or the Iraqi government. Now, our government is claiming alternatively that the resistance is al Qaeda or supported by Iran. Frankly, whatever we are told by our own government is so colored by their political agenda du jour that it’s not to be believed. So we’re in a dead end fight with unspecified resistance.

The Choice on Iraq

BY JOSEPH LIEBERMAN

Two months into the 110th Congress, Washington has never been more bitterly divided over our mission in Iraq. The Senate and House of Representatives are bracing for parliamentary trench warfare–trapped in an escalating dynamic of division and confrontation that will neither resolve the tough challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation against its terrorist enemies around the world.

What is remarkable about this state of affairs in Washington is just how removed it is from what is actually happening in Iraq. There, the battle of Baghdad is now under way. A new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has taken command, having been confirmed by the Senate, 81-0, just a few weeks ago. And a new strategy is being put into action, with thousands of additional American soldiers streaming into the Iraqi capital.

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq–or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security–meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.

Tamping down this violence is more than a moral imperative. Al Qaeda’s stated strategy in Iraq has been to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war, precisely because they recognize that it is their best chance to radicalize the country’s politics, derail any hope of democracy in the Middle East, and drive the U.S. to despair and retreat. It also takes advantage of what has been the single greatest American weakness in Iraq: the absence of sufficient troops to protect ordinary Iraqis from violence and terrorism.

Rumsfeld’s finally gone. We’re not listening to Bush, or Cheney, or Rice any more. We’ve heard enough of their ridiculous rhetoric already. Now, we hear some very familiar thinking, but this time from a Democrat who failing to win on the Democratic ticket in the Primary, ran as an independent and won with the Republican vote. He says: "There, the battle of Baghdad is now under way. A new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has taken command, having been confirmed by the Senate, 81-0, just a few weeks ago. And a new strategy is being put into action, with thousands of additional American soldiers streaming into the Iraqi capital." Note the familiar "spin." It’s got a new name – The Battle of Baghdad. We’ve got a new General [as if that mattered] and Lieberman points out unanimous support for his confirmation as if that means anything. General Petraeus didn’t come up with this plan. The Iraq Study group didn’t come up with this plan. The Congress didn’t come up with this plan. Bush et al did. Lieberman implies that this is a right thinking military plan, rather than Bush/Cheney obstructionism against our leaving. He implies that the Shia-Sunni Civil War has something to do with al Qaeda. Who says so? Where is the evidence? When Cheney says "al Qaeda’s plan…" where is the evidence that al Qaeda has a plan or has control over what the Iraqi Militias do? Without direct evidence to support those assertions, they might as well say the Martians are behind all of the problems in Iraq.

How did any of Lieberman’s assertions in this article come to be anything he knows about? It’s nothing but the Administration Talking Points now coming out of the mouth of a Zionist former Democrat turned Neoconservative. If any of the things he says in this article are true, it’s an accident. It’s not because it’s something he knows. Who cares what al Qaeda thinks about Iraq. I doubt the Iraqis care very much. We’re not fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Qaeda is in Pakistan planning an assault on Afghanistan.

My conclusion? Tha Administration has a new spokesman – Joseph Lieberman, a new ally in their endless justifications for an American occuppied Iraq. From my point of view, a new person to tell to take a hike…