Defend commander Lieberman

Commander Lieberman

Bill Clinton retreats to fantasyland

SPEAKER: As you know, the area where Democrats have, for the last, say, two decades been bedeviled – and telling the story involves the whole realm of national security, international security. Of the three elements of President Bush's 'Axis of Evil' – Iraq, Iran, and North Korea – on any two of them, what would be the line the Democrats should tell, or even three?

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Well, let's go through them. On Iraq, first of all I think that we oughta be whipped, we Democrats, if we allow our differences over what to do now in Iraq to divide us instead of focusing on replacing Republicans in the Congress; that's the nuttiest strategy I ever heard in my life. I mean look, there are a few Democrats, and Senator Lieberman – my friend – is one, who genuinely believed what the President believed, and Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld believed, and apparently what Senator McCain believes, and a number of other people, which was "we should just get rid of Saddam whether he's got any weapons or not, and it doesn't matter if we let the U.N. inspectors finish." That was also the position of every Israeli politician I knew, by the way. There were a lot of people who believed that; most Democrats didn't.
Why does Bill Clinton think Iraq isn't the central issue of the day? It's mostly cowardice on calling for a timed withdrawal from Iraq before we're forced from Iraq by the Shia with no warning. The Democratic party has been boxed in by GOP propaganda on defense, despite their ongoing failures to make America safer. They have tried every extreme measure possible and have failed at it.

Bush's weak, confused leadership has to foriegn policy disaster after disaster. Yet Clinton and his wife not only refuse to take a stand against it, they try to negotiate with people who still seek to destroy them.

But the question is, once you break the eggs, you have some responsibility to make an omelet, or as General Powell used to say: "If you take it you own it." What? If you break it you own it, so we gotta make an omelet. So, the issue is, what should we do? I like what the Levin/Biden/Reid crowd that Hillary was involved in; I like that resolution. They said, "We don't think it's right to have a fixed timetable for withdrawal." Why send a signal to the people that are trying to keep Iraq divided and tear it up when we're gonna go?

Because what we do in Iraq is irrelevant. You haven't sent your daughter to Iraq, she makes six figures a year for McKinsey, destroyer of companies. She's not a State Department official or MP officer. If you don't think your child should help save Iraq, why should other people send their kids. For the most part, they aren't. New recruits are the hopeful, the unaware and the dregs of society. Not the kind of college bound, high school educated, drug and crime free people who enlisted in the 1990's. Iraq is about words, not sacrifice.

Would you make any political deals if you knew you could just hang around and maybe get what you want? On the other hand, I think staying forever in what is now a political as well as a military situation is an error. So, I think we oughta say what the Levin thing is, but I don't think we ought to demonize the people that say we should set a fixed date for withdrawal.

You can't have it both ways. As long as we stay in Iraq, they will not solve their problems. How long do we stay? Not more than a year with the Army we have. We're reaching the collapse or draft line and a draft would ignite an anti-Bush reaction which might force him from office. So far, the resistance to the war has been low-key, personal, recruiter to recruit. Talk about a draft and see how fast that changes.

And in a case of a guy like Lieberman, you know, you think of all the other issues – he got endorsed in Connecticut by labor, by the environmental groups, by the gay groups, by all these other groups – we've got a world of differences between ourselves and the Republicans. So, I think the Democrats are making a mistake to go after each other instead of…for a situation none of them created; it's bewildering to me – we ought to be talking about our differences. But what I favor on Iraq, basically I think it'd be nice if we could draw down, it'd be nice if we had some more special forces to send there, it'd be nice if we could, you know, we can make this work. But, the main thing is they've got a new government; we've got to give them a chance to resolve the political situation, and I think my own view is it'd be an error to say we're going to leave by X date.

Clinton, who doesn't seem to realize Lieberman fragged him and came close to calling for his resignation, wants to protect someone who has failed. He is a patsy for the GOP and the voters of Connecticut are tired of it. They are tired of moderate Republicans and Democrats who vote like them. Special forces? They aren't supermen. People are dying, nice isn't the word I would use to describe the corrupt and inept Iraqi Army. The new government is Kerensky to the Shia's future Lenin and Trotskys. It will fail, it may not last the month if Israel attacks Iran. We can either announce a date or replay Chosin in the sand. We do have that choice left.