What it takes to get the appelation “warmonger” these days
This headline in the Alaska Report caught my eye as one of the featured stories on Google News: “Warmonger Joe Lieberman says bomb Iran now.”
And what was it that Lieberman actually said? Take a look:
I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. “And to me, that would include a strike into… over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.”
Note Lieberman’s use of the word “prepared.” Lieberman made it clear he was advocating neither an immediate nor a general attack on Iran, but rather a limited strike on specific training camps in Iran if and when it was determined they were being used to prepare fighters to be sent across the border to Iraq to kill US soldiers—an act of war on Iran’s part, I might add. He wasn’t even saying it absolutely should be done, but just that it can’t be taken off the table, and that negotiations with Iran (which he supports) would lack effectiveness if Iran thought it impossible that such a strike would ever be undertaken by the US.
Well, I guess that makes him a warmonger. Of course, if the same had been done in Afghanistan prior to 2001 (and I seem to recall a certain fellow called Bill Clinton trying just that, although in a very limited fashion), perhaps 9/11 and all its gory aftermath would have been prevented.
Many Democrats who now excoriate Lieberman perhaps supported Clinton’s airstrikes way back when. Or perhaps not; some people are consistent in wanting us to shoot ourselves in the foot (or even the heart) for the prospects of an illusory “peace” with the true warmongers: al Qaeda and Iran.
As Clinton said at the time of his strikes: There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. We will defend our people, our interests and our values.
Just to let you know that I am not now now ever was an apologist for Republican excesses, it still irks me that right after those strikes by Clinton, Republicans accused him of the deepest hypocrisy in ordering them, and claimed a “wag the dog” scenario was behind them.
As far as the strikes themselves go, they were an abysmal failure, unfortunately. Very unfortunately. There is still some controversy over whether the Sudanese target was a valid one, or just an aspirin factory; it’s not certain, but the preponderance of evidence seems to indicate the latter (see this article in Slate, for example). On the other hand, it appears that Clinton’s Afghanistan strike missed Bin Laden by mere hours.
The two incidents point up the problems with intelligence, a problem Clinton’s successor Bush experienced during the Iraq war and its aftermath, and that is this: intelligence is always at least partly flawed—-sometimes greatly (if indeed the plant was an aspirin rather than chemical weapons factory) and sometimes slightly (if indeed Bin Laden escaped by only hours).
To some, this means we should never act on intelligence at all. To others (such as myself), it means we should make it our business to improve intelligence both in quantity and quality, because we can’t allow ourselves to be totally paralyzed into inaction by the sure knowledge that some of our decisions will always be flawed.
The messy real world is always like that: flawed. And in that messy world, Joe Lieberman is still correct: negotiations with Iran are a joke if there are no perceived teeth behind them. The paradox is that such talk makes him not a warmonger, but an advocate for a policy that has the only real chance of deterring Iran and ultimately leading to a more lasting peace.
Hi –
The problem is that for many, a aggressive radical pacifism – not a contradiction in terms at all – is the ideal, where no threats may be made whatsoever and any sort of military conflict is viewed as an abject failure of politics, preferably ours.
But what it means is that anyone, literally anyone, who dares to contradict this radical, utopian pacifism – in a perfect world no one goes to war – is automagically transformed into a bloodthirsty maniac warmonger, lusting for the destruction of peaceful activists whose goal, of course, is only to stop the killing.
It makes me sick to think of the thousands that have been sacrificed to their altar of pacifism: their goal is not conflict resolution in the original sense, but rather conflict avoidance. The only problem is when they run into the international equivalence of a bully: someone who will push and push and push just to see how far they can push someone.
But by giving in, by backing off, by refusing to be baited, the radical pacifists actually generate the scenario where the aggressor is encouraged by their actions, and they profess outrage and amazement when someone finally stands up to the bully, bloodies noses and stops aggression in its tracks.
The goal cannot be conflict avoidance: the goal must be conflict resolution. The problem for the radical pacifists is that conflict resolution is best rendered by killing everyone who stands in the way of ending the conflict on our terms.
And the mere idea that violence never settled anything shows a tremendous ignorance of history. Tell it to the city fathers of Carthage and the millions of dead civilians in the world wars: wars are best fought viciously and with the sole desire to destroy the enemy’s will to resist ruthlessly. If the enemy doesn’t understand it, then destroy the enemy.
It’s all actually rather straight-forward: war is sometimes the solution. But no radical pacifist will eve, ever agree to that idea, and the soldiers who keep the peace and prevent the aggressors of this world from disrupting their peace activism weekends down at the Marriot are warmongers in their eyes.
In reality it is the radical pacifists who, by meddling and crying wolf, create the conditions for aggressors to make their mistakes and fall on their faces by misjudging western societies at the end of the day.
At least up to now.
Much simpler. Be Jewish.
I wouldn’t read too much into a headline.
Here’s how the Jerusalem Post headlined the same story:
Senator Joe Lieberman calls on US to attack Iran
US Senator Joe Lieberman has called on the White House for an immediate attack on Iran, Army Radio reported Sunday.
Wait a second..
Hasn’t it been the lefties who have been saying we took out the wrong guys all along? Over the last four years, haven’t the lefties been saying “Why not Iran? Why not North Korea? They ‘have’ nukes. They ‘are’ sponsoring terrorists.”
That is, up until the moment we began to gather evidence they are enabling those who are fighting us in Iraq.
Now we’re back to the same old crap. “How do you ‘know’ they’re Iranian? Are we sure they’re as ‘advanced’ as we think? Shouldn’t we let ‘sanctions and inspections’ work this out? Are these ‘intelligence estimates’ accurate? Why don’t we ‘talk’ to them?” I really wish lefties could make up their minds.
And a lesson for both sides:
When an administration cites evidence for why certain military actions took place, it’s usually true. Unfortunately, both sides have an instant knee-jerk reaction to ‘politicize’ it. Take that ‘aspirin factory’ for instance. Make no mistake, it was a chemical weapons plant. Cohen and Clark had the evidence, including ties to Iraq.
Lemmie just say that one more time: “…, including ties to Iraq.”.
Not ‘wag the dog’, not Monica, a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
The lefties now cite the above as an example of Bush’s ‘cherry-picked’ intelligence, and say confidently “that was just an ‘aspirin factory’, you said so. There is ‘no evidence’ of a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.”
Don’t let politics get in the way of truth.
Lieberman was straight forward and tempered in his remarks on face the Nation and later, elsewhere. His words have a political and military logic. There is a third logical argument, but later. It is intolerable to allow the nutsy Iranian rulers to train jihadist in lethality in al political sense. It is most Chamberlain-like; ignore the problem and Hitler will go away. It makes no military sense to expose one’s soldiers to attack, especially if the source of the attack is know, in this case Iranian bases and camps near Iraq. They should be neutralized and this would take berhaps an afternoon.
The third reason is a parent’s reason. Our children in the military are being exposed to lethal attack by miserable terrorists. The leadership of our military, including the civilian leadership, is obligated to do everything possible to protect our soldiers. If that means interdicting the trainers, the trainees, and the weapons, then stopping them at the source is appealing to all parents (and makes political sense and military sense). Lieberman, again is correct.
Joe Lieberman is the last decent Democrat. He’s the only one left in the party that Roosevelt or JF Kennedy would recognize as a Democrat. Sadly, the party has “moved on” and abandoned sincere patriots like Lieberman. Now they embrace terrorists and murderers, and pander to the deranged “base” who hate America and all it represents.
The party of Kennedy is now the party of Oswald. Lee won.
So if Edwards thinks the war on terror is just a bumper sticker slogan, he must be willing to say that Clinton bombing in Afghanstan was in fact, wag the dog. It appears we’ve been fighting this war on terror before Bush was even in office.
The difficulty in a practical sense is that Mr. Bush has very little capital left in his Presidential bank. This lack of political significance may leave us in a reactionary mode with little prospect of controlling events. The development of Iranian nuclear ambitions and the strengthening of Syrian forces along the Golan may well leave Israel isolated and with no choice other than a significant preemptive strike against both Syria and Iran. In the meanwhile, without a will by Mr. Bush, and the new confusion over leadership in the Joint Chiefs, more Americans will be killed by Iranian led and equipped bad guys.
One good thing could come of this Liberal smear of Liberman and that would be for him start to caucus with the Republicans. He could justify it on the urgent need for the security of the country that the Democrats have politicized. That would ruin their day …… steve
Can’t ask for a better nuclear demonstration bombardment, Neo.
I’ve been saying for awhile that we should do “surgical” strikes on places in Iran that we know have been providing ordnance to the terrorists in Iraq.
As for Mr. Lieberman, he’s still basically a liberal on most other issues…
orwell.ruMr. Opie, I encourage you to read (or reread) Orwell’s comments on pacifism in the face of totalitarianism. They are quite prescient today:
http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/pacifism/english/e_patw
“Pacifism. Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.
Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U.
They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective *against* those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.”
Giuliani-Lieberman 2008
Hi –
WEVS1, I know those Orwell passages almost by heart. Didn’t want to overburden what I wrote.
And Guiliani-Lieberman would be interesting. Especially if Gore gets a Nobel (for absolutely f**k-all, in my opinion) and there’s a Gore-Obama ticket.
Anything but Edwards at this point…
Oh, and for me this is nothing new:
http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com/2006/04/small-comparison.html
Anyone who can equate opposition to the war in Iraq with “radical pacifism” must be very well acquainted with Orwell indeed.
Back to “Alaska Reports” for more talking points.
The teeth are there, if we have the will to use them. (And since someone had to order the “teeth” into position, I suspect the will is there.)
Good on Sen. Lieberman for saying what needs to be said. Iran already assumes that they can kidnap our citizens and kill our soldiers with impunity, because they’ve already done both. That’s what they feel free to do without nuclear weapons. Do we really want to see what happens when Iran has the nukes?
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Hey, “Unknown Blogger” –
Nowhere in my post did I even mention opposition to the war in Iraq. Nowhere. Nor did Neoneocon in her original post: why bring that up at all?
Nice try with your straw man: doesn’t work.
John
Why bring it up?
Because the Iraq war is the standard the bomb Iran crowd is being judged by, John.
Hi –
No, Alphie, that won’t work at all: you’re avoiding the actual problem: radical pacifism – that no war is ever justified, no way no how (but especially so if the US or the West is involved) – does nothing but encourage those in charge of countries like Iran, as they believe that the useful fools will prevent the US and the West from actually doing anything.
The issue here is what gets you painted as a warmonger, and in this case daring to say that in order to stop Iran from building the bomb it might be necessary to actually do something about it gets Lieberman painted as a warmonger.
huffingtonpost.com***
John, sorry, but your *radical pacifists* are the only straw men here.
Where exactly are these hordes of radicals who maintain that *no war is ever justified, no way no how,* especially those who have any influence at all in shaping the debate or formulating US foreign policy?
Certainly you don’t count General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, and a critic of Liberman’s comments, among them?
Unknown –
Yes I do. Huffington Post? GMAFB: why not just pull something out of Koz while you’re at it.
I do count Clark among them: he’s changed his spots. He grew up believing in the Soviet menace and served his country, but the threat has changed. He just doesn’t believe in it.
And at the very least Edwards is one: he believes that we’re fighting a bumper-sticker war. Or can you get any of the current democratic candidates to come out on when a war must be fought?
The post from NeoNeoCon is that merely asking the question of when it would be justified to go to war to prevent a greater evil – Iran – is enough to get you branded as a warmonger. That’s where radical pacifism comes into play: they don’t even want people to talk about the problem, as it threatens their naive world view so desperately that they want to ensure that the question doesn’t even get raised.
Stick to the point.
No, Neo’s post was about the fact that Sen. Lieberman made public comments that we should be prepared to launch attacks on Iran, and something called the Alaska Report called him a “warmonger” because of it.
Given that “warmonger” means “a person who advocates war or warlike policies” one would think you all would embrace the word, rather than shun it.
If Wesley Clark qualifies as one of your radical pacifists, then presumably anyone who disagrees with your view on when war is justified could also qualify. If that is the case, then happily we will have nothing more to discuss.
There are very few actual pacifists around these days.
Mostly, they want us to be pacifists. The other side….well, they’ll get around to it. In the meantime, the other side is justified in not being pacifists because we’re so rotten.
That is not the strict pacifist position, but it is the most common position which is currently calling itself pacifist.
Neo, I’m glad you brought up the “wag the dog” nonsense, because it exemplifies the total politicization of the war we are in. I thought those comments were obnoxious then, but now that I see clearly what we are (and were) fighting, I find that Republican tactic to be absolutely despicable.
Clinton’s surgical strikes may not have been as effective as we would have liked, but at least he was actually trying to fight back against an enemy which had destroyed two of our embassies, killing hundreds of people. It’s disgusting that at that time Republicans were more worried about Clinton’s sexual indiscretions than about terrorist strikes against us.
In any case, they are reaping what they have sown, because now we have Democrats ridiculing the president, rather than supporting him in this war, pretending the war is about his personal ambitions rather than about stopping a brutal enemy.
I think there are a few real pacifists, but way too many in the anti-war crowd are really just anti-bush. Maybe some of them are even just bitter because of the nasty treatment they got during the Clinton era.
It all makes me sick. We have a real problem, a real enemy, and too little political will to fight it (instead of just fighting each other.)
iranian.comHigh on hate?
Bush administration finds itself in a position where it needs to prepare the world opinion for mass genocide with a compelling reason
The authors are known Islamic republic apologists:
http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2007/June/Hate/index.html