"...Even Worse..."

Jonathan Chait has a column in this morning's L.A. Times slamming the utter vacuousness of the arguments made by those, like Lieberman, who appear to favor endless war. It's entitled "At This Point, It's Kamikaze Strategy In Iraq." Of course, no such editorial could be complete without discussing the man who has become the very symbol of endless war:

What do the administration's supporters say to this? Let's look at a brief survey. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the most vocal supporters of Bush's strategy, has made two major statements on the war in 2007. In the first, a letter in January, he wrote that "withdrawing from the fight is not a sound, long-term policy for the national security of the United States. Withdrawing from the fight is a recipe for defeat." How did Lieberman envision us winning? What about the reports that our actions are simply fueling the civil war? His letter had nothing to say.

Since then, Lieberman delivered a speech on the war, and that was even worse. The entire point of it was that a Senate vote of no confidence in Bush would demoralize our allies and embolden the enemy. Nothing at all about how the Bush strategy could work.

Chait's kamikaze metaphor is perfectly apt. Like the crazed militarists in Japan at the end of WW II, they can neither promise nor deliver victory, but continue to send people to their deaths simply because they cannot accept defeat. It was a strategy conceived by war criminals then, and it is a strategy conceived by war criminals today.

On the bright side, although Lieberman may be delighted at having been adopted by bush and the 30% of Americans who can't get enought war in Iraq, he has become the face of a corrupt and failed Iraq war for the remaining 70% of America. Our own Joe Lieberman, with his witless Islamophobia and disgraceful slandering of dissent, is every day helping more and more Americans to realize not only that there is no victory in Iraq, but that there is no honor in continued support for the war.