Lieberman op ed: We Must Help Iraq Overcome Terrorists

[Larkspur]

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-commentlieberman.artdec04,0,1346869.story?coll=hc-headlines-commentary

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam Hussein to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood - unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.

Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish north, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite south remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni Triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.

There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cellphones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.

It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al-Qaida foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.

What Potemking villages did Lieberman visit?

I'm going to go and :puke: now.

[JoZbean]

1. Lieberman needs to join Zell and come out of the (Republican) closet

[Webster Green]

2. Hug the chimp, Joe!

You fucking idiot!

[havocmom]

3. Those would be the terrorists who weren't there at all before we invaded

and made Iraq insecure? Um, Joe: STFU, you neocon tool.

[Theduckno2]

4. Hey Joe! Your 10,000 terrorists don't live in a separate dimension.

They are tolerated, supported and actively aided by many of those 27 million. I believe that a poll showed 80% of Iraqis want the U.S. to withdraw.

I would bet that a large percentage of those 27 million see the fighting in Iraq as a struggle between themselves and about 160,000 occupying foreign troops.

Democrats like Lieberman make me want to vote Green even more!

[silverweb]

5. Pandering to the right wing -- again.

Joe Lieberman has been a hawkish echo chamber and tool for this administration for some time.

The fact remains that this administration's invasion of Iraq, a country which was in no way a threat to us, was illegal and immoral and based on deliberate lies.

The fact remains that this administration has been responsible for the wholesale slaughter of many thousands of innocent civilians and the rampant destruction of Iraqi lives, families, and infrastructure, as well as the American troops whose lives have been wasted, bodies maimed, and families destroyed.

The fact remains that the PNAC/BushCo gang thinks spreading "democracy" means imposing American corporate hegemony around the globe at the point of a gun, even while shredding constitutional rights here at home.

The fact remains that this administration's real reasons for invading Iraq were to "control the spigot" of that country's oil and establish a foothold of military dominance in that part of the world -- and the "collateral damage" of the dead, maimed, and broken be damned.

No good can come of evil actions and no amount of government-produced, pollyanna-ish, planted "news" can change that. Lieberman can help BushCo "catapult the propaganda" all he wants; that doesn't make it true, and it doesn't make an illegal war with all its atrocities less evil, and it doesn't make those we've maimed and murdered "free."

[depakid]

8. Hurting the Democratic Party- and all it's candidates- again

Since the Dems obviously can't shut this guy up- or keep him off all of the "news" channels, the only alternative is to hold him accountable in the electoral process.

One way or another, the Party need to rid itself of its Republican enablers if it ever hopes to be in the majority again.

[yurbud]

6. Apparently, this asshole didn't read any polls of Iraqis

http://whatiraqiswant.blogspot.com/

[yurbud]

7. Only Iraqis Holy Joe talked to were probably serving coffee at Starbucks

in the Green Zone.

[Larkspur]

9. Lieberman took the tour of Potempkin Iraq

That's the land Ahmed Chalabi created, the land where Iraqis throw down flowers and praises at US troops and bow down to Dubya for freeing them from Saddam. </sarcasm>

[Boo Boo]

10. We must help Connecticut overcome Joe Lieberman /nt

[otohara]

11. Great Idea

he needs to go!