He's sure to win now!

Sen. Joseph Lieberman called on Michigan's Independents and Democrats on Tuesday to come out and vote for Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary, saying he is convinced that McCain will "become our next great American president."

"I urge them to come out today and stand for a man who is a great American patriot," Lieberman said at a joint town hall meeting with McCain in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Check out the coverage over at NRO's blog Campaign Spot of an event today in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

McCain's remarks and the event seem aimed at independents -- the appearance of Lieberman, the pledge that "we will never torture again,""we will address global warming and require China and India to be included as well"... "No drilling in ANWR, nor in the Everglades, nor off the coast of Florida..."

Classic. This whole idea that Leiberman actually appeals to Independents (and Democrats!) and would actually be a net plus for McCain in Michigan is of course laughable, yet clearly it's conventional wisdom among those that consider McCain and Leiberman very serious men. This episode also points to the identity crisis McCain is undergoing as he attempts to appeal to different electorates in different states. Is he the establishment Republican neo-con who wears his support for the surge as a badge of honor or is he the straight talking Independent "maverick" people still remember from 2000? At some point, the attempt to pivot between the two as he seeks voters from state to state is going to catch up with him and make Mitt Romney look like the consistent one.

There's more...

Why are we allowing the Neo-Conservative war machine to start another unnecessary war with another Middle Eastern Country? Is the current war in Iraq not killing enough of our brave servicemen/women? Has there not been enough innocent civilians killed? Has the war in Iraq not done enough to villianize us in the Muslim world? Has it not done enough as a recruiting poster for Al-Qaeda? Everyone except for the Neo-Conservative war machine seem to believe that sanctions and direct hard line diplomacy from the U.S. would be more than enough to dissuade the Iranian’s from continuing with their nuclear ambitions. the New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

“Citing senior administration officials and people familiar with the discussions, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, the Times said the debate had pitted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice against hawks in Vice President Dick Cheney's office.”

So at this point it is not only evident that most experts including former N.A.T.O Supreme Allied commander General Wes Clark, former Secretary of State/Chairman of the Join Chiefs Colin Powell and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice all disagree with this administration.

Okay, just because there are lot of people against it doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of people for it. So let’s look at them. Who are they? They are the Neo-Cons. The same people who want the North American Union and Amnesty for illegal aliens. They don’t want this for us but for them. They want to be able to ship hi-tech jobs abroad and import a class of slave labor into the U.S. so they can exploit them and lower the wages earned by Americans. When it comes to the Middle East, they are in it for the oil. Wait, just controlling the oil isn’t enough. They want to drive the price up to about 10 bucks a gallon too. So, they push and they make threats. They say they won’t reward them by talking to them. While the pressure mounts from groups like StopIranWar.com Wespac and VoteVets.org. and due to the support of these groups by some of the best former U.S. Generals like Wes Clark, Paul Eaton and John Batiste. The administration finally talks with Iran, but if anyone believes that these diplomatic meetings were anything other than a token gesture they have already drank the Kool-Aide. This was just so they could say that they tried to talk to them.  That this noble administration tried to offer the olive branch of peace but, the Iranians turned it away.

Last week when Joe Lieberman (former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee turned Bush lapdog) made his now infamous statements. On CBS's Face the Nation, Lieberman said:

 "If [the Iranians] don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."

This week the Connecticut for Lieberman Party Chairman John Orman  resigned and told Lieberman that his advocacy of military strikes against Iran could lead to a global conflict.
"He has crossed the line," said Orman, His unilateral warmongering could lead to a new World War III."

Meanwhile General Wes Clark had this to say on StopIranWar.com.

“Senator Lieberman's saber rattling does nothing to help dissuade Iran from aiding Shia militias in Iraq, or trying to obtain nuclear capabilities. In fact, it's highly irresponsible and counter-productive, and I urge him to stop.

This kind of rhetoric is irresponsible and only plays into the hands of President Ahmadinejad, and those who seek an excuse for military action. What we need now is full-fledged engagement with Iran. We should be striving to bridge the gulf of almost 30 years of hostility and only when all else fails should there be any consideration of other options. The Iranians are very much aware of US military capabilities. They don't need Joe Lieberman to remind them that we are the militarily dominant power in the world today.

Only someone who never wore the uniform or thought seriously about national security would make threats at this point. What our soldiers need is responsible strategy, not a further escalation of tensions in the region. Senator Lieberman must act more responsibly and tone down his threat machine.

We cannot let people like Joe Lieberman dictate the terms of this debate.”

On June 9, US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns accused Iran of supplying weapons to the Taliban. Not even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would try to confirm the accusation. It is well known that Iran has consistently backed a variety of groups, including the Northern Alliance, against the Sunni led Taliban. They have been blood enemy’s since the Taliban killed 9 Iranian dissidents in 1998.  While I am not saying that it isn’t a possibility with their current relations with the U.S., to report this without the evidence to back it up is un conscionable and can most likely be chalked up to the Neo-Cons effort to further public fears and anger  when it comes to Iran.

And now the Neo-Cons are trying to blame the unrest between Hamas and the Palestinian government on Iran. It appears that everything that happens in the middle east is due to Iran. While I am not saying that Iran isn’t trying to promote unrest in the region. I find it very hard to believe that Iran has the power and influence to be able to do all of things that they are accused of. I find it much easier to believe that the Neo-Con war propaganda machine has been throttled wide open in an attempt to frighten and intimidate the American people in the same way they did leading up to the war in Iraq.

Now I am by no means saying that we should take the military option off the table. What I am saying is that the longer this administration refuses to engage Iran in real diplomacy the closer we come to having no choice. With each month that passes we have less and less of a chance to end this without hostilities.

My question to you is, after the failure in Iraq and Afghanistan do you really want this administration to lead military strikes? Thus far they have been completely ineffective. What makes anyone think they would do any better this time?

Well you might say “what can I do?” First click on this link StopIranWar.com sign the petition to the President. Click on the U.S. Capital icon and send the prepared letter to your congressmen. Then click on the third Icon to write a letter to your local newspaper. Then you must send an Email to all of your friends and relatives asking that they go to StopIranWar.com and do the same thing.

This administration is counting on the gullibility and ignorance of the American people. Please don’t allow them to sell the same bill of goods twice. Get word to everyone you know, that Americans must take action. Let your elected officials that if the don’t take up the fight that we are going to go shopping for new candidates.

 

In an interview with Democracy Now on March 2, 2007, General Clark told of a meeting at the Pentagon :

"About ten days after9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer,
every problem has to look like a nail."

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five
years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."

Is this administration still on plan to take out 6 more countries, and is Iran next?  All signs point to yes.

After several months of cries from former commanders with impeccable military records--Generals like  Paul Eaton, John Batiste, Wes Clark and even current top man in Iraq, Gen. David  Petraeus-- pleading for this President to seek a diplomatic solution  not only for Iran, but also in Iraq, Bush finally decided to hold what can only be described as token meetings with Iran.

Did this really fool anyone? Now they can say, "We TRIED to talk to Iran." Forget that for months this administration has been using the same saber-rattling techniques and making the same comments as they did leading up to the war in Iraq--with Vice President Dick Cheney making comments like this in his West Point commencement address:

"As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate
sensibilities seem to fall away. These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Their cruelty is not rebuked by human suffering, only fed by it. They have given themselves to an ideology that rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. The terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds, and they hate nothing more than the country you have volunteered to defend.

"The terrorists know what they want and they will stop at nothing to get it. By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to their ideology. Their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian empire, a caliphate, with Baghdad as its capital."

Let me speak to the last statement first. ("Their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian empire, a caliphate, with Baghdad as its capital.") The debate is still open as to the extent of Al-Qaeda's  "stronghold" in Iraq. And if there is a stronghold in Iraq, this administration created it.Saddam was an enemy of Bin-laden and effectively kept them out of Iraq. The only evidence to a connection to Iraq prior to the war was manufactured by the Vice President's office.

His comments suggesting that maybe we shouldn't follow the International laws set forth by the Geneva Convention  and the U.S. Constitution is horrible to think of. If we can not follow international laws or the laws that we set for ourselves, how can we be the great moral compass that this Nation has always been. How can we enforce our own vision of right and wrong when we cannot follow our own rules of warfare. To say that these people are not lawful combatants is no different than 150 years ago when our leaders said that Native Americans were not really people. We all but exterminated the Native Americans-- is that what Bush and Cheney want to do in the Middle East?  The comparison is not a stretch. If you want to exist you have to believe what we believe and do what we tell you. If not you are evil and we are granted by Gods hand the right to exterminate you. This is what they would have you believe.

Yesterday, while appearing on FACE THE NATION , Sen. Joe Lieberman, former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate now turned Bush lap dog, made the following statement:

"If there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them. I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq 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 whichthey are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

To begin with our military is perfectly capable of cutting off  any interference from within the borders of Iran. Second, any violation of Iranian borders by the U.S. Military would be the excuse needed for the Iranians to actively participate in the war in Iraq. This would probably bring more nations into the conflict and plunge the entire Middle East into a devastating regional war.

Rumors say that Bush was already set to invade Iran on April 6, 2007, but canceled the operation due to Iran's capture of British servicemen. Also, it was reported by Arnaud de Borchgrave in the Washington Times that Bush told a recent visitor that he would "fix" things to insure that his successor will be "locked in" to his vision for the future of the Middle East.

Mr. Bush we do not need another senseless war. We do not need the deaths of thousands of U.S. servicemen and tens of thousands of Middle Easterners. If you had listened to the prophetic words of Gen. Clark when he testified before congress in 2002, we would not be in the mess that we are now. So please, listen to him now and do not start another war. Exercise some real diplomacy and settle our differences with Iran. Let us begin to restore the
nation's dignity and honor for all Americans.

There's more...

An open letter to Joe Lieberman:

Be a MENSCH! Your stinging defeat in the primaries was, unmistakenly, a strong message from your constituents that your time had passed. You should have graciously bowed-out, knowing that your political star had faded. Mr. Leiberman, incumbents don't lose primaries, particularly to novices like Ned Lamont, without very good reason. You no longer fit the bill. You must know that your long-standing tenure in the Senate had given you every opportunity to grow within your party. For whatever reasons, you never quite became the strong leader your party expected of you. It would have been far nobler of you, Mr. Leiberman, to lend your support to Ned Lamont or then simply to leave politics. As far as the people of Connecticut are concerned, they want and deserve the right to have a new, fresh, face to represent them in the Senate.

Mr. Leiberman neither you nor any other elected official is guaranteed a job for life. Please take your handsome pension and go for the sake of the Democratic party and the nation.

There's more...