Lieberman: now a neo-conservative in full
Bob Williams
June 15, 2007
I suppose that any columnist is pleased to find an earlier prediction confirmed by later developments, and I confess to feeling the same way. In a column entitled “The making of a neoconservative” which appeared in August of last year I suggested that the formerly liberal Connecticut senator, Joe Lieberman, was becoming a particular kind of conservative, a neocon. I regret to find that Lieberman has confirmed this prediction.
On the CBS program, Face the Nation, Lieberman said, "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 which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers." He went on to say, "I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air . . . ." He may even believe this.
Lieberman, the newly minted war-hawk neoconservative, has gone further than the hawkish Bush administration. No official in the administration has suggested cross-border attacks although they have pledged to break up any weapon-smuggling network on the Iraq side of the border. Secretary of State Condi Rice has had some success in getting the Bush administration to consider diplomacy in dealing with other nations, not just the threat of attack. Lieberman would reverse this trend, at least for the Middle East.
Lieberman’s desire to open a bombing campaign against another nation, at this stage of the Iraq War smells too much of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy in the Vietnam War. After taking office in 1969 Nixon was under pressure to bring our troops home, as Bush is now under such pressure. Nixon preferred bellicosity. In March, only weeks after his inauguration, Nixon ordered bombing attacks on Cambodia. The reason given: men and supplies were moving through Cambodia to fight us in South Vietnam. Does this sound like Lieberman’s argument about Iran? Of course it does.
Nixon was not the first to order B-52 bombing. In February of 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson had ordered covert B-52 bombing of Laos and Cambodia. This was only covert from Americans; the people of Laos and Cambodia knew. Under Johnson almost half a million tons of bombs fell on Cambodia. With Nixon’s order Cambodia was bombed like no other country. Data gathered and released in the Clinton administration revealed that a total of just under 5 million tons of explosives rained down on Cambodia. In 1971 Nixon stepped up the B-52 bombing of Laos. Cambodia and Laos became the most bombed countries in history, far ahead of any country in World War II. The enraged population of northern and eastern Cambodia was driven into the arms of the Khmer Rouge which then swept through all of the country and began their notorious genocide.
The interdiction of supplies bound for the Viet Cong was minimal, and may have increased. This is one of the lessons of Vietnam we were supposed to have learned: air power is relatively ineffective as a way of interdicting the movement of insurgents or supplies in guerilla warfare.
The Connecticut neocon Senator Lieberman apparently hadn’t heard of this when he said, "I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air. . ." He went on to say that if the U.S. does not act against Iran, "they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home." With this Lieberman drops into the trite “fight them there or fight them here” refrain of Cheney and Bush.
There is, of course, a major difference between the years-long secret bombing campaign in Cambodia and Lieberman’s suggestion of bombing Iran. Cambodia was powerless, Iran is not. If we bombed Iran they would have their own ‘surge’ into Iraq. Saudi Arabia will not stand by while Iran occupies Iraq and would come to the aid of the Sunnis. And we would be in the middle, not of a civil war but a major regional conflict which we could not contain, which would shut down oil supplies for the world, and would result in economic chaos. What is Lieberman thinking?
As everyone hastens to say, Iraq is not Vietnam. True. But the playbook followed by the war hawks, now including Lieberman, seems identical to that followed in Vietnam. To quote a song from that era "oh, when will they ever learn?"
On the CBS program, Face the Nation, Lieberman said, "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 which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers." He went on to say, "I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air . . . ." He may even believe this.
Lieberman, the newly minted war-hawk neoconservative, has gone further than the hawkish Bush administration. No official in the administration has suggested cross-border attacks although they have pledged to break up any weapon-smuggling network on the Iraq side of the border. Secretary of State Condi Rice has had some success in getting the Bush administration to consider diplomacy in dealing with other nations, not just the threat of attack. Lieberman would reverse this trend, at least for the Middle East.
Lieberman’s desire to open a bombing campaign against another nation, at this stage of the Iraq War smells too much of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy in the Vietnam War. After taking office in 1969 Nixon was under pressure to bring our troops home, as Bush is now under such pressure. Nixon preferred bellicosity. In March, only weeks after his inauguration, Nixon ordered bombing attacks on Cambodia. The reason given: men and supplies were moving through Cambodia to fight us in South Vietnam. Does this sound like Lieberman’s argument about Iran? Of course it does.
Nixon was not the first to order B-52 bombing. In February of 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson had ordered covert B-52 bombing of Laos and Cambodia. This was only covert from Americans; the people of Laos and Cambodia knew. Under Johnson almost half a million tons of bombs fell on Cambodia. With Nixon’s order Cambodia was bombed like no other country. Data gathered and released in the Clinton administration revealed that a total of just under 5 million tons of explosives rained down on Cambodia. In 1971 Nixon stepped up the B-52 bombing of Laos. Cambodia and Laos became the most bombed countries in history, far ahead of any country in World War II. The enraged population of northern and eastern Cambodia was driven into the arms of the Khmer Rouge which then swept through all of the country and began their notorious genocide.
The interdiction of supplies bound for the Viet Cong was minimal, and may have increased. This is one of the lessons of Vietnam we were supposed to have learned: air power is relatively ineffective as a way of interdicting the movement of insurgents or supplies in guerilla warfare.
The Connecticut neocon Senator Lieberman apparently hadn’t heard of this when he said, "I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air. . ." He went on to say that if the U.S. does not act against Iran, "they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home." With this Lieberman drops into the trite “fight them there or fight them here” refrain of Cheney and Bush.
There is, of course, a major difference between the years-long secret bombing campaign in Cambodia and Lieberman’s suggestion of bombing Iran. Cambodia was powerless, Iran is not. If we bombed Iran they would have their own ‘surge’ into Iraq. Saudi Arabia will not stand by while Iran occupies Iraq and would come to the aid of the Sunnis. And we would be in the middle, not of a civil war but a major regional conflict which we could not contain, which would shut down oil supplies for the world, and would result in economic chaos. What is Lieberman thinking?
As everyone hastens to say, Iraq is not Vietnam. True. But the playbook followed by the war hawks, now including Lieberman, seems identical to that followed in Vietnam. To quote a song from that era "oh, when will they ever learn?"
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