[Peace-discuss] By Lieberman's Logic, the US May Have to Bomb Itself

[Robert Naiman]

links at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/by-liebermans-logic-the_b_51971.html

By Lieberman's Logic, the US May Have to Bomb Itself
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org>, June
13, 2007 <http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/by-liebermans-logic-the_b_51971.html&title=Robert%20Naiman:%20By%20Lieberman%27s%20Logic%2C%20the%20US%20May%20Have%20to%20Bomb%20Itself>

Mount Lieberman erupted again on Sunday, perhaps doing the bidding of the
"war, not negotiation" faction of the Administration grouped around Vice
President Cheney's office. "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 said in an interview on the CBS News program
"Face the Nation," the *New York Times*
reported<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/washington/10cnd-policy.html>
.

The immediate goal of the Cheney/Lieberman faction is not to launch war in
Iran. That's their ultimate goal, but they know that they don't have the
strength right now to bring about this goal immediately. Their immediate
strategy is to undermine the negotiations with Iran and box the U.S.
government into a corner where - from their point of view - war will be
inevitable. They are also trying to threaten that if the U.S. doesn't attack
Iran, Israel will do it, as if Israel could or would undertake such an
attack without approval from the United States.

Lieberman claimed there was "incontrovertible" evidence that Iranians were
training Iraqis to use explosives, but, as is usual for these claims, he
didn't provide any. The *Times* article noted that "American officials
concede that they are unable to prove that senior Iranian officials are
behind the smuggling."

But suppose that Lieberman's claim were true. Would that justify - legally,
morally, politically - U.S. airstrikes on Iran? Only on Planet
Cheney/Lieberman. Would it be in the interest of the majority of Americans
to launch airstrikes on Iran? Absolutely not.

To absorb the full force of how criminally insane Lieberman's statement was,
suppose we adopted the following proposition:

"The United States should launch airstrikes against any country which is
supplying weapons or other support to insurgents in Iraq."

Who would we have to bomb?

Of course we would have to bomb Syria. There's no question that Syria could
be doing more to stop the flow of weapons and fighters across the
Syrian-Iraqi border. They could, for example, construct a 20-foot high
electrified fence along the entire border, with a shark-infested moat. Since
they aren't doing this, we'd have to bomb them. But we would also have to
bomb Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who could also be doing more to stop the flow
of fighters and money from their territory to Sunni insurgents.

But, to be fully consistent, we couldn't stop there. We would also have to
bomb the United States.

As the *Times* reported<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html>the
same day:

"American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge
is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight
militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past."

Those weapons could have other uses, the *Times* reported:

"But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could
amount to the Americans' arming both sides in a future civil war. The United
States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq's army and police
force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop
drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a
political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the
critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will
eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the
weapons could be used against the Americans themselves."

So: if we arm Sunni insurgents, as we are apparently doing, and those
weapons are used to attack American troops, as they apparently might be,
would we have to bomb ourselves in retaliation?

Of course, there is a way to make sense of this. You have to cast aside the
silly notion that this is about logic or evidence or morality or
international law. You have to see this as a question of raw power. We're
the most powerful country in the world, and what we say goes, and that's all
there is to it, and if anyone challenges us, we have to smash them.

There's no question that this way of thinking still has wide appeal in the
United States, inside Washington and out. You can find it on Mount Lieberman
or right-wing talk radio any time you want.
But here's the problem, even casting morality, logic, evidence, and
international law aside: that's the kind of thinking that led to the illegal
U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place. That's the kind of thinking that
got more than 3500 U.S. soldiers killed and more than 25,000 wounded. Our
way or the highway. It's not just wrong. It's not in the interest of the
majority of Americans. One thing is certain: that way of thinking will not
get us out of Iraq.
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