AlexEvans

Here's a Washington Post article on the subject.

Summary: Lamont won the Democratic primary, Lieberman will be running as an independent.

I find this very distressing. The Democratic Party had already left me behind. Lieberman is the best example of a liberal (he's in the middle of the Democratic caucus on all other issues) who supports a strong national security stance, and who disagrees with Republicans without nastiness. The Democratic Party just turfed it's VP nominee of a few years ago, to turn to a political neophyte whose most notable support comes from the far-left, "Screw em" Daily Kos.

I hope and believe Lieberman can still win the general election, but America needs two parties with responsible stands on national security. It's unclear if the Democratic Party fills one of those spots at present.

On the other hand, McKinney got defeated again. So there's hope, too.

TokyoNiGHTS

General Wesley Clark did a good job of summing up the old "helping national security" slant some have been trying to talk about

Urge Joe Lieberman to help Democrats | WesPAC

Being distracted from what was our real objective isn't good for national security.

AlexEvans

What alternative do Clark, Lamont, or whoever urge? This war was never solely about Bin Laden. In any case, what would flooding Afghanistan with soldiers have done? Bin Laden was likely already escaped through Pakistan, and every soldier there would be at risk, whether they contributed to any meaningful mission goal or not.

The war is about terrorism, and Iraq was a major state sponsor of terrorism.

Whether you think we should be in Iraq or not, it cannot reasonably be considered a "distraction."

TokyoNiGHTS

That in general in the Democrats problem. They need to come up with a final stance on what they think should happen. As of now there seems to be 3 opinions. 1.) They agree with the war but not the way we've gone about it, 2.) they agree with the war and the ways its gone, and 3.) they disagree with the war and think we should start removing troops ASAP. They're going to have to pick one and push that agenda, and as of now it looks like its going to be the 3rd one.

What it'd done is put a military focus on that. We needed to have 1 goal at a time, get that done and go to the next. If we were actually focused on something as of that we wouldn't have the huge mess we have now. We've tried to spread our powers so far and so thin that there's no longer a vision of what we're doing over in the middle east.

It certainly can be. For the reasons i've already mentioned, its made our military less focused and as such the goals (of which lack alot of focus themself) are all over the place. It should've been a step by step process instead of trying to rush in and think we're going to clean house. Instead now we're in this mess where there's no end at all in sight. Most people who're now against the war in Iraq still agree that we should've went ot Afghanistan and still agree that going there was the right decision. It's not an "anti war" group of people who're against it, its a group of people who disagree with the reasons we're there and the reasons (that have since been prove false) we were given as to why we had to go when we did.

elisheva

I have some issues with Lieberman, but I certainly think he's better than Lamont. He'll probably do better in theactual campaign..depending, I guess, on the Republican candidate.

ceilirose

This label thing..I can hardly call Lieberman a liberal. Just because he's a Democrat doesn't immediately mean liberal follows. I can think of a few Democratic Senators who are more moderate (Landrieu, the two Nelsons, Lincoln). I don't label all Republicans Conservatives in the true ultra vein. Hagel and to a certain extent McCain and Graham have moderate viewpoints on certain issues. I would hardly call them ultra Conservatives even if they are Republicans.

Most people supported the Afghanistan operation. This Iraq debacle has been poorly planned and executed from the start. Whether Iraq was enough of a sponsor of state terrorism to justify the invasion depends on your politics. I also don't buy the bin Laden isn't that important anymore line either.

Now if the Congress would actually do one of their jobs and to provide a check and balance system for the Executive Branch we might get that. Unfortunately because of the partisan nature of Congress and their do-nothing mentality we're stuck with what we have. A censure of the NYT and flag amendments don't mean much. it's not going to happen under the current leadership. This mess has weakened our military and the National Guard. Iraq has made what amounts to lateral moves in a lot of areas..there are no more corners to turn. The majority of the American public aren't buying the status quo.

So if things can be shaken up in Cngress..all the better. We need new ideas to help us get out of this mess and more importantly help Iraq to become a better place. If thats even possible at this point. What's happening now isn't doing any of that.

sum1

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TokyoNiGHTS

So is the status in Iran. We actually know they're trying/have the ability to make chemical weapons. Why are we not going there and invading them? It's crucial also. The problem is that we don't have the military ability to invade them anymore because its all been dried up through Iraq. If anyone were to attack us now we're screwed because of how piss poor Iraq has been handeled. Whether or not it was the right decision has been discussed a million times. The point is that the approach was so incredibly narrowminded by this adminstration that its become a disaster. And its once again proved the point to never go into a war until its 100% necessary (which this wasn't) and you actually have a plan (which we very clearly do not).

Fact of the matter is, if you're actually going to work on this so called "war on terror" you need a hell of alot more military support from other countries than we actually got. But with this adminstration the excuse was "Oh we can't just stand around and wait for everyone to be ready to go" yah apparently we can't even wait until we're actually ready to go either.

At some point we're going to have to hand over Iraq to the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government. We've removed Saddam from power and they've got to start putting up a fight for the rest of their future also instead of thinking we're suppose to do everything for them. But it again shows how bad our "plan" (what little we had) in Iraq was.

Lexis

Clark gets it exactly right.

Well maybe the 19 year old British soldier who was shot dead the a few days ago would still be here today. He was shot and killed by Taliban fighters - y'know, the same Taliban we were supposed to have crushed already?

If we had flooded Afghanistan with troops and not split our focus, maybe the Taliban would be destroyed right now. And maybe the soldiers that are still dying today because of them would still be here.