Rush Limbaugh: Joe Lieberman Has Guts

Rush Limbaugh on the war in Iraq and Joe Lieberman standing up to his party.

Gutsy Joe Lieberman Makes Iraq Case

    November 29, 2005
    BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

    RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites.  Joe Lieberman, great, great piece today in the Wall Street Journal, saying we have to stay in Iraq; we cannot pull out. The man has got guts. This position is what doomed his chances in the Democratic primaries in 2004. He never had a prayer. He was the first Democrat voted out in the in the whole primary process. He's written this piece today. When I saw, this I said, "Hmm, I wonder if he'll be paraded all over television the next two days like John Murtha was? I wonder if they'll go talk to Lieberman as though he's some kind of a seer, some kind of a truth-teller." By the way, the Murtha business, anybody wonder like I do about the timing of that? Whatever it was he said, "We've gotta get out of there. We can't win." The timing of this, three weeks before the December 15th elections, that's what suspicious about Murtha doing this to me. But nevertheless that's a sidetrack issue for now. Lieberman did get invited to CNN today, the American Morning show. Soledad O'Brien interviewed him. He's bucking his party and he's making sense on Iraq, and she said, "You've made four visits to Iraq over the last 18 months. You sound encouraged upon your return. Why?" you idiot? She didn't say that, but you can imagine it's in her heart

    LIEBERMAN: Well, I did see progress. It's not perfect, obviously, but I saw progress economically, militarily, and politically. I mean, some of the kind of practical common interest stuff that I saw was just more cars on the streets in Baghdad and the other cities I was in, almost every roof seems to have a satellite dish. The economy is beginning to move. Politically there's a full-fledged campaign going on in Iraq now for the national assembly elections in December, and there's an independent -- a large number of independent televisions and newspapers covering it. Militarily, the Iraqis are beginning to show much more self-sufficiency. They're a long way from being able to take it on their own and that's why we have to be careful not to withdraw too soon, but progress really is being made.

    RUSH: She says then, "So that's the category of progress? Some people would put in a list of things that are not going well, security, not only for US soldiers but for the Iraqi people, too."

    LIEBERMAN: Look, this is a war, and the more I go back there, the more I see it as a war between 27 million Iraqis -- that's their -- just about their total population -- who really want to live a better, freer, safer life, who feel liberated to be rid of Saddam Hussein, and 10,000 terrorists who are prepared to blow themselves up and to go at -- to go at the Iraqi people and American and Iraqi military, who are trying to protect the Iraqi people. Why do they do it? Because they want to establish a center, a base in Iraq to replace the one we took from them in Afghanistan. They don't want Iraq to be free and modern, because it sets back the terrorist's retched causes. If they should win there which is to say to get us out about the country is stable, I think it will have disastrous effects not only on Iraq and the Middle East but on American security.

    RUSH: All right, now, this is key, because what he says here, "Look it, we've got 27 million versus 10,000, and we're siding with the wrong people," meaning his party. His party siding with the wrong people. These 10,000 insurgents versus 27 million people who want a different life. One thing he is really right on the money about here is these terrorists are trying to keep Iraq as a stateless regime. Remember the history of bin Laden. Bin Laden only went to places that were stateless. He went to Somalia, a bunch of warlords, he could control them. Somalia. Afghanistan. All stateless. Taliban took over in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was running Somalia. Still may be. The Sudan is Al-Qaeda. But we kicked them out of Afghanistan. If we lose Iraq they're just going to go in and make Iraq the new Afghanistan. He's exactly right about that. But he's really gutsy, I think, because he's bucking his own party, he's standing up to his own party, standing up to Jack Murtha, standing up to the media, standing up to all the left out there and basically giving them the facts, and giving them reason and logic, and they don't want to hear it because they're invested in defeat. Lieberman is talking victory and these people don't connect with that. It's not in their lexicon. O'Brien says, "Well, here's what you wrote in the Wall Street Journal op-ed, runs today. It said, 'Almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if these forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.' I think you sum up in that line, which is when?"
    LIEBERMAN: Right. And the "when" cannot be set by us here in Congress or anybody in the White House or the executive branch on a kind of mechanical basis. The "when" has to be determined by conditions on the ground. And the basic question is, "When are the Iraqi security forces able to protect their country and fight these 10,000 terrorists on behalf of all the people of Iraq so we can begin to leave?" I see improvement. I think one of the most important things I saw on this trip, Soledad, is that the policy of the United States is following and our allies in Iraq has not remained stagnant, it's changed.

    RUSH: Imagine that! We have a Democrat senator who goes over there; he's doing a better job of explaining what's going over there than the administration is, but more than that one Democrat senator goes over there and tells an entirely different story than what we've been getting day in and day out from the leftist media. Progress. It's not stagnant. We are changing and we are adapting. James Q. Wilson, political scientist, sociologist, brilliant man, had a piece recently in OpinionJournal.com. His piece was basically, President Bush, if I were you and this is the speech I were to give in Iraq, this is what it would be and he wrote that speech, and it starts out, basically says: Forget about who's lying about this or that, talk about the fact that we're winning, give details about how we're winning and how it's going, how we're going to continue to win. Now, Bush has made it plain we're not going to accept defeat but here Lieberman has just summed up -- in three sound bites -- summed up what's happening in Iraq in a far more positive, accurate way, than I've heard from anybody, at least in political circles.

    END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

(WSJ: America can't abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists - Joe Liberman) (WSJ: The speech President Bush should give bout Iraq - James Q. Wilson)

In other words -- Joe Lieberman proves that he is a Mensh.

posted by: jrtelegraph