What rational, brave patriot wouldn't agree ?

* glenn:

"But we nonetheless must be very clear at all times that Sen. Lieberman's desire that the U.S. "recognize" that the war has already "expanded" to include Iran has nothing whatsoever to do with the strategy by right-wing Israelis to convince the U.S. that Iran poses a threat not only to Israel but to the U.S., so that the U.S. will act against Israel's most formidable and threatening enemy. Those two matters are completely unconnected -- when they converge, it is pure coincidence -- and to suggest otherwise is conclusive evidence of poisonous anti-semitism and bigotry of the worst sort.

In fact, anyone who would even raise the possibility of such a connection is engaging in the worst type of irresponsible debate, as the Leader himself instructed us earlier this year
[]
What rational, brave patriot wouldn't agree that the U.S. should wage war against Iran? The only possible reason to suggest that Sen. Lieberman, in his war dances against Iran, might be driven by considerations other than American interests could only be the by-product of an ugly, bigoted mind. Such people must be -- and most assuredly will be -- scorned with a venom reserved for few others. Just ask Jim Baker. Or Jimmy Carter. What Sen. Lieberman's Op-Ed painfully and conclusively demonstrates is that the people who brought us the war in Iraq are nowhere near done with their wretched work."

* glenn:

"As bizarre as it is, it is simply beyond doubt that when it comes to foreign policy credibility, advocating an extremely stupid and destructive war with false and ill-informed claims is valued more highly than opposing an extremely stupid and destructive war with correct, prescient, and highly informed claims. Advocating a war -- any war -- is always worth more credibility and seriousness than opposing a war. That twisted formula explains a great deal about many things.

The point here is not that the opinions which Steyn expresses are unpersuasive or amoral or extremist (though they are all of that). It's that his statements -- his factual claims -- are repeatedly demonstrated to be pure nonsense, completely false, purely wrong, demonstrably erroneous. And Steyn is by no means alone.

Most of our respected foreign policy analysts and general political pundits -- not to mention our wonderful national "journalists" -- have a rich history of statements over the last four years on Iraq filled with claims just as misleading, inane, and wrong as Steyn's are. And among the crowd who caught the terrorism "fever" (to use Colin Powell and Gerald Ford's accurate term to try to account for what happened to Dick Cheney), the more wrong Steyn is, the more wise and prophet-like he becomes.

That is how our foreign policy debates function. After all, one of the wrongest people on the planet -- Fred Kagan -- is the one whose grand "plan," the Glorious Kagan-Keene Surge, is, according to the most loyal Bush followers, what the President is turning to in order to save us now in Iraq. We've somehow become a country run by a political movement for which Error, Deceit and Wrongness are the highest virtues (and their opposites the greatest vice)."

* some billmon tribute pages - MoofOfAlabama & FDL

* amy:

"Group: Israeli Killings of Palestinians Triple in 2006
In Israel and the Occupied Territories, new figures released by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem show Israeli forces killed six-hundred and sixty Palestinians this year. B’Tselem says that’s three times more than in 2005. The figure includes one hundred and forty-one children. Nearly half of the total dead were not involved in hostile acts."