During Sen. Lieberman's questioning of [war czar] Gen. Lute (I believe the date was 6/7), Lieberman carefully crafted a question to Lute for which the answer was that al Qaeda was the primary enemy in Iraq. It was one of those questions, commonly heard at hearings, in which a Senator sets up a context, and simply wants an affirmative from the witness.

At the time, I simply thought this was Lieberman being himself, and I was much more concerned with other aspects of that hearing. But it now appears to be part of an orchestrated marketing campaign. June 8 is quite a bit earlier than the news stories quoted in GG's post (except for Lieberman's quote to Russert in Jan.).

It is frustrating that transcripts of open hearings before our senate and house committees are not available to the public. If they were, I could post up the text in which Lieberman crafted Lute's answer (Sen. Armed Svcs. Comm). However, there is this piece at Defense News.com, dated 6/11:

War Czar Nominee Takes A Regional View on Iraq

Lute Calls Stopping al-Qaida Key to Success

By WILLIAM H. McMICHAEL

The general nominated to head U.S. President George W. Bush’s war effort — an officer once skeptical of the current surge of troops as a last-ditch effort to stabilize terrorism-stricken Iraq — told the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 7 that the United States must prevail in Iraq to deny al-Qaida the safe haven it lost in Afghanistan.

Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute also agreed with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., that al-Qaida “is our main enemy in Iraq.”

Just a couple of days after the hearing, once Lieberman had placed these words in Lute's mouth, Lieberman said the following to Schieffer on Face the Nation (June 10):

What we're involved in here, as General Lute said to our committee last week, is the--Iraq is now the main front in the long war we are fighting against the Islamist terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. In fact, 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq today killing Iraqis and American soldiers are foreign al-Qaeda fighters. Iran is training and equipping soldiers, Iraqis to come in and kill American soldiers and Iraqis. So we--we've got to see that larger context, and that's why we're committed to helping the Iraqis to stability and victory.

That web site gives Hope!

If we fall helplessly in love this is what Anonymous was talking and warning us about? Yes.

We thought we were strong, wealthy, and a notion of a "puny god" was strong enough to resist anything that may come take the pike, as one who has neo-con PHTHISIS.

Why this creepy reign assumes they are Not anything other than diabolical and fast headed toward "total depravity" soul-train wreckage is beyond a civil world's words

Forget them fermented rotten stale roasted cheerios...creeps.

Red cherries make a sweet fermented mellow sipping brew. Thank you.

The terminology will not fool anyone familiar with our fiasco in Iraq, but does fire up that minority so anxious for some justification. If foreign soldiers occupied most any country, like Mexico, India, or even the U.S. for instance, a whole lot of citizens would be fighting back and would be called

al-Qaida or turrorists (or however the Texas Tornado might pronounce it).

A common misconception of the immature and of the truly paranoid is that they imagine they can read the hearts and minds of complete strangers they've never met.

Which are you?

(I'm thinking of a number between 1 and a 100.....what is it?)

Wrong continent. Google is your friend, my friend. Poetic, yes but the wrong continent. Wrong century too.

Umm let's unpack that. I think it means you think guerrilla warfare is a good thing.

Gosh, RealName, can you tell us more stories about how you worked with the supersecret IDF spinoff forces chasing down the SWAPO dudes until you found the underground lair where all the subscribers to the Merc magazines gather and use the StarGate to visit the Planet of Amazon Women who beg you to father all their children?

That's a nice Sunday sermon. Care to establish your proof for what I believe? Seriously - I'd like to hear it. By the way you engage in the same topic that people who scream 'racist' at everyone uses. It's meant to stop all words dead. In the US if you call someone racist it's a auto convicting accusation.

See the thing is, fundamentally it's not about how individual NYT page one below the fold human interest stories about Palestinians make you feel. It's about the relationship between one group of people and another. It's about politics and power. It's not about your imaginary feel good group hug. Why is that? Because it's about tolerance.

Tolerance is about tol-er-a-tion. Tolerate. Put up with. Not love or like or identify with or having Sunday cookouts in the park together. If I'm wrong then I need you to lug your suburban white ass to some East St. Louis ghetto neighborhood and force yourself on those people because it gives you such a warm fuzzy.

Anyway - I don't and most Israelis don't actually care what the Palestinians wind up with vis a vis their own society. If they want a sharia theocracy in Gaza - wonderful, send me a postcard. If they want something else, that's great too. But in practical terms what they will wind up with is all of Gaza, about 90% of the West Bank, a portion of East Jerusalem and continued mastery of al Aqsa, etc. That's pretty much what they will get. That's reality. That's the bottom line and they can fire another one million rockets into Israel in protest they can even unleash chemical weapons or biological weapons or worse and it won't matter. It may make them and the people feel better or feel smug but it won't change the final state of things. Beyond that they are free to to chisel out whatever destiny they want. They can be a dependent rump state of the EU they can be a confederation of militant groups who fight each other or anything else. See no one cares.

But be aware that the history of the Palestinians in the middle east is a lot more complicated than simply screaming "Evil Jews". For example there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon who have been there 3 or 4 or more generations who the Lebanese govt won't grant citizenship too, like wise Syria. In 1991 there were 260,000 Palestinians in Kuwait who were simply expelled from the country because the Kuwaitis were furious at the Palestinians for having supported Iraq in the invasion of Kuwait. Similarly now, today, Palestinians in Iraq, mostly in the north are harassed and are being driven out of the country because of their long support of Saddam. ANow if one goes to the West Bank one can see that the main crossing into Jordan, the Allenby Bridge is a huge chokepoint for travel. These are Palestinians who actually hold Jordanian passports yet are denied entry into Jordan because Jordan doesn't want the problem. About 1500 people a day are denied entry. Ever since the PLO tried to topple the Jordanian government in the September 1970 war which resulted in 30,000 casualties there's been bad blood between them.

One can see that the THE DAY a Palestinian state is declared that the neighboring Arab states will purge themselves of their Palestinians and force them out to their 'homeland'. That's really the nasty problem that the Palestinians will encounter. And that's one of the key drivers behind Arafat's proclamation in 2000 that he would declare a state followed by his quiet reversal on that a few weeks later. It doesn't appear that the Palestinians are prepared to manage that problem in lieu of keeping the 'movement' alive.