Hearing
Posted By Russ Emerson on May 7, 2004 at 2:15 pm
If I heard it right, Senator Lieberman (D, Conn.) sounded like a completely rational patriot in the Senate hearing today.
No wonder he got creamed in the Democrat presidential primaries.
[I’m still trying to find the quote….]
UPDATE: Hillary!, however, was a complete b****. I don’t know what she said, but the fact that she’s a total b**** remains a constant.
UPDATE 2: I did hear him correctly. Click “more” for the transcript of Senator Lieberman’s remarks, courtesy of the WaPo.
LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, the behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American. It deserves the apology that you have given today and that have been given by others in high positions in our government and our military.
I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized.
And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody. [It’s clear he meant to say “never apologized to anybody.” — Russ]
So it’s part of — wrongs occurred here, by the people in those pictures and perhaps by people up the chain of command.
But Americans are different. That’s why we’re outraged by this. That’s why the apologies were due.
And that’s why I hope as we go about this investigation, we do it in a way that does not dishonor the hundreds of thousands of Americans in uniform who are a lot more like Pat Tillman and Americans that are not know, like Army National Guard Sergeant Felix Del Greco of Simsbury, Connecticut, who was killed in action a few weeks ago; that we not dishonor their service or discredit the cause that brought us to send them to Iraq, because it remains one that is just and necessary.
We’ve got to get to the whole truth here, and nothing but the truth. We can’t be defensive. We’ve got to be aggressive about it. And as Senator McCain said, we’ve got to do it quickly so that we and you and most of all our soldiers can get back to fighting and winning the war on terrorism with determination.
As far as I’m concerned, we do have to know how this happened. And we have to know it so we can stop it from happening ever again.
You’ve said that the behavior of those soldiers was fundamentally un-American. I agree with you. And this goes way back to the first American declaration, the Declaration of Independence, where we said that every human being has those rights as an endowment of our creator.
That even goes to human beings who have been apprehended by our military as they have been in Iraq because they are suspected of being part of the terrorists, of the jihadists, of the foreign fighters, of the Saddam loyalists who are killing Americans and Iraqis every day.
We know that people are flawed. And that’s why we believe in the rule of law, to try to make this better and punish those who fall below appropriate humane standards.
LOL.
Lieberman’s remarks illustrate why I find it so irritating that political campaigns have far too much of the beauty contest about them. He is clearly sincere and speaking with conviction. What a shame his ‘packaging’ was found wanting without even a decent chance.