Fuck You, Joe, And Let Us Out Of Here

Joe Lieberman had a real welcome wagon in his extra-secret trip to Iraq.

Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five “surge” brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

“When are we going to get out of here?”

The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?

The rest of the article continues in this manner, though unfortunately Holy Joe projects his feelings onto the troops and doesn't hear these concerns. And the troops didn't feel free to share any contrary opinions with him. So despite the quotes in the article like “It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at” and “We don’t feel like we’re making any progress,” none of these were actually expressed to Holy Joe.

We have nothing left to do in Iraq; indeed, we're "fighting to defend that which is not there". There are no "Iraqi nationalists" or a "unity government" and yet that's what we're trying to support. The troops are closer to the situation than some propagandist from Washington, and closer to the truth.