Kevin Drum asks a question:
Do we really think that being opposed to the war in 2002 should be a litmus test for VP consideration in 2008?
My answer: Yes
It’s as if Mr. Drum missed the entire primary as well as the 2004 and 2006 elections. He offers up Joe Biden as a serious vice-presidential pick without noting that Sen. Biden is one of the foremost proponents of the forcible partition (ethnic cleansing) of Iraq. In essence, Biden’s reaction to the quagmire in Iraq is to have U.S. troops preside over the forced uprooting and resettlement of millions of Iraqis so that Kurds live with Kurds, Shi’ites live with Shi’ites, and Sunnis live with Sunnis. Biden’s plan fits into a category called The Banality of Evil, where good people with good intentions wind up advocating and implementing policies so inhumane that historians wind up pondering how so many decent people could have stood by and done nothing while the evil was carried out right in front of their faces and in their name.
But even if you don’t agree that the tripartite partitioning of Iraq would be a war crime, it is would still involve the necessary ongoing occupation of Iraq for another decade or four. This kind of imperial thinking by our bipartisan foreign policy establishment is exactly what Obama was criticizing when he said:
“I don’t want to just end the war, but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place.”
Selecting Biden is a non-starter for the precise reason that Biden supported the war (albeit, with misgivings) and that he is still pushing solutions that amount to digging the hole bigger, at best, and that constitute a recipe for enduring national shame, at worst.
