Information Underload

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's comments yesterday on Face the Nation have drawn him quite a bit of attention:

"We've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers...if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them...He added, "If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."

"They can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," he said. "We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home."

People from the right and left have been quick to issue judgement on his pronouncement.

On National Review Online, Michael Ledeen states he thinks Lieberman should be our new Secretary of State because of this comments, while a whole host of liberal blogs have taken the opportunity to use these words against the former Democrat (now Independent) Senator, labeling him "a tool," a "neocon," a "warmonger," and far worse.

Sadly, while both the right and left have quickly jumped on their respective and predictable bandwagons to either support the Senator or condemn Lieberman’s comments, I've read precious little issued forth in concern for the American military forces ostensibly being attacked with Iranian weapons, or by militiamen that are rumored to be trained at facilities within Iran.

Shouldn't we be debating whether or not to attack Iran based upon the threats to American servicemen? This simply is not a conversation being had.

It doesn't seem that either side wants to ask the hard questions that must be asked.

We've heard time and again that Iran is shipping precision-made EFPs (Explosively-Formed Penetrators) into Iraq to militias targeting American armored vehicles. We've heard from the military that the homemade EFPs manufactured in Iraq are not made with enough precision to perform properly against American armor, and that only those EFPs made professionally in Iran can cut through the armor of even our main battle tanks.

Shouldn't we in the blogosphere be asking for details, asking the military to completely explain, in excruciating detail, the technical characteristics of these EFPs that identify them as being Iranian in origin? Shouldn't we be asking for this conclusive proof that the Iranian government must be behind the manufacture of such weapons?

We've heard time and again that other Iranian ordnance, from mortar shells to artillery rounds to sniper rifles to surface-to-air missiles, has been captured in Iraq. Shouldn't we be asking characteristics identify these weapons as exclusively Iranian in origin, and then ask if they could be filtering into Iraq in any other way than with the assistance of the Iranian government?

We've heard time and again that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Qods Force is actively engaged in training and equipping militias in Iraq; shouldn't we be pushing for hard evidence of such a connection, and debating whether or not the evidence of such connections is indeed an act of war worthy of a political, economic, or military response?

What precisely is Senator Lieberman asking for? Is he asking for American special operations units to insert into Iran to capture evidence from suspected EFP manufacturing centers? Is he asking for American air assets to attack and destroy the suspected terrorist training facilities at Imam Ali base near Khorram Abad, or for strikes on Revolutionary Guard bases, training facilities, or leadership targets?

We should be asking these questions, but it seems too many in the blogosphere are siloed into their positions, firmly for or against a strike against Iran based not on the threat posed to American, British, and Iraqi forces, but based upon their own domestic political objectives and agendas.

The questions we should be asking should revolve around the mortal threat Iranian weapons and training either do or do not pose to our troops and that of our allies. We should be asking for hard evidence that such weapons and training are being provided by the Iranian regime. We should be pushing the military, the media, and our leaders to provide us as much information as possible, so that we can intelligently discuss whether or not the Iranian government is either directing or allowing actions against our forces in the region, and what an appropriate response to such a threat would be.

But we aren't doing that in the blogosphere, or in the media.

We've chosen our positions, and have determined our support or opposition to actions against Iran based upon very little but our own preconceived notions and political ideologies, and with little regard to the threat posed to our national security, the security of Iraq, and the security of our troops who may be facing Iranian weapons and Iranian-trained militiamen and insurgents.

Should we consider attacking Iranian personnel and facilities for their involvement in Iraq? I, for one, don't have enough information yet to make a judgement for or against such a strike.

I wish my fellow bloggers and members of the media would pressure our politicians and the military to produce the answers we require to develop an informed opinion, though apparently, many don't feel that being informed is necessary at all.