Max Cleland Calls Out Chickenhawk Cheney

Former Democratic Senator and highly-decorated Vietnam Veteran Max Cleland appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzer today and clearly has little patience left for listening to White House Chickenhawks talk about how war should be conducted.

Blitzer had Cleland watch a clip of Dick Cheney speaking today before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 2007 Policy Conference when Cheney said this:

"When members of Congress speak not of victory, but of time limits -- when members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines or other arbitrary measures, they're telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out."

Blitzer then asked Cleland what he would say to Cheney if he could "sit down with the vice president and have a direct, one-on-one meeting with him." Here's Cleland's response:

"Where the hell were you in the Vietnam War? If you had gone to Vietnam like the rest of us, maybe you would have learned something about war. You can't keep troops on the ground forever. You gotta have a mission. You gotta have a purpose.

"You can't keep sending 'em back and back and back with no mission and no purpose. As a matter of fact, the real enemy is Al Qaeda, it's Al Qaeda stupid, it's not in Iraq."

Blitzer asked Cleland what he would say to George W. Bush and he responded as follows:

"You screwed up royally when you said four years ago 'major combat over, mission accomplished, bring 'em on.' That means you should have gone to Vietnam and learned that you don’t challenge guerillas that way -- people who want to blow themselves up just to take you out.

"That's exactly what we've got going on in Iraq, that's what we've got going on in Afghanistan. We're in deep trouble and we're not even chasing the enemy. We're just bogged down in Baghdad with no hope of getting out under this administration."

Like a man talking to boys, isn’t it?

You can see the whole clip at Crooks and Liars.