The escalation tag team have their heads so far up each other’s butts……..are we looking at a McCain/Lieberman ticket in 08? They spoke on Iraq at an AEI event. Lieberman must have fit right in at a conservative “think tank” event.

McCain:
Contrary to popular notions that U.S. troops are getting, quote, “caught in the crossfire between Sunni and Shia fighters,” and are therefore ineffective in ceasing the smoldering civil war, the track record is that when U.S. troops in stopping sectarian violence is excellent, where American soldiers have deployed to areas in turmoil, including Baghdad neighborhoods, the violence has ceased almost immediately.

We will need a large number of troops. During our recent trip commanders on the ground spoke of a surge of three to five additional brigades in Baghdad and at least an additional brigade in Anbar province.

44 U.S. deaths in Anbar in December. So if it’s not Al Qaida, then our troops are caught in the crossfires of a civil war. I can’t believe this guy is a vet, let alone a prisoner of war. He is so friggin shameful it’s not even funny.

From Lieberman:

And he’s not taking the easy way out here. But he’s taking the way that he believes is best for the safety of our children and grandchildren and the values and the way of life that Americans come to represent.

And it is what makes John McCain an extraordinary national leader and why I’m proud to call him my colleague and my friend.

Let me offer, from the perspective of the trip John McCain and I and some colleagues made to the Middle East, four points. A couple of them, I can be brief because, not surprisingly, Senator McCain and I agree absolutely.

I think the first point I want to make is that we err and we do our national security a disservice if we focus on the war in Iraq separately.

It is — it, of course, has a life of its own. But we have got to see it in the broader context of the war against Islamist extremism and terrorism.

And we could feel it and hear it and see it in our trip to the Middle East.

Uh huh….. I see a McCain/Lieberman ticket coming.

Full transcript at the Washington Post