Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are just about as close as anyone in the US Senate. They travel together, make joint media appearances and seem to sing the same song in their appeals to the American people.
That song often revolves around the need for more war.Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn), Lindsey Graham (R – SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) stick together through thick and thin. They are frequently seen side by side, both physically and politically, and the most common speech they seem to give has to do with the need for more war.Brian Becker, National Coordinator for the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition, said, “These three haven’t met a war that they don’t like.”Together, they led the charge to amp up the effort in Afghanistan.“We need more troops there, American troops,” said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn) at a Senate hearing on Afghanistan in 2009.“IED attacks by the enemy have gone up by a thousand percent,” said Sen. Graham at the same hearing.“In the words of Admiral Mullen,” Sen. McCain said, “time is not on our side.”They have been called everything from the three amigos, the three blind mice and the "axis of error" by the website www.downsizedc.org.“They tend to work together as a block,” said Jim Babka, president of DownsizeDc.org. “They’re kind of an axis involved in foreign policy kind of hearkening back to that old axis of evil that we heard about.”That foreign policy is not just limited to the President Bush’s wars.InAugust, 2009, the three of them met with Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi at a time when it was in the United States' interests to call him friend.Less than two years later, they called for him to be replaced.“If you want Gaddafi to go,” said Sen. McCain, “then one of the steps among many would be to establish a no-fly zone.”On CNN, Sen. Lieberman made the case for involvement to the American people.“Will the world stand by and watch a leader like Qadhafi slaughter his own people?” he asked.Perhaps the most constant target for the three senators is Iran."If we use military action against Iran, we should not only go after their nuclear facilities. We should destroy their ability to make conventional war,” said Sen Graham. “They should have no planes that can fly and no ships that can float." Even in 2010, Sen. McCain’s sense of urgency with Iran was immense.“We keep pointing a gun and we haven’t pulled a single trigger and its time we did,” he said. But two years later, that lack of immediate military action hasn’t resulted in Armageddon, or anything like it. Still the calls for action expand – now across the globe“The Iranian nuclear program is a threat to the entire world,” said Sen Lieberman this week in his speech at AIPAC.And on Monday on the Senate floor, Senator McCain made the case for airstrikes in Syria.“Foreign military intervention is now the necessary factor to reinforce this option,” he said. “Assad needs to know that he will not win.”Babka said it is a nearly identical debate to the ones in the past.“Once again, almost with Pavlovian response, these guys come and say, well we gotta go to war,” he said The mood of the American people may have shifted to ending the wars but the perpetual lobby for war does have its supporters, among them – defense contractors.“They’re very popular with the military industrial complex which sees every new adventure, every new invasion, every new occupation, every new major bombing campaign as an investment,” Becker said. But it’s an investment fewer Americans want their country to make as they have already lived through the consequences of the previous military adventures. Critics say those who continue to follow Senators McCain, Lieberman and Graham may just be blind themselves, listening to the drum beat for war, but failing to see the whole picture…and the very real possibility of pitfalls ahead.