PASSED! - The Senate's Blank Check for War on Iran

Oh. Wait. They didn't report this on TV!

Again, Joe Leiberman is demonstrated an enemy of the American people - and of all humanity. How come no body ever notices that he's a dead-ringer for Senator Palpatine?

                                       
                                                  Written by Chris Floyd

                                        Thursday, 12 July 2007

                                                       

                               
                                digg_url = "http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Down_in_the_Flood%3A_The_Senate%27s_Blank_Check_for_War_on_Iran/";

                       

(UPDATED BELOW. Updated again.)
 
As you may know -- unless you rely on the corporate media for your news, of course -- yesterday the U.S. Senate unanimously declared that Iran was committing acts of war against the United States: a 97-0 vote to give George W. Bush a clear and unmistakable casus belli for attacking Iran whenever Dick Cheney tells him to.
 
The bipartisan Senate resolution - the brainchild (or rather the bilechild) of Fightin' Joe Lieberman - affirmed as official fact all of the specious, unproven, ever-changing allegations of direct Iranian involvement in attacks on the American forces now occupying Iraq. The Senators appear to have relied heavily on the recent New York Times story by Michael Gordon that stovepiped unchallenged Pentagon spin directly onto the paper's front page. As Firedoglake points out, John McCain cited the heavily criticized story on the Senate floor as he cast his vote.
 
It goes without saying that all of this is a nightmarish replay of the run-up to the war of aggression against Iraq: The NYT funneling false flag stories from Bush insiders. Warmongers citing the NYT stories as "proof" justifying any and all action to "defend the Homeland." Credulous and craven Democratic politicians swallowing the Bush line hook and sinker.
 
To be sure, stout-hearted Dem tribunes like Dick Durbin insisted that their support for declaring that Iran is "committing acts of war" against the United States should not be taken as an "authorization of military action." This is shaky-knees mendacity at its finest. Having officially affirmed that Iran is waging war on American forces, how, pray tell, can you then deny the president when he asks (if he asks) for authorization to "defend our troops?" Answer: you can't. And you know it.
 
This vote is the clearest signal yet that there will be no real opposition to a Bush Administration attack on Iran. This is yet another blank check from these slavish, ignorant goons; Bush can cash it anytime. This is, in fact, the post-surge "Plan B" that's been mooted lately in the Beltway. As you recall, there was much throwing about of brains on the subject of reviving the "Iraq Study Group" plan when the "surge" (or to call it by its right name, the "punitive escalation") inevitably fails. Bush put the kibosh on that this week ("Him not gonna do nothin' that Daddy's friends tell him to do! Him a big boy, him the decider!"), but that doesn't mean there isn't a fall-back position - or rather, a spring-forward position: an attack on Iran, to rally the nation behind the "war leader" and reshuffle the deck in Iraq.
 
Of course, the United States is already at war with Iran. We are directing covert ops and terrorist attacks inside Iran, with the help of groups that our own government has declared terrorist renegades. We are kidnapping Iranian officials in Iraq and holding them hostage. We have a bristling naval armada on Iran's doorstep, put there for the express purpose of threatening Tehran with military action. The U.S. Congress has overwhelmingly passed measures calling for the overthrow of the Iranian government. And now the U.S. Senate has unanimously declared that Iran is waging war on America, and has given official notice that this will not be tolerated. It is only a very small step to move from this war in all but name to the full monty of an overt military assault.
 
We've said it before and we'll say it again: there is madness at work here. There is no other word for it. As I noted a few years ago:
 
 

...

Who would have thought the floodwaters of this death vision would have risen so high again so soon? Yet here they are again, beating against the gates.
 
UPDATE: Jonathan Schwarz points out that all of the Senate's Democratic candidates for president voted for Lieberman's Iran War amendment: Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and Joe Biden. Just in case you were expecting a saner foreign policy after the 2008 election.
 
UPDATE II: Meanwhile, George Milhouse Bush wants to make one thing perfectly clear: even in the highly unlikely (if not totally impossible) event that the Senate grows a rudimentary spine and tries to place the slightest obstacle in the way of a military attack on Iran, the Commander Guy will peremptorily veto it and instigate the mass murder anyway.
 
Spencer Ackerman at TPM Cafe found this gem of arrogant defiance in "a little-noticed letter from the White House to Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee." The main subject of the letter was a similar vow to veto any restrictions on Bush's ability to continue his war crime in Iraq. The passsage concerning Iran might seem redundant now, after the Senate's vote on Lieberman's "Persia delenda est!" measure, which puts a gun in Bush's hand and screams for him to pull the trigger, but the President is obviously taking no chances.

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gives me the warm fuzzies...

[zogger]

...to know that we will be at perpetual war with 1/3 of the planet until such a time as the rest of them decide to nuke us and just be done with it. I give it less than ten years now.

Re:

[iminplaya]

...as the rest of them decide to nuke us and just be done with it.

Probably with our equipment, too.

Please, help. Who are the mysterious three that didn't vote? Not that it matters, because I'm sure it will pass, but doesn't the house have to vote on this also?

Re:

[iminplaya]

Never mind I found it in one of his links. So sorry. So much for Feingold. He's the same as the rest it turns out. Pardon my ignorance

Leiberman...UGH!

[iminplaya]

The REAL reason the dems lost in '00. It convinced me that they threw the election. Same with Kerry in '04. This is the back and forth that the dems and reps have agreed upon since I don't know when. This is how Clinton got into office, by cooperating with the Reagan crowd during Iran-Contra. "Sure, you can use our airstrips for your drug running. Just give me the white house for eight years." Perot was there to make it look legit. The party rules.

So

[iminplaya]

Who were the three that didn't vote? Was one of them Feingold? Or can we finally write him off now, too?

Re:

[iminplaya]

Sorry 'bout that you guys. When I saw this is the journal I made the mistaken assumption the the "missing" link was merely about, ...the Senate's Democratic candidates for president voted for Lieberman's Iran War amendment: Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and Joe Biden... and those people I never even considered for anything. So now Feingold has proven to be worthless along with the rest. So much for that little illusion. Bye, Russ. It's been a slice. Kucinich is all that's left now, and we all know how far h

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Vitter was a "rising star" among the R's, untill his number turned up last week in the DC Madam's phone log.

Re:

[iminplaya]

Yeah, thanks, man. I was really out of it cluttering up your journal like that. I just realized who Johnson was, also. And Brownback [hollywoodreporter.com]...Well, not much to say there. All indications are that it probably would have been 100-0 if they were there. I am very disappointed in Feingold, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Pretty sick bunch the lot of them. Oh well, looks like no epiphany for gen-pop before '08. I am beginning to wonder if Bush is going to give up the office peaceably or not. I sure hope he does

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah. There has been "state of emergency - suspension of elections" talk for a few years now.

I would be surprised by little - or nothing.

Re:

[iminplaya]

I'm sure you saw this [towardfreedom.com]. I hope they don't start revoking passports. And that damn fool, Leahy should keep his mouth shut. I didn't look up his vote on it, but I'm sure his left his spine at home on this one like with the patriot act and this latest thing. You know, I'm not finding any info on the new bill at all. Is this for 2008? Or are they amending the 2007 one that was already signed?

Re:

[iminplaya]

Unless there really is a pyramid scheme going on is there any credible reason as to why the federal reserve and various other international financial entities don't just pull the plug on the US Federal Government?

No reason to. All the big-wigs are still getting paid. The illusion is still garnering a healthy profit for them. Gotta milk it to the last drop. Nobody's bouncing any checks yet as far as I know.

Someone. Please. Convince me that it's all just a conspiracy. A conspiracy would be a thousand times mo

Re:

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Pointing out the obvious problems with the popular propaganda line has now become a "Troll".

Meh.

[peacefinder]

Let me summarize the amendment [loc.gov]:

a) The Congress finds that a bunch of our guys have opinions (which are quoted here) plus Congress found one actual fact.
b) The sense of the Senate is that:
1) Attacks on our guys - which have no clear connection to the findings above - would be bad.
2) We'd like Iran to not do anything resembling (b)(1)... not that we're saying they are, mind you.
c) Congress requires a periodic report on the activities of Iran in Iraq, m