Journal SPAM: PASSED! - The Senate's Blank Check for War on Iran 17
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 FloydThursday, 12 July 2007
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(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... (Score:1)
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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?
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Leiberman...UGH! (Score:1)
So (Score:1)
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I would be surprised by little - or nothing.
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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
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Meh. (Score:2)
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