Yesterday, by a vote of 76-22, the Senate passed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment in support of military actions against Iran. This is the second such endorsement of the president by a senate majority in just three months. In July, the Lieberman amendment to "confront Iran" passed with the far stronger majority of 97-0.
The original draft of Kyl-Lieberman had asked U.S. forces to "combat, contain, and roll back" the Iranian menace within Iraq. But the words "roll back" were all too plainly a coded endorsement of hot pursuit into Iran; and the senators did not want to go quite so far. To assure a larger majority the language was accordingly trimmed and blurred to say "that it should be the policy of the United States to stop inside Iraq the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies."
The inclusion of Hezbollah deserves some notice. It is part of a larger attempt, already apparent in the Lebanon war of 2006, to manufacture an "amalgam" of all the enemies of Israel and the United States throughout the region, and to treat them all as one enemy. Those who believe in the amalgam will come to agree that many more wars by the United States and Israel are needed to crush this enemy.
More provocative is a secondary detail of the amendment, which received less notice from the mainstream media. Kyl-Lieberman approves the listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran as a "foreign terrorist organization." Now, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard is the largest branch of the Iranian military. By granting Vice President Cheney's wish (a distant dream in 2005) to put the Iranian guard on the U.S. terrorist list, the Senate has classified the army of Iran as an army of terrorists. The president, therefore, as he follows out the Cheney plan has all the support he requires for asserting in his next speech to an army or veterans group that Iran is a nation of terrorists.
It was said during the Vietnam War that "a dead Vietnamese is a Viet Cong." It will assuage the conscience for U.S. bombers of Iran to know that a dead Iranian is a terrorist. The Senate, by this classification, has absolved the bombers in advance.
Hillary Clinton voted in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment to press the army toward war with Iran. This was an important step, for her, and a vote as closely considered as her vote to authorize the bombing and occupation of Iraq.
Here are the senators who voted against Kyl-Lieberman:
Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Dodd (D-CT) Feingold (D-WI) Hagel (R-NE) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Leahy (D-VT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) McCaskill (D-MO) Sanders (I-VT) Tester (D-MT) Webb (D-VA) Wyden (D-OR)
John McCain and Barack Obama did not vote.
It is a remarkable fact that the war meditated against Iran, like the war on Iraq, is sought most keenly by a vice president and president who went further than most of their generation to avoid serving their country in Vietnam. The fact becomes the more remarkable in view of the contempt shown by both men for those who did not cheer and avoid, but opposed the Vietnam war by conscientious dissent. The same is true across the range of non-combatant neoconservative war architects and propagandists. Psychological compensation of an astonishing kind (to say no more) is at work in this display of rashness disguised as courage in the later careers of our war leaders behind the lines. For several years now, the mainstream press and media have said as little as possible about it.
Two votes against Kyl-Lieberman were issued from veterans with considerable experience and firsthand knowledge of war, Chuck Hagel and Jim Webb. If these two men were now to sharpen their dissidence, if they could make their reasons articulate and see the present as a time that calls them to the sustained work of opposition-- we might have the beginnings of a potent resistance which will never come from Harry Reid.
What of the absence of Barack Obama? In a speech in Iowa on September 12, he addressed by anticipation the matter before the Senate in Kyl-Lieberman: "We hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and al Qaeda. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear--loud and clear--from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war."
It is baffling that a man who spoke those words two weeks ago could not find the time or the resolve to cast his vote in a conspicuous test for authorizing war on Iran. This seems to be one more demonstration of Obama's tendency never to take a step forward without a step to the side. As for his own message about Iran, it has not been "loud and clear," but muffled, wavering, experimental.
With Hillary Clinton, we know where we stand. Yesterday she voted to bring the country a serious step closer to war against Iran. And she did so for the same reason that she voted to authorize the war on Iraq. She thinks the next war is going to happen. She hopes the worst of its short-term effects on America will have died down before the election. She suspects the media and voters will show more trust for a candidate who supported than for one who opposed the war. She wants a ponderous establishment of American troops and super-bases to remain in the Middle East for years to come. If she wins the presidency, she will inherit the command of that army and those bases, and she believes she can manage their affairs more prudently than George W. Bush.
Hillary Clinton is consistent. Every move is calculated, her actual intentions are masked, but the total drift is easy to comprehend. It is not so with Obama. How can he expect anyone to back a man who will not back himself?
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What could more important in New Hampshire, that he could not fly back to Washington to make his OFFICIAL outrage known by voting against the amendment.
It would have been an occasion to actually do something that would say to the voting public that we can trust this man and what he stands for.
So much free publicity. So much opportunit
Hillary cannot afford to appear as a potentiall
(SAY NO TO WAR)
We Need A Third Party Candidate !
Thank you Senator Amy Klobuchar for getting this one right! Now, fix that FISA vote!
ANTI-SEMIT
We Americans need to stop playing word games. For example, if we apply Webster's definition of "TERRORISM
Of course, the word terrorism is reserved for our enemies, and not part of our terms of endearment with Israel. However, before we consign what happened to Lebanon and its people to "collatera
Human beings think and rationaliz
Are those words clear enough for you?
Was the conflict between Israel v hezbollah or Israel v Lebanon? Was hezbollah responsibl
Words don't describe the ignorance it takes to not grasp the cowardice on the part of hezbollah. Then in your beautiful use of our ever so clever words you indicate they're the victim, and we deserve what we get.
Who is killing the Lebanese members of their Govt?
How many of the kidnapped Israel soldiers by hezbollah (before the escalation of the conflict) were returned alive?
I've got your pendulum right here and another word.
"kaffir" (The word kafir/kuff
That's the word they hope to refer to you as. You think this struggle is new you Dolt? You hone your use of the beautiful English language. You can use it to beg forgivenes
We must not simply swap another Clinton for another Bush and if you can't understand that, research the Mena airport in Arkansas. You'll see the families connection
This is where GHWB, the CIA, BCCI, Barry Seals, Vince Foster, Pablo Escobar, Marc Rich, Jim McDougal, and Iran/Contr
As Edwards' VP, Obama will learn to trust his heart and will be able to reject the triangulat
Hillary and McCain
bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, IRAN
WEBB/HAGEL 2008
On the other hand, THANK YOU Senator Cantwell for your courageous stand against this war-monger
HE WAITED UNTIL ALL THE SENATORS HAD VOTED, TO
SEE HOW THEY WERE VOTING AND THEN AT THE VERY
LAST MINUTE HE VOTED. THIS TELLS YOU ALL YOU
NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS PHONY.
The WOT is a means to suck the money and life out of ordinary Americans and put into the hands of the have-mores
If Americans read history, they'd understand nothing was handed to the citizens. Everything was fought for, civil war, womens movement, civil rights, workers unions. And they would never elect people like Bush and the Clinton who are politician
Hillary had her chance to protest the war in the Senate. She chose to hide and vote for the wars. She doesn't deserve to become President.
He needs our support NOW to become the one democratic candidate who can actually win against the Republican
had they left long ago the level of violence would be nowhere where it is now.
now if they leave it will gradually work itself out; as long as they stay it will not.
not IMMEDIATEL
afghanista
everyone misses the main point: if peace is to be maintained IT ALWAYS HAS TO BE ENFORCED BY MULTI-NATI
a unilateral american invasion and occupation will always be doomed to failure.
I have two sons of draft age and struggle with the notion that once the draft is actively started to support ANOTHER conflict in which we never should have engaged, everyone should be expected to support this madness in the name of national security, the 'war on terror', or patriotism as it relates to fighting in the middle east. Particular
Perhaps the Israelis were correct all along and we should have gone into Iran versus Iraq. Too late for 'two steps back' now and frankly, we don't have the resources to be 'victoriou