Salute and Build the Resistance

No War Against Iran!

The pro-war Democratic majority is leading the charge for war against Iran, a charge unanimously supported by the Senate. By a vote of 97-0, the Senate passed an amendment targeting Iran. This occurred right as negotiations between the United Nations and Iran on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program were making progress. The U.S. already has about half of its warships with their bombers in the area, threatening use of “tactical nuclear weapons,” in planned airstrikes against Iran. The amendment itself and statements by senators supporting call on the military to provide “consequences” and “counter efforts,” against Iran. Senator Lieberman, who sponsored the amendment, left no doubt that this means military action: “We cannot just talk to them. If they do not play by the rules, we have got to use our force. And to me that would include taking military action.”

This U.S. aggression is being planned, promoted and now likely put into law — all crimes against the peace — as Iran has carried out no aggression and poses no threat to the U.S. What Iran has done is refused to submit to U.S. dictate, defended its sovereignty and stood in support of resistance to U.S. imperialism and its aggression and occupations in the region. This is its right and is a contribution toward peace. It is Iran’s defense of her sovereignty and the resistance in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere that is contributing to blocking U.S. aggression.

The Senate vote again confirms, like all the other votes of the Democratic majority on the issue of war since the 2006 election, that the Democrats are pro war, pro aggression, pro-interference in the affairs of other countries, pro U.S. imperialism. What the American people want and need is an anti-war government, which means the Democrats have got to go.

The main language utilized in the amendment, that “the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable and unacceptable act of hostility against the United States by the foreign government in question,” can be used not only against Iran but any other country. And it can be used in an arbitrary manner, with the U.S. deciding which organizations are “agents of a foreign government” and acting with impunity against them.

The resurrection of the Cold War McCarthyite language of “agents of a foreign government,” shows that the U.S. cannot go forward to solve problems, only backward. Far from reasoned argument and justification it can only use disinformation, with all its hearsay, “might be,” “may intend,” guilt by association, and outright revenge to try divert and stop resistance.

The whole notion of “agents of a foreign government” was used in the McCarthy period to target resistance, just as this amendment tries to do. It targets Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, the Iraqi resistance and the anti-imperialist stand of Iran. Senator Lieberman in his comments showed the U.S. is also out for revenge against the 1979 revolution in Iran, which threw out the U.S.-installed and backed puppet, the Shah of Iran.

While the amendment is designed to try and incite support among the American people for this brutal revenge against the Iranian people, repeating over and over that soldiers are being killed, this effort too will fail. Americans are taking their stand against war and for the peoples. They are rejecting the pro-war Democrats and pro-war government and organizing to bring forward new arrangements.

The movements for change in the U.S. remember well that it was workers, trade union activists, communists and all those standing for progress inside the U.S. that were the target of the McCarthyite attacks. The necessity for change and revolution in the U.S. was also targeted, painted as something foreign. This tired tune simply will not play again today.

The consciousness among the American people is affirming that Another World is Possible and Another U.S. is Necessary and that the U.S. movement for change has its origins here, in the conditions in the U.S. and in the necessity to change them. Taking responsibility for winning this change, and remaining staunchly on the side of the world’s peoples together against U.S. imperialism is how the movement is advancing.

No War Against Iran!
Salute and Build the Resistance!

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2006 Anniversary of Katrina

Tell Senator Lieberman: No War on Iran!

Senator Joe Lieberman is waving his sword again. He recently told CBS “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.”

Upon hearing these words, our own Leslie Angeline, a CodePink member who recently returned from a peace delegation to Iran, decided to go on a hunger strike until Senator Lieberman agreed to meet with us. “Seventy percent of the Iranian population is under the age of 30 — the age of my son. Iran is a country of warm, kind, and generous people and their children. We cannot start bombing these kids,” Angeline told us.

After first denying her request, -Lieberman agreed to meet with CodePink and numerous other activists in his Washington, D.C. office on June 21. But just hours before the meeting, he abruptly cancelled. Appalled, and unwavering in our determination to reach the senator, sixty of us showed up at his office. We were a beautiful group of peace-loving people, including representatives from the Iranian, Iraqi, Israeli and Jewish communities and anti-war organizations. But Lieberman was nowhere to be found.

Instead, his office called the police, who threatened to arrest us all. Finally, three people were allowed in to meet with Lieberman’s chief of staff. The rest of us organized a teach-in on Iran in the Senate Hart Building hallway.

Our peace delegation emerged from Lieberman’s office an hour and half later. Angeline told our group, “We gave them good arguments and brought the humanity of the Iranian people into Lieberman’s office today.”

Faced with the refusal of Lieberman to meet with activists and continued calls for war, Angeline began a hunger strike at his office, which continued for more than 20 days. In addition CodePink is joining others in mobilizing cities and towns to pass resolutions opposing war in Iran. Below is a sample resolution:

Call for Peace With Iran

WHEREAS, Unsubstantiated U.S. accusations about Iran’s nuclear program and its involvement in the violence in Iraq have led to threats from U.S. officials to attack Iran;

Whereas, The Bush Administration, following the same strategy that led to the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq, has engaged in a campaign to demonize Iran using biased sources, exaggerated threat assessments and cherry picking of information;

WHEREAS, A U.S. strike on Iran, especially with the nuclear “bunker-buster” bombs would be deadly for hundreds of thousands of Iranians, and would violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the UN Charter;

WHEREAS, Iran has not invaded or attacked any country for hundreds of years and has not threatened to attack the U.S.;

WHEREAS, Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and Iran’s nuclear power program, including enriching uranium, is legal under the NPT;

WHEREAS, Comprehensive direct diplomatic talks between the US and Iran, with no pre-conditions, would likely result in improved relations between our nations;

Therefore, The City Of X Calls On Our Representatives In Congress To:

•Prohibit the use of funds to carry out any military action against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization,
•Ensure that our relations with Iran are consistent with international law;
•Encourage talks, without pre-con ditions, between the US and Iran on nuclear issues and ending the violence in Iraq.

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Nuclear Talks

IAEA, Iran Make “Some Important Steps”

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deputy head for safeguards Olli Heinonen said on July 12 that his agency’s talks with Iran on the latter’s nuclear dispute witnessed “some important steps.” “We had constructive discussions and made some important steps,” Heinonen said following three rounds of talks with Iranian nuclear officials. “We will continue discussions in the coming weeks,” he added.

An IAEA team led by Heinonen arrived in Iran on July 11 to draw up a framework to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted Javad Vaeedi, Deputy Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying that Iranian and IAEA officials made a “breakthrough” on drawing up a benchmark to settle the technical dispute. The two sides reached substantial agreement on composition of the benchmark, Vaeedi said at the end of the latest round of talks with the IAEA officials. “We divided subjects of the nuclear program into two parts — the past and present,” Vaeedi said. “We made breakthroughs in both parts.”

The idea to draw up the framework was put forward by Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani last month when he was in Madrid, Spain for talks with the European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana about Iran’s nuclear program. Late last month, in a meeting with IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna, Larijani invited a delegation from the IAEA to visit Iran and hold talks with Iranian officials in order to draw up an action plan to put an end to the stalemate between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog.

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Lieberman Amendment

Senate Votes Unanimously for War on Iran

On July 11, the Senate voted 97-0 to support an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill being debated in Congress. The bill funds the Pentagon and is being used to push through various measures using amendments. The Iran amendment essentially supports war against Iran.

The amendment begins by asserting the claim that Iran is a “state sponsor of terrorism,” and then provides a long list of undocumented accusations against the Iranians. It then states the following: “The murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable and unacceptable act of hostility against the United States by the foreign government in question.” It demands that the government of Iran “take immediate action to end all training, arming, equipping, funding, advising, and any other forms of support that it or its agents are providing.” It then requires regular reports of “counter-strategy or efforts by the United States Government to counter the activities of agents of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Iraq.” In this manner it is calling for “efforts to counter” the Iranians while also demanding that Iran submit to U.S. dictate, or face military action.

It is precisely Iran’s refusal to submit, its consistent defense of its own sovereignty, its own resistance and support of resistance to U.S. imperialism in the region that has made it a target.

Senator Joe Lieberman, who introduced the amendment, made clear that the U.S. is attempting to crush resistance and thinks targeting Iran will enable it to escape failure, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in the region. Alongside Lieberman, Republican Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl of Arizona, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined Lieberman in sponsoring the amendment.

McCain said, “This amendment will send a clear signal: Iran’s activities in Iraq are wrong and they must end immediately.” Kyl added, “This amendment tells the Iranians we will not tolerate any actions which threaten our troops or allies.” Coleman said, “The United States will not tolerate Iran’s hostile attempts to sabotage our efforts in the Middle East region.” Lieberman, in June, put it this way: “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq…We can tell the Iranians to stop [killing Americans.] But…we cannot just talk to them. If they do not play by the rules, we have got to use our force. And to me that would include taking military action.” (CBS’s Face the Nation, June 10). The Senate unanimously backed this view with its 97-0 vote.

Lieberman, speaking from the Senate floor in introducing the amendment, elaborated U.S. concerns about resistance in the region and U.S. failure to quell it. The plan for yet another war also brings out how this failure has blinded the government to reality — the peoples of the region will not submit to occupation and their just resistance cannot be eliminated.

Lieberman said, “Iran’s actions in Iraq today fit squarely within a larger pattern of expansionist, extremist behavior by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Middle East, over all the years — more than a quarter of a century now — since 1979 when the revolution occurred in Iran.”

Iran has not invaded a single country since 1979 and for hundreds of years before that. It is the U.S. and its bulldog Israel that are the aggressors in the region. This includes the U.S.-organized overthrow of the elected Iranian government of Dr. M. Mossadegh , which had nationalized Iran’s oil. The U.S. returned the Shah to power and for 25 years the Shah ruled Iran for the benefit of the U.S. monopolies. In 1979 the people of Iran, in their millions, overthrew his dictate. Lieberman here is showing that the U.S. is still seeking revenge for the 1979 revolution. This is the “extremist” behavior being referred to, along with Iran’s stand today not to submit to U.S. bullying.

Lieberman continued, “We’ve got to open our eyes and see what is happening in the Middle East today, and see that in addition to sponsoring attacks on Americans and Iraqis in Iraq, Tehran is also training, funding and equipping radical terrorist groups that are working to destabilize Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Afghanistan.” He added that the Senate must speak “with one voice,” and tell the Iranians that there will be “consequences.” He concluded, “The regime in Iran, I fear, is betting that our political disunity about Iraq will constrain us in responding to its attacks. I don’t believe that. For the sake of our nation’s security, for the sake of our soldiers, we must, and I am confident, will prove them wrong.”

The U.S. seems to think that no resistance movement can exist in the region without Iran. According to them, resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan is succeeding only because of Iran. Facts on the ground tell a very different story. Resistance anywhere succeeds because it has the backing of the people, fighting for their just cause of liberation from foreign occupiers. This was true in Korea, in Vietnam, and is true today in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere. It is also the case that despite all the efforts by the U.S. to pit the peoples in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine against each other, the resistance has remained focused on the U.S., Israel and their paid gangs.

The language of the amendment — directed to any “foreign government or its agents,” as decided by the U.S. is a broad warning to the peoples of the region and the world. U.S. imperialism will not go quietly to its death and will instead attempt to drag the world down with it. This is the only thing Lieberman seems to actually be confident about. As is the case with the rest of the amendment, facts on the ground say otherwise — it is the growing resistance that is prevailing, in the region, inside the U.S. and worldwide.

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Reject Disinformation and Incitement to Revenge

Lieberman Amendment on Iran is a
Crime Against the Peace

Below is the text of the amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill currently being debated in Congress. The amendment was passed and added to the bill with a 97-0 in the Senate July 11. It should be noted that the long list of so-called Iranian actions are not backed up with evidence and are designed to provoke the Iranians and incite revenge among the American public. The list is not the basis for the U.S. to go to war against another country, according to U.S. and international law, including the United Nation’s Charter. It is not illegal for Iraqis to secure arms from other countries and it is their right to resist U.S. occupation with arms. It is the occupation that is illegal and that has been carried out on the basis of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including repeated massacres of civilians.

The amendment demonstrates the inability of the government to provide any justification for its war plans and its readiness to again publicly present disinformation and lies in place of facts and coherent argument. That it passed 97-0 makes clear that the Senate, with its Democratic majority, is pro-war.

***

SEC. 1535. REPORT ON SUPPORT FROM IRAN FOR ATTACKS AGAINST COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ.

(a) Findings. Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Since January 19, 1984, the Secretary of State has designated the Islamic Republic of Iran as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” one of only five countries in the world at present so designated.
(2) The Department of State, in its most recent “Country Reports on Terrorism,” stated that “Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism” in 2006.
(3) The most recent Country Reports on Terrorism report further stated, “Iran continued [in 2006] to play a destabilizing role in Iraq. Iran provided guidance and training to select Iraqi Shia political groups, and weapons and training to Shia militant groups to enable anti-Coalition attacks. Iranian government forces have been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-Coalition attacks by providing Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs with explosively formed projectiles similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard was linked to armor-piercing explosives that resulted in the deaths of Coalition Forces.’’
(4) In an interview published on June 7, 2006, Zalmay Khalilzad, then-United States ambassador to Iraq, said of Iranian support for extremist activity in Iraq, “We can say with certainty that they support groups that are attacking coalition troops. These groups are using the same ammunition to destroy armored vehicles that the Iranians are supplying to Hizbollah in Lebanon. They pay money to Shiite militias and they train some of the groups. We can’t say whether Teheran is supporting Al Qaida, but we do know that Al Qaida people come here from Pakistan through Iran. And Ansar al Sunna, a partner organization of Zarqawi’s network, has a base in northwest Iran.’’
(5) On April 26, 2007, General David Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, said of Iranian support for extremist activity in Iraq, “The level of financing, the level of training on Iranian soil, the level of equipping some sophisticated technologies. . . even advice in some cases, has been very, very substantial and very harmful.’’
(6) On April 26, 2007, General Petraeus also said of Iranian support for extremist activity in Iraq, “We know that it goes as high as [Brig. Gen. Qassem] Suleimani, who is the head of the Qods Force.... We believe that he works directly for the supreme leader of the country.’’
(7) On May 27, 2007, then-Major General William Caldwell, spokesperson for Multi-National Force-Iraq, said, “What we do know is that the Iranian intelligence services, the Qods Force, is in fact both training, equipping, and funding Shia extremist groups... both in Iraq and also in Iran.... We have in detention now people that we have captured that, in fact, are Sunni extremist-related that have, in fact, received both some funding and training from the Iranian intelligence services, the Qods Force.’’
(8) On February 27, 2007, in testimony before the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said of Iranian support for extremist activity in Iraq, “We believe Hizbollah is involved in the training as well.’’
(9) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, spokesperson for Multi-National Force-Iraq, stated, “The Iranian Qods Force is using Lebanese Hizbollah essentially as a proxy, as a surrogate in Iraq.’’
(10) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner detailed the capture in southern Iraq by coalition forces of Ali Musa Daqdaq, whom the United States military believes to be a 24-year veteran of Lebanese Hizbollah involved in the training of Iraqi extremists in Iraq and Iran.
(11) The Department of State designates Hizbollah a foreign terrorist organization.
(12) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner stated that the Iranian Qods Force operates three camps near Teheran where it trains Iraqi extremists in cooperation with Lebanese Hizbollah, stating, “The Qods Force, along with Hizbollah instructors, train approximately 20 to 60 Iraqis at a time, sending them back to Iraq organized into these special groups. They are being taught how to use EPFs [explosively formed penetrators], mortars, rockets, as well as intelligence, sniper, and kidnapping operations.’’
(13) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner stated that Iraqi extremists receive between $750,000 and $3,000,000 every month from Iranian sources.
(14) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner stated that “Our intelligence reveals that senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity’’ and that it would be “hard to imagine’’ that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, is unaware of it.
(15) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier -General Bergner stated, “There does not seem to be any follow-through on the commitments that Iran has made to work with Iraq in addressing the destabilizing security issues here in Iraq.’’
(16) On February 11, 2007, the United States military held a briefing in Baghdad at which its representatives stated that at least 170 members of the United States Armed Forces have been killed, and at least 620 wounded, by weapons tied to Iran.
(17) On January 20, 2007, a sophisticated attack was launched by insurgents at the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center Iraq, resulting in the murder of five American soldiers, four of whom were first abducted.
(18) On April 26, 2007, General Petraeus stated that the so-called Qazali network was responsible for the attack on the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center and that “there’s no question that the Qazali network is directly connected to the Iranian Qods force [and has] received money, training, arms, ammunition, and at some points in time even advice and assistance and direction.’’
(19) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner stated that the United States Armed Forces possesses documentary evidence that the Qods Force had -developed detailed information on the United States position at the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center “regarding our soldiers’ activities, shift changes, and defenses, and this information was shared with the attackers.”
(20) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner stated of the January 20 Karbala attackers, “[They] could not have conducted this complex operation without the support and direction of the Qods Force.’’

(b) Sense of Congress. It is the sense of Congress that:

(1) the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable and unacceptable act of hostility against the United States by the foreign government in question; and
(2) the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran must take immediate action to end all training, arming, equipping, funding, advising, and any other forms of support that it or its agents are providing, and have provided, to Iraqi militias and insurgents, who are contributing to the destabilization of Iraq and are responsible for the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces.

(c) Report.

(1) In General. Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and every 60 days thereafter, the Commander, Multi-National Forces Iraq and the United States Ambassador to Iraq shall jointly submit to Congress a report describing and assessing in detail--
(A) the external support or direction provided to anti-coalition forces by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran or its agents;
(B) the strategy and ambitions in Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and
(C) any counter-strategy or efforts by the United States Government to counter the activities of agents of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Iraq

(2) Form. Each report required under paragraph (1) shall be in unclassified form, but may contain a classified annex.

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Nuclear Talks

By Lieberman’s Logic,
the U.S. May Have to Bomb Itself

Mount Lieberman erupted again in June, perhaps doing the bidding of the “war, not negotiation” faction of the administration grouped around Vice President Cheney’s office. “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman said in an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

The immediate goal of the Cheney/Lieberman faction is not to launch war in Iran. That is their ultimate goal, but they know that they do not have the strength right now to bring about this goal immediately. Their immediate strategy is to undermine the negotiations with Iran and box the U.S. government into a corner where — from their point of view — war will be inevitable. They are also trying to threaten that if the U.S. does not attack Iran, Israel will do it — as if Israel could or would undertake such an attack without approval from the United States.

Lieberman claimed there was “incontrovertible” evidence that Iranians were training Iraqis to use explosives, but, as is usual for these claims, he did not provide any. The New York Times article on Lieberman’s comments noted, “American officials concede that they are unable to prove that senior Iranian officials are behind the smuggling.”

But suppose that Lieberman’s claim were true. Would that justify — legally, morally, politically — U.S. airstrikes on Iran? Only on Planet Cheney/Lieberman. Would it be in the interests of the majority of Americans to launch airstrikes on Iran? Absolutely not.

To absorb the full force of how criminally insane Lieberman’s statement was, suppose we adopted the following proposition:

“The United States should launch airstrikes against any country which is supplying weapons or other support to insurgents in Iraq.”

Who would we have to bomb?

Of course we would have to bomb Syria. There is no question that Syria could be doing more to stop the flow of weapons and fighters across the Syrian-Iraqi border. They could, for example, construct a 20-foot high electrified fence along the entire border, with a shark- infested moat. Since they are not doing this, we would have to bomb them. But we would also have to bomb Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who could also be doing more to stop the flow of fighters and money from their territory to Sunni insurgents.

But, to be fully consistent, we could not stop there. We would also have to bomb the United States. As the Times reported the same day: “American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaida who have been their allies in the past.”

Those weapons could have other uses, the Times reported: “But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans’ arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq’s army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.”

So: if we arm Sunni insurgents, as we are apparently doing, and those weapons are used to attack American troops, as they apparently might be, would we have to bomb ourselves in retaliation?

Of course, there is a way to make sense of this. You have to cast aside the silly notion that this is about logic or evidence or morality or international law. You have to see this as a question of raw power. We are the most powerful country in the world, and what we say goes, and that is all there is to it, and if anyone challenges us, we have to smash them.

There is no question that this way of thinking still has appeal in the United States, inside Washington and out. You can find it on Mount Lieberman or right-wing talk radio any time you want.

But here is the problem, even casting morality, logic, evidence, and international law aside: that is the kind of thinking that led to the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place. That is the kind of thinking that got more than 3500 U.S. soldiers killed and more than 25,000 wounded [and an estimated 1 million Iraqis killed]. Our way or the highway. It is not just wrong — it is not in the interests of the majority of Americans. One thing is certain: that way of thinking will not get us out of Iraq.

Robert Naiman is Senior Policy Analyst and National Coordinator at Just Foreign Policy.

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Nazis Attack Iran

The American government thinks it is ridiculous and libelous to accuse them of acting like Nazis — and then they do. The planned attack on Iran, a people we know no better than we knew the Iraqis, will be a slaughter for which the world will hold the American people accountable. The Democratic assembly of presidential candidates, with the exception of Representative Dennis Kucinich and former Senator Mike Gravel, are all down for the debacle. Blood seems to be as much a part of the campaign menu as money. The only party that profits from this is the Israeli lobby.

The U.S. government takes great offense when their actions are compared to those of Hitler’s Germany. When Democratic Senator Richard Durbin correctly stated that interrogation methods used at Guantánamo were akin to those used by the Nazis or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, he was vilified by Republicans and Democrats alike. He was eventually forced to make a public retraction on the Senate floor. God forbid that Americans should be compared to Nazis.

Americans can complain all they want, but last week their representatives in the United States Senate, Durbin included, returned to the worst days of brazen American savagery. The Senate began the process of killing millions of Iranians.

Senator “Holy” Joe Lieberman wants war with Iran. His sick dream is now on the road to becoming reality because of an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act that he sponsored. The amendment states as fact that American soldiers have been killed and wounded by Iranian attacks in Iraq and requires periodic intelligence reports of Iranian activity in Iraq. The fix is already in, as the old saying goes. Every report will assert that Iran is behind every bombing, shooting or report of bad weather in Iraq. The amendment passed unanimously, 97-0.

The legislation passed in part because cowardly Democrats wanted wiggle room and required a statement that they were not authorizing war. No matter. Iranian evil doing will be asserted on a daily basis and the call for mass killing will begin. Senators like Clinton and Obama will make long, tortured, Ivy Leaguish speeches claiming that they do not really want to kill millions of people, but gosh darnit, they just have no choice. Iranians must begin dying in large numbers.

The previous rationale for attacking Iran just was not working well enough. The endless screeds about dangers to Israel were themselves dangerous to Israel. It is hard to argue that Israel does not tell America what to do if Israel’s security was given as the principle reason for waging a new war. A new, bigger lie was in order.

Reports of Iranian responsibility for the deaths of U.S. troops are accepted by no one outside of the Bush White House. They are uncritically reported in the media, especially in the New York Times. Just as all of the Iraqi resistance is now falsely identified as al-Qaeda, now every killing of an American soldier will be blamed on Iran.

The unanimous vote means that even Senators who voted against occupying Iraq will inevitably give the thumbs up to nuking millions of Iranians. There is literally no one representing the American people who will say no to this call for mass murder. Clinton, Obama, Biden and Dodd made certain that they were in Washington instead of Iowa or New Hampshire. Their votes were needed to keep the war machine chugging along and the campaign checks in the mail.

Just as Joe Lieberman stoked the fires of war in Washington, Avigdor Lieberman, a member of Israel’s parliament, claimed that NATO gave Israel permission to attack Iran. Lieberman is quite an outspoken racist who has called for the mass killing of Arabs living in Israel. It is an odd coincidence that he made his claim just as the American Lieberman got his ducks in a row to begin the countdown.

The Nazi comparison is accurate even when applied to Israelis or to American Jews like Joe Lieberman. They can be called fascist if they promote fascist -ideology. The two Liebermans should not be allowed to use the suffering of their own people to mask their own evil doing. It would not be the first time that members of an oppressed group gladly joined the ranks of oppressors if someone else was the oppressee.

The world will ask Americans what they knew and when they knew it. Did they know that Iranian president Ahmedinejad never said Israel should be “wiped off the map?” Did they know that Israel is a nuclear power under no threat from Iran? Did they know that the U.S. is holding Iranian diplomats hostage? Ironically, outright lies and deliberate omissions in government and in the corporate media will allow most Americans to truthfully say they had no idea their government had turned them into war criminals.

Politicians can make no such claim. They are cowards. Their biggest fear is incurring the wrath of the Israeli lobby and their check bundling supporters. They also know that it is easier to call for war. Telling the American people to think for themselves is a tall order for politicians, especially if doing so means that the press will dismiss or ignore them, thereby ending their political careers or making them irrelevant if they manage to stay in office.

Just ask Richard Durbin. He learned his lesson. Truth telling gets you nowhere. It is much easier to kill millions of people. No one in a position of power demands an apology for that.

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Voice of Revolution
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