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Local News & Opinion
Ref. : Local Newsbriefs Travel
Films, Arts & Education
Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable Health & Environment
06.29 Thinking about Climate 06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN 06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare 06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All 06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate 06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex 06.22 Thinking about Recoveries 06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo 06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform 06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers 06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care 06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations Media Watching
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform 06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage 06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right 06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess US Politics, Policy & Culture
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy 06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity 06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail 06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission? 06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership 06.25 America's "Bases of Empire" 06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town 06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins 06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program 06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black 06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix 06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran? 06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program? 06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory 06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed High Crimes?
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement" 07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure 06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq 06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release 06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War 06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future 06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record 06.14 Fear Rules Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America 06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control 06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney International
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean 06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New 06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise' 06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil 06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?” 06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran 06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections 06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters 06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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CLEVER IMPERIALISM:Senators Kyle and Lieberman and their Stealth War Authorization
Any member of Congress who supports this sleazy, ill-founded amendment should be hounded from office.
Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Sen. Jon Kyle (R-AZ) want the US to attack Iran, but because they know most Americans know that is a crazy idea at a time that the US is already bogged down in a losing war in Iraq, they want to authorize this disastrous expansion of the conflict secretly.That’s why, instead of introducing a war authorizing bill in the Senate, they have introduced a war-authorizing amendment, attached to the latest Defense Authorization Bill currently working its way through Congress.
Their proposed amendment cites the dubious claims made to Congress last week by Gen. David “Peaches” Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker that Iran is promoting the violence in Iraq, and then seeks to authorize “the prudent (sic) calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military instruments.” Any member of Congress who supports this sleazy, ill-founded amendment should be hounded from office as the ultimate weasel and coward. It bears mentioning that the leading weasels in this despicable effort to pour more accelerant on the fires of the Middle East, Lieberman and Kyle, are themselves both notorious “chickenhawks”—that is, neither of these gung-ho warmongers ever wore a military uniform, much less faced the horrors of combat. The biggest challenge these two worthies ever faced was first-year law school classes. Putting aside the assininity of bombing and/or invading Iran—an action that would instantly more than double world oil prices, and precipitate a global economic collapse, and that would cause an eruption of violence against already beleaguered US forces in Iraq—even if one thought invading that nation of 70 million and taking on its battle-hardened military was somehow a good idea, it hardly makes sense to do so without the support of the American public. Bush put the US into a war with Iraq in 2003 by way of lies and deception, knowing that the vast public did not support such an invasion. By lying about Saddam Hussein’s links to 9-11 and about Iraq’s having or trying to obtain nuclear weapons, Bush was able to forge an artificial consensus in favor of war, but we’ve watched that support evaporate as the deceit was exposed. This time around, Lieberman and Kyle aren’t even bothering with a propaganda campaign of lies. They’re going straight to the deceit, trying to pass what amounts to a war authorization by tucking it into a larger military spending bill. No general in his or her right mind would want to march into battle with that kind of Congressional “support.” But it’s just the kind of thing you’d expect from a devious slimeball like Lieberman or Kyl. Every American should be contacting their members of Congress to demand that they have no part of this nefarious scheme. The Kyle-Lieberman amendment must be killed. If Congress wants war with Iran, the pro-war faction should have the gonads to write and then formally pass a resolution authorizing, and explaining the justification for authorizing, such a war. When others were volunteering to support their country during the Cold War by signing up with one of the military services back in the early 1960s, Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl, like their patron Vice President Dick Cheney, had “other priorities.” They were busy earning undergraduate and law degrees so they could make the big bucks and then go into politics. Now they are the big war hawks in Congress, ready to authorize an action that will most assuredly lead to the deaths and maimings of tens of thousands more young Americans and hundreds of thousands or even millions of innocent Iranians. I say, if Lieberman and Kyl want war with Iran so badly, they should go to the Persian Gulf and hang out on one of the destroyers that are likely to get hit by one of Iran’s shore-to-ship missiles once hostilities begin. At least they should finally be willing to put their lives on the line with the people they want to place in harm’s way. About the author: Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff is co-author, with
Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for ImpeachmentCopyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on September 26, 2007. |
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