Outrage, Hope and Action

She and her staff should know the United Nations Security Council on March 24 already slapped economic sanctions on individual Guard Members. Like the Red Army in China, Iran allows Guard commanders to own and run private companies. Security Council Resolution 1747, which the United States voted for, froze financial assets held outside Iran on the seven military commanders, including General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr and six other admirals and generals.

I know of no law dictating the State Department must first designate individuals or groups as terrorists� before sanctions can be imposed on them. Dozens of countries have been under U.S. unilateral sanctions that are not designated as terrorist. The U.S. first imposed sanctions on Iran in 1979 over the hostages, not terrorism. The only possible purpose of the Senate resolution asking the State Department to designate the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization� is to set it up for military attack in George Bush�s war on terror.�

As Virginia senator Jim Webb valiantly said in the Senate, the United States has never before designated the military services of a sovereign state a terrorist group. Indeed, though there is international dispute over the definition of terrorism, there is little disagreement on the legal point that terrorists are non-state actors� who target civilians, i.e., never members of a government. Governments can be guilty of war crimes, but not terrorism. And the resolution talks about attacks on American troops, not civilians.

The hypocrisy of Hillary and the 75 other senators who called for more unilateral sanctions on Iran, was exposed Monday by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who said, according to Spiegel Magazine, that American companies are violating existing U.S. sanctions by surreptitiously doing business with Iran through front companies in Dubai.

Joe Lieberman wrote the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq that was passed with Democratic support on October 11, 2002. Lieberman�s new resolution setting up a Bush-Cheney invasion of Iran passed by 76 to 22 with Democratic backing on September 26, 2007. These are two dates that will live in infamy in the 21st century. Led by Senator Clinton, it was another sad day for the Senate and for Senate Democrats, who were elected to the majority in November in order to end a war, not start a new one.

Mike Gravel is a former US Senator from Alaska and is currently running for the Democratic Nomination for President.

Way I figure it, some of the 397 representatives and 77 senators who voted in favor of a nuclear attack on Iran did so because they�re Israel-firsters. But most of them couldn�t care less about Israel, they�re simply political whores who fear being targeted by Israel Lobby enforcers more than they fear retaliation from angry voters. They would rather murder millions of innocent Iranians in a nuclear strike than incur the enmity of AIPAC goons. Besides, maybe the voters won�t bother to take revenge on their distinguished representatives and senators, since most voters really want them to do whatever it takes, including mass murder and crimes against humanity, to get control of all that Iranian oil.

Make no mistake, these two resolutions were sneakily drafted to provide authorization for nuclear war on Iran while being vague enough to allow for future deniability when the war goes south on them. Just because our pols have no souls doesn�t mean they�re stupid. They know that the US cannot possibly win simultaneous, conventional wars in both Iraq and Iran, even with a draft. So the plan is to go nuclear. What the heck, in for a dime, in for a dollar. They�re already indictable war criminals for authorizing mass murder in Iraq so what�s another several million victims added to the official non-tally? Plus, the resolutions� fine print contains enough weasel words that our enlightened statesmen can always claim they never intended to authorize nuclear war, while Bush/Cheney can claim, truthfully, that they did.
.....

Here�s how the Senate voted on the Senate Amendment (SA 3017), giving the Bush administration cover for a military attack on Iran:

NO:
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)

YES:
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lott (R-MS)
Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

Among the presidential candidates, Biden and Dodd voted against, Clinton voted for, and Obama didn�t show up for the vote.

Former Senator Edwards said (in the recent debate): �I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran. And I think that vote today, which Senator Biden and Senator Dodd voted against, and they were correct to vote against it, is a clear indication of the approach that all of us would take with the situation in Iran. Because what I learned in my vote on Iraq was, you cannot give this president the authority and you can�t even give him the first step in that authority, because he cannot be trusted.�

Governor Richardson: Stresses diplomacy in foreign relations with Iran.

Congressman Kucinich: Stresses diplomacy in foreign relations with Iran.

Unfortunately, ALL the Democratic candidates for president are FOR flooding the job market with low-wage replacement workers � a policy which lowers wages and benefits for all working Americans, and furthers the destruction of our middle class and our economy. When asked about illegal immigration, they all responded with empty rhetoric about �a nation of immigrants,� even Kucinich and Gravel.