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TechnoratiPre-Empting the Next War
With the Senate embracing the reckless Kyl-Lieberman amendment, we've moved one step closer to attacking Iran. But there's still time for Congress to assert itself against yet another needless war with massive destructive potential. By defining Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, a core branch of the Iranian military, as a foreign terrorist organization, Kyl-Lieberman put the U.S. Senate on record as vindicating the Bush-Cheney line that Iranian proxies are part of a global conspiracy, linking Al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents, Hamas, Hezbollah, and any other enemy the administration wants to list. The bill now makes it far easier for Bush to manufacture some Tonkin Gulf-style excuse, then use it to justify an attack. No wonder Senator Jim Webb called it Cheney's fondest pipe dream.
But this vote also gives opponents of this astonishingly reckless path a chance to push back, and draw a line against a unilateral war. Last March, Senator Webb introduced Senate Bill 759, to prohibit military action against Iran without explicit Senate approval. The Foreign Relations Committee has bottled up Webb's bill so far, but he's working to move it to the floor. When the Senators voted for Kyl-Lieberman, most claimed, with echoes of Iraq, that they really weren't giving Bush permission to go to war. Webb's bill gives them a chance to back up their rationalizations with their votes.
This past July, Colorado Congressman Mark Udall introduced a companion measure, House Resolution 3119, with identical language. I'm suggesting they both go even further, to include a pledge to initiate or support impeachment proceedings if Bush initiated such an attack without explicit Congressional authorization. In the House, such a resolution wouldn't even need Senate ratification (or overcoming a Republican filibuster or Bush veto), since the House can initiate impeachment proceedings on its own. While such a line-drawing Senate bill could be vetoed or filibustered, it can still assert a fundamental constitutional prerogative, with a commitment to follow through if Bush violated it.
You might see Lieberman-Kyl as an indication that bipartisan jingoism against Iran has reached such a fever pitch that none of this could happen. But if they hear from their angry grassroots base, the 28 Democratic Senators who voted for it just might start looking for a way to cover themselves politically, and distance themselves from the Bush-Cheney doctrine of reckless preemptive wars. Even co-sponsor Jon Kyl claimed "this is not intended to be an authorization of military force against Iran." So with enough popular pressure, even Senators who just capitulated might turn and vote for a pre-emptive resolution reasserting that Bush is not the sole decider.
Not all the Democrats supported the Kyl-Lieberman, of course. Although those shamefully backing it included Hillary Clinton and much of the Democratic leadership, John Edwards blasted her for her stand, and Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson all opposed the bill (though Obama missed the vote when Reid scheduled it earlier than he'd previously indicated while Obama was stuck campaigning in New Hampshire). So did newly elected Democratic Senators Jim Webb, Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, Claire McCaskill, Amy Klobacher, and Bernie Sanders, and Republicans Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar. But the majority got stampeded once again.
Convincing them to switch course and reassert their right to make such a fundamental decision as whether to go to war with Iran will require a major popular outcry: petitions--from groups like MoveOn, TrueMajority, Working Assets, and Democracy for America--that aren't just mailed in, but publicly delivered by the basket. It means marches, rallies and endless phone calls and visits to Congressional offices. It probably means people sitting in some of these same offices (and I bet similar efforts around Iraq convinced my own Senator, Washington State's Maria Cantwell, to vote the right way in this case). We can say these kinds of efforts have so far failed to halt the Iraq war, but they've certainly fed the Congressional resistance, and it's always easier to stop wars before they start. We're also demanding a far more modest initial goal of Congress and the Senate simply reaffirming their constitutional right to make fundamental war-and-peace decisions in the first place. So it should be an easier sell.
It seems inconceivable that the Bush administration could even contemplate a military attack, given the massive global backlash it would create. But this administration feeds off a world of its own illusions, so we'd be wise to heed those, like Seymour Hersh, Daniel Ellsberg, and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who warn that an attack is likely. Working to stop it doesn't mean sugarcoating Iranian President Ahmadinejad's more questionable proclamations, though as University of San Francisco Middle East expert Stephen Zunes has pointed out, even some of those are (or have been) misstated. Ahmadinejad's oft-quoted threat to "wipe Israel off the map" was in fact a mistranslation of a 20-year-old quote by Ayatollah Khomeini, and Ahmadinejad explicitly told a group of American religious leaders that it was "not Iran's intention to destroy Israel." We can point out that Iran's fundamental decisions on foreign affairs get made not by Ahmadinejad, but by the far more cautious Council of Guardians. And we can suggest that those itching to attack try viewing the world through the lens of the Iranians, who remember, as we do not, that we've already once overthrown an elected government of that country, in the 1953 CIA coup that deposed elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in favor of the brutal Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Ahmadinejad might not even have been elected to office had Bush not rejected a major 2003 initiative by Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, that included accepting peace with Israel and tighter nuclear inspections, and backing off from supporting Hezbollah.
But the campaign against a new Iranian war doesn't even have to demand agreement on Iran policy at all. It just has to reassert the right of Congress to be the final arbiter of whether or not we go to war. For all their cravenness in the face of Bush's demands, I doubt that most Senators would launch into attacking Iran while we continue to be mired down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pushing for a resolution asserting Congressional rights would provide a concrete focus for those of us working to stop such a war, while placing Congressional Representatives, Senators, and Presidential candidates explicitly on record about whether to grant Bush the power to take this immensely reckless action. The voters could then respond to those unwilling to sign such a pledge.
Kyl-Lieberman is unquestionably a setback, giving Bush and Cheney still more latitude in proceeding toward global conflagration. But the now-more-likely war we're trying to stop is not inevitable. It's still up to us and the pressure we can create to stop it before it starts. Demanding Congress go on record about who decides would be a critical step.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
32 Comments so far
Show AllI feel that Paul is somewhat naive to think that congress is interested in anything different than this administration is.
All Congress really cares about is:
1. To save the trading value of the U.S. dollar since it has no visable means of support and is tied to oil.
2. To have support from Wall street CEO's who are driving these wars and handing out perks
3. To keep us in perpetual war to control oil, currency value, and instil fear in the U.S. public.
We have created a Frankenstien corporate government, and the only way to get it back under control is to starve it.
NATIONAL BOYCOTT
NATIONAL STRIKE
If we are not willing to do these two things to bring the Fortune 500 back under control, we don't deserve any freedom or liiberty at all.
pacplyer
Perhaps we should use bumper stickers, leaflets and pamphlets to try to put the anti-war message across. Pieces of paper are favored by advertisers because they hang about for a while before being discarded and in the meantime they sometimes even get read. Most of us have printers and surely someone with the requisite knowledge and liguistic skills can compose clear, concise, unambiguous and attractive-looking expositions of various topics for us to distribute. Maybe there could even be a web site dedicated to such an enterprise.
A couple of my Letters to the Editor on the prospect of a military strike on Iran were published in the Fort Myers News-Press. I sent hard copies to both Florida senators and Rep. Connie Mack.
I included a cover letter that cites this study showing that only 8% of America favors military action, a percentage that has continued to drop.
(http://www.publicagenda.org/foreignpolicy/foreignpolicy_diplomacy.htm)
I also remind them of the impact military action of any sort is likely to have on oil prices. While Americans will watch passively as the constitution is shredded, they will not sit still for ballooning gas prices. I remind my congressional clowns that the public will know exactly who to blame for the price spike.
I recommend everybody do something similar.
From the discussion so far, I liked these ideas:
--Engage in massive civil disobedience that is so large it makes the 1960's look like a church picnic.
--The only way to prevent war is to build a mass movement that forces the government to do our will. Organize a sit-in at your senator's office. Block the entrance to ports that ship munitions overseas. Shut down a military recruiting station. Open a GI coffeehouse. Organize a mutiny within your platoon.
--
Seattle WTO protests felt like victory, one that could not be undone. But the rulers learned that the next step, for them, to stop that again, was to end the era of treating demonstrators with respect and giving them media attention. We've seen what happened to people at the RNC protests in 2004 or before that, at the February rally in NYC in 2003.
The protests need to be larger on the one hand, and more imaginatively aggressive on the other.
But it's likely to be a rough ride ahead. Some sort of false flag operation or staged incident is likely to precede military action in Iran. It doesn't look far off if we study the movements and activities of the US military--that's the best indication that war is in offing again.
But the ruling elite may overplay their hand... the proles, when the sheep look up, when everyone catches on that it's been a lie, the war is about oil, the criminals running this show risk their game on every play. The birth of our power is the realization we can bring down the machine with massive protests or with a general strike. If that day ever comes, the world will celebrate and petty dictators around the world will be looking for shelter as their protectors fall. I see the people, in distant lands, I see them dancing in the streets, I feel the celebrations that come with the fall of the most criminal regime since Hitler's rise. Can you hear the cheers yet? Turn off your TV and give it a try. They are counting on us. That's the day I want to live, the rest of it is a holding pattern, a test pattern on a black and white television...
Despite all restrictions put on Bush by the Congress, it can never stop a madman from creating a Gulf of Tonkin incident and attacking Iran under the guise of self-defense.
Jacob Freeze,
A lot more than it would take to scale its sides, toss out the driver, and take over the wheel. It's the hand on the steering wheel that matters, not tossing oneself under the other wheels. I'd think that after centuries of martyrdom we should see its folly by this point.
i'm sure most of you know of the article in Asia Times on William Fallon's commets about Gen Petraeus. In case you aren't aware, another quote in the same article indicates that Fallon will quit rather than attack Iran.
see the whole article here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II14Ak02.html
quotes below:
Petraeus out of step with US top brass
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - In sharp contrast to the lionization of General David Petraeus by members of the US Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (Centcom), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad in March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that," the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.....
He demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third aircraft-carrier task force to the Persian Gulf. Fallon questioned the military necessity for the move, which would have signaled to Iran a readiness to go to war. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.
How many people would have to throw themselves under the wheels of this juggernaut to stop it before it gets to Iran?
Any volunteers?
It is inconceivable that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world could even conceive of such a move. However this unelected zealot is not bound by logic or historical insight--only his devine guidance, and his special interest supporters.
Al Jazeera's Rageh Omar (Witness Documentries) in Iran a great film:
http://tinyurl.com/2ta9tz
youtube: webster tarpley
he is one of the 9/11 guys and there is a recent interview he did in nyc about what to do, right now.
he expects october to be the month of the attack, unless we stop it.
check him out.
tick tock.
But of course we'll support our troops when they bomb Iran.
how how could it be that reid
is from my home state of nevada
there was not many of us in those days (135K)
and i believed all had sage tinged blood
maybe he has been on dialysis..
he is a bit older
and grew up not far from vegas
i grew up not far from reno 500 miles away..
i don't know 'n
i just don't know
i now live in north idaho
i am going to interact with
my elected officials
a break please
there are red states then
there is one state that
is blood red
yeah
mine..
reid was very close to yucca flats
maybe???????
ken
Harry Reid by scheduling this vote early just further proves that he is either a spineless coward (which I think he is) or he is in the republican's pocket(which I also think he is)The senate will never bring the troops home or stop funding this illegal war as long as Harry Reid is majority leader. Reid pays no attention to the majority of people who gave the Democrats the majority to stop the war and rein in this corrupt administration.I have emailed Reid many,many times but it doesn't seem to do any good. Reid is either stupid or hardheaded or both, one thing's for sure he is worthless as is Nancy Pelosi
And we have less time than we think. Flashback: February, 2003. The polls start to turn against Operation Oil. Within weeks, it's 54-46 against and dropping fast. Cheneybush's response? Time-table accelerated. Inspectors ordered out before they're able to finish their work, followed quickly by shock and awe.
These nuts are prepared for any contingency. If they see obstruction coming, they'll start pushing buttons. Congress either acts at Terry Schiavo speed, or they'll be sidelined by the Grandmother of all US military disasters.
I thought the Constitution empowers the Congress to declare war. When did Congress relinquish this power to Bush that it should now try to get it back?
Israeli fifth column and its Lieberman-Kyl agents may eventually succeed to destroy our country.
I saw a group of five A-10 Tank-Killer Warthog aircraft overhead in the Midwest yesterday.
You all might be interested to know that the two worst paragraphs of the Liberman/Kyl amendment were removed, before it was voted on. This was largely due to all the petitions and phone calls that congress revieved. I know this is not much, compared to the numerous "sins" of congress. Still, it does show that we can have some influence through these methods.
However, I totally agree with those posters who said we need to use other methods as well. Those who have totally lost hope for change scare me almost as much as the neo-cons. We must continue to respond to the terrible wrongs being done in our name with our taxes, to do otherwise is cowardly and a betrayal of ourselves and the planet.
Here's the question:
Will the existing Democratic party revert back to the all encompasing value of the "common good", after loosing ten, fifteen, or twenty presidential elections?
Or will common necessity prevail and a new third party come into being that creates a common good?
If I was a betting person,I'd give odds. . .
Manipulation of public sentiment lies at the very heart of the White House's entire Iraq war enterprise, and it will likely have a similar role in any military attack on Iran. For those interested in a psychological analysis of this warmongering, I have recently completed a 10-minute online video entitled "Resisting the Drums of War." It examines how the Bush administration's messaging targets five core concerns that often govern our lives--concerns about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. The video examines their warmongering appeals and offers suggestions for how to counter them. It's available for viewing HERE.
My Congressman is Jim Moran! Actually he acknowledged AIPAC's role in the runup to the Iraq war and now Iran and he's come under fire by the usual idealogues to retract his statements. Jim Moran will get my vote again for standing up to the AIPAC warmongers.
Bombers drill at Eugene airport
I live 10 miles south of the Eugene airport. Early in 2003, prior to President Bush's invasion of Iraq, there were numerous military aircraft practicing approaches to the airport.
Some of the craft were so low and so noxiously loud that my wife called the airport to complain.The airport operator connected her directly to the air controllers in the tower, where they confirmed that military aircraft crews were practicing instrument approaches. Weeks later, Bush invaded Iraq.
Well, they're at it again. There is a B1 bomber crew - yes, a B1 bomber - that for weeks has been making practice runs on the airport and again the air controller on duty confirmed they are practicing instrument approaches. Coincidently, the Air Force last week "mistakenly" flew a planeload of nuclear bombs across America's skies to the East Coast.
Iranian officials had better beware. For the record, I am a four-year veteran of the Korean conflict era, and I do not appreciate what this country has become. I am so ashamed.
Jim Clarkson
Eugene
The chickenshit Congress is simply slithering around trying to determine which course of action puts more money in their pockets. When there is a government for sale there is no lack of buyers.
We shouldn't be voting for "could live with" candidates. By the time you compromise your vote by second-guessing how your neighbor will be voting, who the MSM has picked and will allow coverage of, and the politician him/herself compromises once elected, America has clearly ended up with scoundrels quite far removed from genuine sentiment. Compounding effect of compromise.
The Democrats with the aid of the MSM have become little more than a safety net for the neocons and neoliberals. The Dems are there to either reassure us that they've done "everything" (to stop the war), to offer a half-baked corporotist solution (health care), etc. and to stop any real reform of our antiquated voting system. The Dems have a tough job. As Bush-enablers, they must stave off legitimately warranted radical reform in radical-right times.
At times, I think the left/down would be better served by voting for the most crooked/far-right candidate in the Republican Party. Let the country go through a couple more cycles of a Bush-style presidency. The economy, national image, military resources, respect for rule of law, etc. would be in such a terrible shambles that the Democratic party would look more clearly -- and to greater numbers -- as the band-aid it is.
Paul- great point! Voting for the lesser of two evils year after year has gotten us one thing, and one thing only.
Evil.
The most interesting thing I just read is that Reid rescheduled the vote, causing Obama to miss the vote. Interesting because all I had previously known was that he did in fact miss it. This did not set well with me, as someone who generally had thought either Obama or Edwards would be so much better than Hillary; I know, Kucinich is better, but this is the what-could-I-live with question. And the non-vote was moving him out of that category. Now I come to learn that Reid's scheduling did this: what was Reid doing, and why?
Just face the facts: The democrats will not stop the Iraq war, and will not stop a military attack on Iran. You can keep voting for democrats, and keep on lobbying them until you are blue in the face, but it will not happen.
We, as a nation, have two choices:
1. Engage in massive civil disobedience that is so large it makes the 1960's look like a church picnic, or,
2. Stop voting for warmongering democrats.
Congress couldn't care less about niceties like polls, public opinion, letter writing, citizen activism, etc. It's clear that Bush's puppetmaster is in charge of both the Montagues and Capulets.
The best indicator of Congressional action -- or inaction -- as the case may be is the MSM, since they too evidently work for the puppetmaster. They're banging the drumbeat of war, and it's war we'll be getting.
why stop at Iran. Let's blow up the f..king world.
"Demanding Congress go on record about who decides would be a critical step."
Huh?
Congress doesn't listen to the public. Does Loeb think that emails and faxes are going to avert war? Who does he think he's fooling?
The only way to prevent war is to build a mass movement that forces the government to do our will. Organize a sit-in at your senator's office. Block the entrance to ports that ship munitions overseas. Shut down a military recruiting station. Open a GI coffeehouse. Organize a mutiny within your platoon.
But don't continue to entertain false illusions that merely lodging a complaint with government officials will cause them to change course.
http://www.sirnosir.com
Reasserting "the right of Congress to be the final arbiter of whether or not we go to war." is not enough! History repeatedly shows that the opportunistic slime are easily manipulated and will cave to the repugs every time.
We need to make it a federal crime punishable by life in prison for poiliticians to make false statements that are incitements to war to Congress, the media, or the American people and it needs to be retroactive. (Actually it already is a crime to give the government false inromation under the patriot act so it isn't a big stretch.)
I can't even get my Congresswoman to acknowledge Iran exists, let alone make ANY kind statement against a war with Iran.
BTW also states 'I can't impeach without proof of high crimes....,etc." - the mantra of the pelosiviks of our Congress who are all ignoring their constituencies.
I wonder how all these representatives are going to sleep at night when the carnage begins and they did absolutely nothing to stop it. They refuse to turn off the money spigot, they refuse to impeach, they refuse to restore habeas corpus and on... and on.