CLEVER IMPERIALISM:

Senators Kyle and Lieberman and their Stealth War Authorization

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 Impeachment. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.