Ever since the Lieberman-Kyl amendment designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as terrorists, Iran has decided to play America’s perverted game called U.S. foreign policy. At this stage in the game, the U.S. is at a point where, as Hillary Clinton would say, “we sink some teeth into all this talk” about war. In response to the U.S.’s move to “sink some teeth” into its talk about war, Iran has put some “teeth” into its talk of war with America as well.
The Iranian government voted Saturday, Sept. 28th, to designate America’s CIA and the U.S. Army “a terrorist organization.” The parliament feels the two deserve this designation because “of the atomic bombing of Japan; the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; support of the killings of Palestinians by Israel; the bombing and killing of Iraqi civilians and the torture of imprisoned terror suspects.” If ratified by Iran’s “hardline constitutional watchdog”, the designations would become Iranian law. Fair enough.
The Bush Administration was apparently dumbfounded that another nation would stand up for its rights as a state and take on the most supreme power in the world. It declined to comment when news of this designation was reported by the press. The administration has probably decided to work faster towards a preemptive strike as I type the keys on this keyboard.
To refresh your memory, an increase in talk of war with Iran started with the passing of a Lieberman-Kyl amendment, after the leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visited Columbia University to speak and was here for a UN function. The bill was brought up by Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel during the Sept 26th Democratic Debate where he said he was ashamed of Hillary for voting for the bill. Hillary responded and claimed her actions were justified. A few days passed and now America is faced with a dilemma. But first off, let’s see what issues Gravel took with Hillary’s response at the debate because he has written a response that is online to Hillary’s fallacious reply during the debate last Wednesday.
Hillary claimed that the Lieberman-Kyl bill gives the U.S. the “opportunity to designate it as a terrorist organization, which gives us the options to be able to impose sanctions on the primary leaders to try and sink some teeth in to this talk about dealing with Iran.” According to Gravel’s response found on Information Clearinghouse, “she and her staff should know the United Nations Security Council on March 24 already slapped economic sanctions on individual Guard Members.” And that “Iran allows Guard commanders to own and run private companies like the Red Army in China. 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.”
Logically, this terrorist organization designation is a calculated move led by the Bush administration to defy the UN once again and strike Iran whether the UN is approves of a strike or not and Democrats are falling for it. As Sen. Jim Webb says, “You can read this as a backdoor method of gaining congressional validation for military action.” Despite the fact that clauses 3 and 4 were removed, Bush could still alter language in his signing statement, which he unconstitutionally chooses to utilize often.
Hillary’s response to Gravel indicated that she believed a designation deeming the Guard to be a terrorist organization must be placed on the Guard before any sanctions could be imposed. Gravel responded saying, “I know of no law dictating the State Department must first designate individuals or groups as terrorists before sanctions can be imposed on them.”
Gravel went on to detail how organizations are designated as “terrorist organizations” saying, “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.”
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