[Peace-discuss] Lieberman-Kyl DEFANGED?

[Morton K. Brussel]

Make up your own mind. The first text below, from The Pen  
organization, claims that the K-L amendment was defanged. That seems  
to go much too far, but the warlike tone was indeed somewhat  
softened. The other paragraphs below come from a  blog site.

I think that this will not dissuade or affect the administration's  
intent; it seems to be a conditioning of the public for belligerency.

Some state that an attack of Iran will come in stages, with cross  
border attacks first to provoke the Iranians followed by gradual  
escalation. Other dire predictions involve starting with a nuclear  
attack, perhaps coordinated with Israel and NATO; see in particular

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=6918

by Michel Chossudovsky. Note, he also states "As far as is known, the  
incident marked the first time that a US plane has taken off armed  
with nuclear weapons in nearly 40 years. ... Of course, we don't in  
fact know.

On Sep 30, 2007, at 5:34 PM, The Pen wrote:

> WE THE PEOPLE CUT THE HEART OUT OF THE LIEBERMAN-KYL AMENDMENT
>
> It has taken a couple days for the actual disposition of the
> Lieberman-Kyl amendment to leak out, but in FACT, the two most
> offensive paragraphs (3 and 4), which we were objecting to so
> strenuously as amounting to a declaration of war on Iran, were
> REMOVED IN THEIR ENTIRELY prior to the vote. Which means we WON.
>
> Yes, you did it, with your TENS of thousands of emails and phone
> calls to Congress this last Monday and Tuesday. We are so proud of
> our participants on this one. Claim your win.
>
> What was left was not great, but ultimately it means nothing with the
> actual teeth of the amendment extracted, not that that's any excuse
> for those who voted yes (or did not vote at all). So the Senate
> called some people a terrorist organization. Big deal, it's not
> binding anyway, no more than their groundless and hypocritical
> condemnation of MoveOn a week ago. And for those who may say this
> gives Cheney and Bush an excuse to do anything, this White House
> doesn't think it needs an excuse to do anything, that's the whole
> POINT of impeachment.

The bill's backers had tried to mollify its critics by taking out  
some of its most incendiary language, particularly the idea that "it  
should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and  
roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside  
Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign  
facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi  
proxies."

Also removed from the measure was a provision "to support the prudent  
and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power  
in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military  
instruments" in support of the above.

One leading critic, Jim Webb, however, still opposed the bill because  
it designates the Iran guard a terrorist organization. Nonetheless,  
it was able to pass overwhelmingly.


The paragraphs below were REMOVED:

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat,  
contain, and [stop] the violent activities and destabilizing  
influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of  
Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its  
indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of  
United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic,  
intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy  
described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the  
Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

This paragraph was added:

“Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated on September 16, 2007 that  
“I think that the administration believes at this point that  
continuing to try and deal with the Iranian threat, the Iranian  
challenge, through diplomatic and economic means is by the preferable  
approach. That is the one we are using. We always say all options are  
on the table, but clearly, the diplomatic and economic approach is  
the one that we are pursuing.”


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