Has Hillary Lost Her Freakin' Mind?

I imagine there are quite a few people around the word who would label our military as a terrorist organization. It's for damn sure that the Iraqi people have been terrorized by "shock and awe" and just about everything that has happened since.

So, it's the sense of the Senate that Iran's Revolutionary Guard is a terrorist organization, eh? Who told them that? The same Revolutionary Guardsmen who with met with Michael Ledeen (neocon from hell) in Rome, Dec 2001, the same city from which the Niger forgeries came to light?.

Just wondering...

Hillary Prods Bush to Go After Iran

By Robert Parry
September 28, 2007

So let me see if I’ve got this right: Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for the presidential nomination, is demanding that George W. Bush take a more belligerent posture toward Iran.

In her view – and that of 75 other members of the U.S. Senate – President Bush hasn’t been aggressive or hasty enough in designating a large part of the Iranian military, the Revolutionary Guards, as an international terrorist organization.

The Senate resolution, approved on Sept. 26, recounts allegations that elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have supplied Iraqi Shiite militias with “explosively formed penetrator” bombs that have shattered U.S. armored vehicles and killed American troops.

In response, the Senate resolution calls on President Bush to list the Revolutionary Guards as “specially designated global terrorists.” In opposing the resolution, Sen. James Webb, D-Virginia, warned that the move could be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Despite Webb’s protest, 29 Democrats joined Republicans and neoconservative Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to pass the “sense of the Senate” resolution. The Democrats egging Bush on included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, California’s Dianne Feinstein and Michigan’s Carl Levin.

Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Richard Lugar of Indiana were the only Republicans voting no. Democratic presidential hopefuls Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut also opposed the measure. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was absent but said he would have voted against it.

But Hillary Clinton, who also voted to grant Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq in 2002 and staunchly supported the war for the next three years before reinventing herself as an Iraq War critic, now has reverted to her old hawkish self, jumping out ahead of Bush in urging a more hostile policy toward Iran.

Besides the extraordinary notion that Bush needs prodding into greater belligerence, there is the dangerous definitional problem of throwing the broad cloak of “terrorism” over Iraqis, who are resisting a U.S. military invasion force, and their alleged Iranian allies.

The classic definition of terrorism is violence directed against civilians to make a political point. The term shouldn't be applied to an indigenous population fighting an irregular war against a foreign occupying army, since that would have made everyone from George Washington to the French Resistance to the Afghanis confronting the Soviet occupation "terrorists."

Though Americans understandably detest anyone killing U.S. soldiers – whatever the circumstances – it is not "terrorism." In effect, the Senate resolution is chosing to use “terrorist” as a geopolitical curse word against any combatant who challenges U.S. military might.

While that "tough-guy/gal" stance might make political sense domestically – condemning anyone who dares take up arms against U.S. soldiers – the risk is that once the word “terrorist” is attached, it effectively dictates a course of action: negotiations with "terrorists" are prohibited and a host of draconian actions become unavoidable, even if they are counterproductive.

With a peaceful solution off the table, violence is almost guaranteed to escalate; more U.S. soldiers are likely to die; and American interests may be damaged. One might have thought that the lesson of loosely applying the epithet “terrorist” to an adversary would have been learned from the debacle that followed Bush falsely linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda.

That is a lesson now measured by the blood of some 3,800 dead American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. But it is a lesson that Hillary Clinton and those other senators – with their fingers to the political winds – apparently still haven’t learned.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Robert Gates: Screw the Troops, I'm With The President.

What a jackass!

Sec. Def. Gates:

I Would Recommend That The President Veto Giving Troops More Time At Home

The Washington Post reported this morning that one of the “best opportunities” for war critics “to change policy” in Iraq is an amendment by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), which would “mandate that home leaves for troops last as long as their deployments.” The measure failed in July to break a Republican filibuster, “but it appears to be gaining momentum in the Senate.”

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he would recommend that the President veto the bill should it pass. “Yes, I would,” said Gates when asked by host Chris Wallace, calling it a “well-intentioned idea” that would “pose greater risk to our troops”:

GATES: I think that it’s a well-intentioned idea. I think it’s really, pretty much, a back door effort to get the President to accelerate the drawdown, so that it’s an automatic kind of thing rather than based on the conditions in Iraq, with all the consequences that I talked about earlier. I think, if as I believe, the President would never approve such a bill. It would mean, if it were enacted, we would have force management problems that would be extremely difficult and in fact create, I think affect combat effectiveness, and perhaps pose greater risk to our troops.

Later in the show, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), whose son is set to deploy to Iraq in 2008, responded to Gates, arguing that the Webb measure is necessary because the “long-term consequence” of “these kind of deployments is absolutely disastrous for the United States of America and for the United States military.”

“If you don’t figure out how to get these folks some time home, you are gonna break, break this military,” said Biden. He also said that Gates’ concerns were overblown because “we can do what we need to do in Iraq with significantly fewer troops”:

BIDEN: What are the consequences of continuing to do what we’re doing with essentially the way in which we’re deploying these troops? As the military said we’re breaking, we’re breaking the United States military. Flat breaking it. And what we’re doing is we’re going to end up in a situation where you don’t have people signing up. you’re gonna end up having to go to draft. This long-term consequence, keeping these kind of deployments is absolutely disastrous for the United States of America and for the United States military. It’s not a good thing the other way either. You choose two very bad alternatives. One very bad and one okay. If you don’t figure out how to get these folks some time home, you are gonna break, break this military. That’s what this is about. and we can do what we need to do in Iraq with significantly fewer troops. That is my contention and the contention of a whole lot of other people outside this administration.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Army Chief of Staff, and other leading generals agree with Biden that the military has been stretched to a breaking point. The Webb amendment is a crucial first step towards guaranteeing it doesn’t actually break.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.