No More Encores for Iran

IMO we should be doing everything we can to head off a confrontation with Iran, instead many in congress are not challenging the administration on this issue.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17180.htm

"Iranians have a vivid memory of 1953, whether they witnessed it or it was passed down to them. It was the year when they fell victim to the first CIA-backed coup which destroyed their democracy. A coup which emboldened America to embark on many more such operations leaving behind it a trail of blood, tears and destruction while making a full circle – back to Iran.

True that there is only a quasi democracy in Iran at best, but the prize that brought the savagery of the ’53 coup is the same – oil. Today, while Mr. Bush asks Americans to ‘make sacrifices’ and die for their country to fight the ‘war on terror’, our tax dollars are ‘keeping’ the terrorist group MEK in Iraq and there are those in Washington who are contemplating using them in order to cause chaos in Iran and topple the regime in Tehran. Using terrorists to topple a regime came to power as a result of a revolution brought about by the oppressions of the man put in power by an American coup to get rid of democracy – how audacious!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/magazine/24ngo-t.html?ex=1340337600&en=a0b2dc3bab4878de&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss


“We are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country,” Rice told the assembled senators. The initiative would pour $36.1 million into existing television and radio programs beaming into Iran, while $10 million would pay for public diplomacy and exchange programs, including helping Iranians who hope to study in America...

Now, a year after its unveiling and with the administration requesting an additional $75 million for 2008, the democracy fund faces criticism, not only from Iranian officials but also from some of the very people whose causes it aims to advance. Could this ambitious program actually be doing more harm than good?

...It is particularly telling, perhaps, that some of the most outspoken critics of the Iranian government have been among the most outspoken critics of the democracy fund. Activists from the journalist Emadeddin Baghi to the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi to the former political prisoner Akbar Ganji have all said thanks but no thanks. Ganji has refused three personal invitations to meet with Bush. A member of a U.S.-based institution that has received State Department financing and who works with Iranians told me that the Iranians had expressly asked not to have their cause mentioned in presidential speeches. “The propaganda campaign surrounding the launch of this campaign has meant that many of our partners are simply too afraid to work with us anymore,” she told me on condition of anonymity. “It’s had a chilling effect.”

On Wednesday, the House voted on two amendments to the defense authorization bill that would have restricted the ability of the Bush Administration to launch an attack on Iran...

These amendments, which merely reaffirm the warmaking powers of the Congress under the U.S. Constitution, would have passed if most Democrats voted yes. So who were the Democrats who voted no?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/who-were-the-democrats-wh_b_48747.html

They "waltz around" making strong statements and posturing, but when the voting starts, they WORK FOR the corporations which comprise the Military Industrial Complex, first and always. :grr: :nuke:

We must STOP THE WAR-MONGERING! These evil people are now trying to pump us up to nuke Iran - don't let these evil people (Congress and The Unitary Executive) start any more wars.

END THESE DAMN WARS AND BRING OUR TROOPS HOME FROM THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST!

What part of "it's not our neighborhood" do they NOT understand? :grr:

war should be a priority for the Dems, too many are marching to the same beat :(