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Democrats Were Charged To End A War, Not Start One
By Mike Gravel
09/28/07 "ICH" -- - -Hillary Clinton was either misinformed or
economical with the truth in Wednesday night’s debate when she
responded to my challenge to her by saying the Senate’s
resolution earlier in the day on Iran was designed to permit
economic sanctions against individual members of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps.
She and her staff should know the United Nations Security
Council on March 24 already slapped economic sanctions on
individual Guard Members. Like the Red Army in China, Iran
allows Guard commanders to own and run private companies.
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.
I know of no law dictating the State Department must first
designate individuals or groups as terrorists before sanctions
can be imposed on them. 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.
As Virginia senator Jim Webb valiantly said in the Senate, the
United States has never before designated the military services
of a sovereign state a terrorist group. Indeed, though there is
international dispute over the definition of terrorism, there is
little disagreement on the legal point that terrorists are
non-state actors who target civilians, i.e., never members of a
government. Governments can be guilty of war crimes, but not
terrorism. And the resolution talks about attacks on American
troops, not civilians.
The hypocrisy of Hillary and the 75 other senators who called
for more unilateral sanctions on Iran, was exposed Monday by
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who said,
according to Spiegel Magazine, that American companies are
violating existing U.S. sanctions by surreptitiously doing
business with Iran through front companies in Dubai.
Joe Lieberman wrote the resolution authorizing the invasion of
Iraq that was passed with Democratic support on October 11,
2002. Lieberman’s new resolution setting up a Bush-Cheney
invasion of Iran passed by 76 to 22 with Democratic backing on
September 26, 2007. These are two dates that will live in infamy
in the 21st century. Led by Senator Clinton, it was another sad
day for the Senate and for Senate Democrats, who were elected to
the majority in November in order to end a war, not start a new
one.
Mike Gravel is a former US Senator from Alaska and is
currently running for the Democratic Nomination for President.
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