Talking Points on Kyl-Lieberman Amendment

[babylonsister]

Talking Points on Kyl-Lieberman Amendment
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2007-09-24 23:16. Iran

Council for a Livable World and Open Society Policy Center Urge "No" Vote

The Council for a Livable World and Open Society Policy Center oppose the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment No. 3017 to the Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization bill as a provocative measure that will only undermine efforts to resolve tensions with Iran through diplomacy.

*Talking points on the amendment*

*The amendment could wind up being another in a long line of blank checks
provided to the Executive Branch in the mold of the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution and the authorization to use force in Iraq. *It endorses the
"use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq," including
military. While it calls for "prudent and calibrated" measures, the
loophole is big enough to drive an aircraft carrier or a fleet of planes
through. **

*Provocative measures such as the Kyl-Lieberman amendment can lead to a
tit-for-tat escalation resulting in military confrontation between the US
and Iran.* There are no good military options for solving our disagreements
with Iran. Military action would only result in disastrous and unintended
consequences for U.S. and Israeli interests. If we have learned nothing else
from Iraq, it is that there are limitations to the use of military force.

*Rather than escalating tensions, the U.S. should pursue smart, tough-minded
dialogue and diplomacy*, which are far more likely than force to produce a
satisfactory resolution in the case of Iran.

*Iran**'s gains in Iraq are largely due to the Bush invasion of Iraq.* As
Peter Galbraith recently wrote in the New York Review of
Books,
*"George W. Bush had from the first facilitated the very event he warned
would be a disastrous consequence of a US withdrawal from Iraq: the takeover
of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia . . . Since
2005, Iraq's Shiite-led government has concluded numerous economic,
political, and military agreements with Iran. The most important would link
the two countries' strategic oil reserves by building a pipeline from
southern Iraq to Iran, while another commits Iran to providing extensive
military assistance to the Iraqi government." *

*The Kyl-Lieberman amendment is a resolution based almost entirely on false
premises.* The resolution only quotes questionable and unsubstantiated
assertions provided by the U.S. military about Iranian involvement in Iraq.
Though General Petraeus first embraced the official line in his written
Congressional testimony that Iran is using its elite "Quds force" in Iraq to
mold the Shiites into a proxy force to fight U.S. troops, he later
contradicted himself in answering a question from Rep. Hunter when he said
that that the Quds force had been withdrawn from Iraq. General Petraeus
said: "?The Quds Force itself ? we believe, by large, those
individuals have been pulled out of the country, as have the Lebanese
Hezbollah trainers that were being used to augment that activity."

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/27116

[annabanana]

1. This is a remarkably sneaky amendment and I hope that

everyone brings the facts in this post to their congresscritters!!