[NYTr] Who Put the Lie in Lieberman?

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Information Clearing House - Sep 3, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18301.htm


Who Put the Lie in Lieberman?

By Simon Floth

On July 11 this year congress loaded and pointed a gun at Iran in the
form of Lieberman?s amendment to the Defense Authorization act
(S.AMDT.2073, amending H.R.1585 and S.AMDT.2011).  That was more than
six weeks ago, yet the most pivotal feature of the amendment, and
indeed of history in the making, has gone entirely unremarked: It is a
demonstrable non-sequitur.

Claiming that Iran is complicit in the murder of US soldiers, the
amendment is a crucial link in an unrolling geopolicital chain of
events.  Yet it depends entirely on a fallacious inference smuggled
under sobering rhetoric.  The crux is quoted for reference below from
points a17 to b2.  

(Prior points accuse Iran of a direct or indirect involvement in
neighboring and fellow Shia-dominated Iraq to an extent dwarfed by
analogous actions of the US in any war-torn Latin American country.) 

?(17) On January 20, 2007, a sophisticated attack was launched by
insurgents at the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Iraq,
resulting in the murder of five American soldiers, four of whom were
first abducted.

(18) On April 26, 2007, General Petraeus stated that the so-called
Qazali network was responsible for the attack on the Karbala Provincial
Joint Coordination Center and that `there's no question that the Qazali
network is directly connected to the Iranian Qods force [and has]
received money, training, arms, ammunition, and at some points in time
even advice and assistance and direction''.

(19) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner stated that the United
States Armed Forces possesses documentary evidence that the Qods Force
had developed detailed information on the United States position at the
Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center `regarding our soldiers'
activities, shift changes, and defenses, and this information was
shared with the attackers''.

(20) On July 2, 2007, Brigadier General Bergner stated of the January
20 Karbala attackers, `[They] could not have conducted this complex
operation without the support and direction of the Qods Force.''

(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a
foreign government or its agents is an intolerable and unacceptable act
of hostility against the United States by the foreign government in
question; and

(2) the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran must take immediate
action to end all training, arming, equipping, funding, advising, and
any other forms of support that it or its agents are providing, and
have provided, to Iraqi militias and insurgents, who are contributing
to the destabilization of Iraq and are responsible for the murder of
members of the United States Armed Forces.?

Given the recent history of executive decisions and legislation based
on dubious information, it would be foolish to simply grant a17-a20,
yet even if entirely true, it is plainly insufficient grounds for b1.
That US soldiers were murdered by agents of Iran does not follow from
a17- a20, which at most implies that such murder, in four of five cases
subsequent to abduction, was committed by a group receiving Iran's
support and direction with respect to the tactical operation. 

That the Iranian connection extended to involvement in the specific
operation, as opposed to support and direction via prior non-specific
funding and training, is not entailed by a17-a20.  But even presuming
direct Iranian involvement in the operation, a possible or probable
scenario is this: during the operation one US soldier was murdered
without Iranian intent or killed in action while the other four were
subsequently murdered instead of duly treated or released by the group
which collaborated with (or even thereby acted as) Iranian agents
during the tactical operation.  Indeed, this would be the natural
assumption given the chilling implication of the words ?four of whom
were first abducted?.

Hence no description in the amendment provides license to infer ?the
murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign
government? as per the "sense of congress" related in b1.  Bear in mind
here that as the potential pivot of past and future history, this
egregious defect of the amendment is the very antithesis of a fine
point.

Mark also that b2 is in the classic mould of ?Saddam must immediately
comply with our dictates (regardless of any false presumptions
thereof).?  Lieberman didn?t even try to tone down the reminder that
history is repeating in an atrociously short cycle.  Iran is
effectively ordered in b2 to leave every combat-relevant aspect of its
beset Shia-dominated neighbor to the US, Israel?s champion.  Being
diplomatically absurd from any but a disingenuous angle, b2 is thus
crafted to be violated according to its own hypocritical terms, and so
surely will be. 

(Hypocritical: the US army destabilized Iraq and makes the Iraqi
security forces in its own image.  Such high standards of
chaos-induction render militia and insurgency noble by default, insofar
as ignobility is an unusual achievement for resistances as opposed to
occupiers). 

This amendment went through 97-0.  Having inclusive ideals, do
democrats feel obliged to take FOX propaganda seriously because it
works on a minority?  

The mandate of the most recent election was to stop all this insane
warmongering.  The approval rating for Congress is at an all-time low.
Yet Democrats, quite able to join these two dots, remain intensely
eager to displease and even to risk our species for a cynical 2008
election strategy: ?Let republicans dig their own grave. The deeper the
hole the better.?

[Simon Floth is a Philosophy PhD candidate at the University of New
South Wales.]