By DAVE LINDORFF
Even as one faction of the American government, the military and the corporatocracy grow collectively more alarmed about the possibility of a US attack on Iran, the Bush/Cheney administration and its allies seem increasingly moving towards just such a new war.
Okay, so Sen. James Webb (D-VA) and 29 other US Senators who oppose such a mad plan have done what? They've written a letter to the president telling him that he cannot attack Iran without express approval in advance from the Congress.
A letter! Boy, that'll stop him.
What's the matter with these people?
A few months back, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution authored by war cheerleader Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a "global terrorist organization." In President Bush's pathologically twisted view of his power, that resolution gave him all the go-ahead he needed, because Bush and his legal apologists claim that back on Sept. 18, 2001, Congress, in passing an Authorization for Use of Military Force against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, were actually declaring a War on Terror--a conflict without end and without borders. Under this crazy logic, any attack on a terrorist or terrorist organization is simply another battle in that "war."
If Sen. Webb and his colleagues really want to stop the president from further murderous madness, they need only revoke that 2001 AUMF. A simple resolution declaring it ended, and stating that the war on terror is not a war would do the trick.
Why hasn't the Congress done this?
