on this beautiful sunny peaceful day I sat down and wrote to my elected representative...

[freedomfries]

Dear Representative
Will Democrats in Congress have the courage to stop the White House from attacking Iran? A few days ago on August 28, the International Atomic Energy Agency released the results of their very thorough and intrusive inspection of the Iranian nuclear programs. The IAEA conclusions were plain and clear:
“The agency has been able to verify the nondiversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use.”
Yet on the very same day, the President’s speech to the American Legion struck the most ominous tone regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities, saying:
“Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.”
The same dire warnings, repeated ad nauseum by the major news outlets, are slowly engineering a public perception that war with Iran is unstoppable. The threatening image of a “nuclear holocaust” goes one step further in the art of deceit than the mantra about Saddam Hussein’s purported “nuclear mushroom cloud,” to insinuate the thought that a new World War to stop the Iranian bomb would be as necessary as the World War II fight to stop the Jewish Holocaust.
In the midst of the relentless war-making deceit, the silence of our elected Democratic Congress is disheartening. One year ago, we donated all the money we had, and did not have, to your re-election campaign. We spent countless hours sweating at phone banks and on the pavement to help get you re-elected to Congress.
One year later we stand distraught, numbed by the inability of our elected majority to stem the relentless push for more billions of wasted blood money, more sacrificed troops, more war-mongering and war-making, not only in Iraq, but now in neighboring Iran too.
We did not elect a Democratic Congress to sit silently, or worse even, to mindlessly echo the White House talking points on the “war on terror.” We elected you to stand up to the bullies, to shut down the wasteful war-making machines. Please make use of the war-stopping powers the people have given you, and do it now before it is too late.
Sincerely

Link to the IAEA memorandum
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2007/infcirc711.pdf

[havocmom]

1. Excellent letter! Good inspiration for the many who are unsure how to go about writing their reps

and LTTE
:thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

2. Well done and thanks for the link! I heard Ritter talking about this

and now have a primary source to back up what I heard. :toast:

[marions ghost]

3. kick

n/t

[freedomfries]

4. Huffpo: Howard A. Rodman: How I stopped worrying and love bombing Iran

For long time now, perhaps a year, I've been hearing (we've all been hearing) that the White House is planning to bomb Iran. As the neo-cons say, "Boys go to Baghdad; real men go to Tehran." It's a strategy so seductive that John McCain set it to music.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-a-rodman/how-i-learned-to-stop-wor_b_62830.html
I've been dismissive of these rumors, as have you. Why? Because one would have to be a madman (or Dick Cheney) to start a second war when the first one is going so fucking well.

Unfortunately, this doesn't take into account the way decisions about these things are made; and it neglects to take into account, as well, this particular president's view of himself in history.

As Bush this weekend was disclosed to have said to his biographer, "I made a decision to lead... One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?"

In the eyes of our president, an Iran with a different government is a world better off. The people of Iran, or what's left of the people of Iran after a 1,200-target bombing campaign, will greet us as liberators. History and Joe Lieberman will judge him brave for having turned the tide in the Grand Battle Against Islamo-fascism -- a battle which, as we now know, had its origins in the Vietnam war.

Still, I was inclined (you were inclined) to dismiss all this bluster as sabre-rattling. Alas, in the past week it has become more likely that those sabres are Tomahawk missiles -- locked, aimed, targeted.

Here are the indications that a large bombing campaign against Iran is not only on the table, but is in fact the main dish -- the turkey, if you will, of Thanksgiving 2007. I list them in order of ascending terrifyingness.

First: Robert Baer, the former middle-East CIA operative and a man who is not unconnected in the intelligence world (c.f., Syriana), says his peeps tell him we're planning to "hit" Iran.

Second: Barnett Rubin, a scholar and one of the Serious people in the academic foreign policy establishment, says we're already committed to an attack on Iran, and that the marketing for this attack will be ramped up after the long weekend.

Third: I doubt that David Addington believes that Bush, under the AUMF, really needs the permission of congress, or of anyone. As a courtesy, of course, he'd likely, as the planes are on their way, inform a bipartisan leadership group (several Republicans plus an independent from Connecticut). But what's sadder is that this Congress, whose Democratic leadership is talking about opposing the war but not mentioning the words "withdrawal" or "timetable"; which cowed before the FISA revisions; whose Senate this year blithely passed, 97 to zip, a resolution condemning Iran for attacking U.S. forces in Iraq -- When push comes to shove, will Reid and Pelosi (and Clinton, and Obama) put their political capital where their mouth is? As the magic eight ball says, "Signs point to no." (See Glen Greenwald's astute assessment of the political situation.)

Fourth: the foreign press, which during the run-up to Iraq was far less blinkered than, say, the Gray Lady, has been over this weekend treating an attack on Iran as a fait accompli. See this from the Telegraph (UK) . The Times (UK) ran today a headline with the flat declaration, Pentagon 'three-day blitz' plan for Iran. The blitz includes what The Times terms "plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran." They quote Alex Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center: "Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same." It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus."

For me (and for you), beginning a war in Iran -- in the midst of the disaster that is Iraq -- is the precise incarnation of Santayana's warning: "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." But for Bush and Cheney, two of the ten or twelve people who actually believe that the Iraq war is going well, this new venture isn't fanatic at all. It would be, in their eyes-- Going from strength to strength.

I've written to my Congressman, and to both Senators. Call me quixotic, for writing; call me naive, for encouraging you to do the same; and, at day's end, call me cynical, for believing that public opinion here makes not one whit of difference.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-a-rodman/how-i-learned-to-stop-wor_b_62830.html