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Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Jamada al-Thani 22,1429/ June 26, 2008, #36

AIPAC's Memo on Iran to the U.S. Congress has been uncovered. Scroll all the way down
Also, a first report on the genocidal suffering of Bangladeshi women in India. Please scroll way down.

Africa [2 items] from New Trend's Africa observer
Without Islamic Dynamism, South Africa is Disintegrating into inter-African Fratricide

"Though Zimbabweans, Malawians, Mozambicans and Nigerians have borne the brunt of the attacks, which have left over 40 dead and thousands displaced, other Africans living in South Africa are not faring better.
After initially rejecting calls to deploy troops to assist the police in curtailing the attacks, the South African authorities have brought out the soldiers, marking the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994 that such an action has been taken.
Since starting in Johannesburg suburbs May 11, the attacks by rampaging South Africans have spread to the township as well as Durban and beyond.
In Nigeria, the federal government reacted swiftly by directing its Consulate in South Africa to immediately take care of displaced and affected Nigerians, while President Umaru Yar'Adua took up the issue with his South African counterpart, Thabo Mbeki at the African Union Committee of 12 meeting in Arusha, Tanzania." [Source: PANA, June 3.]

South Africa is sliding away from its ideals. The end of apartheid did not lead to a revolution, social or political. The wealth remained in a few hands [gold and diamonds still feeding international Jewry]. All kinds of Africanist polemic and socialist propaganda have been tried out to no avail. AIDS has spread, poverty is intense, women are under attack. The solution does not lie in Africanist slogans. The most positive force in Africa is that of Islam. The greatest empires of Africa were Islamic. Sudan, Somalia, Senegal and northern Nigeria are still good examples of the positive influence of Islam.

People of African descent in America are usually not told that almost 80% of Africa is Islamic. When African Americans go to Africa, they seldom visit the beautiful mosques or try to understand Africa's Islamic culture. The hard fact is that the lowest rates of AIDS are in the 80% of Africa which is Islamic.

There are strong Islamic communities in South Africa. Non-Muslim South Africans should learn from them. The endless stream of Europeans and non-Muslim Americans visiting South Africa has aroused narrow materialism and crass materialism which is straining South Africa's social fabric. It is time to re-think. The fastest way to unity in Africa is Islam and strict Shar'ia Law, not Africanist and Socialist propaganda.

Africa
The Strange Case of Zimbabwe: United Nations Move Against African Nation which Won't Conform

June 24, 2008: The United Nations has passed a resolution condemning Zimbabwe.. The media are carrying on a drum roll of propaganda against Zimbabwe. Suddenly Zimbabwe's leader Mugabe has become a evil man. He is being blamed for corruption, dictatorship, poor economic policies, victimization of opponents; You name it, he is it. He is going through media character assassination which could bring him to be a "monster" like Idi Amin. Remember that Amin was the darling of the West till he rubbed the Israelis the wrong way. By the time the media finished with him, he had become "evil incarnate." Few people even remember why he became so evil. Obote won and carried on like Amin but few even remember who was Obote.

New Trend's analysis is that Zimbabwe's Mugabe has committed the "crime" of spurning the western plan for Africa. Instead he has taken over the lands, the best lands in the country, which have been owned for decades by the small minority of White settlers who at one time ruled what was known as Rhodesia. [Imagine a whole country named after ONE White man. Saudi Arabia at least has a whole family ruling it and is not blamed.]

It appears that when Mugabe would not "see reason" the western powers introduced an "opposition party" into Zimbabwe. Through massive use of funds in a poor country, the created "opposition" became a constant nuisance and finally decided to take over the country through "democracy." That's where Mugabe struck back and became the "bad guy" he was supposed to be by the western powers.

Is it not strange that any country which tries to follow an independent course becomes poverty stricken and undergoes inflation which makes its money worthless. [Remember what happened to Iraq under Saddam: it came out later that the CIA had been, allegedly, printing up stacks of money till it became totally worthless.]

So, as the wag said, don't oppose America [read Israel], otherwise America will bring "democracy" to you.!

Jamaat al-Muslimeen [News]
P.O. Box 10881
Baltimore, MD 21234

First two days: Momin Khawaja's Case Opens with Propaganda Blast of threat and condemnation Against Pakistani-Canadian: Justice has Little Chance
New Trend Special Report

First Day: June 23, 2008: In Ottawa, it seemed as if Canada is under military threat from Islamic militants as Momin khawaja was brought to trial. Canada's security forces had turned out in force. Momin was squeezed between heavily armed troopers as if someone will try to free him. This drama was enacted to impress upon Canada's media, Canada's public and what is known as Canada's justice system that Momin is a "terrorist."
Ottawa is in the depths of Canada, a sanitized city. There is obviously no threat of physical danger to the people trying Momin. This whole drama was a farce and pat of Canada's hatred of Islam and Muslims. Not surprisingly, Canadian troops are in Afghanistan, trying to crush the Islamic resistance. [It is reported that when the Taliban attack, the Canadian elite forces run for their lives and call in U.S. air strikes.]

Why is the Momin case a farce [unless Canada decides to save face by letting him go]? Second Day: June 24: The prosecution brought in a poor, demented, terrorized Muslim from UK to be its star witness. Mohammad Junaid Babar was caught for his alleged role in a "terrorism" case in England. The Brits threatened to hand Babar over to the U.S. unless he cooperated with them and said what they wanted. Here he is in Canada, trying to help the Canadians convict an innocent, devout Muslim. Babar was once a good Muslim. Looks like the Brits broke him. The Anglo-American [Zionist controlled] nations are blatantly cooperating with each other to paint outstanding Muslims, models of civic behavior, into terrorists and criminals.

The defense objected to Babar's testimony as "hearsay" but was overruled by the judge. Funnily enough, the judge claimed that he will decide "later" if it was hearsay. Babar claims that when he was in Pakistan, he heard his associates there talking about the "Canadian." If that is not hearsay, coming from a plea bargainer, Babar, trying to save himself, what else can it be called.

Canada is doing what Israel and the U.S. want it to do. This trial is almost a carbon copy of the trial of the Blind Shaikh, Dr. Omar 'Abdel Rahman, in some ways. Veteran New Trend readers may remember that the Jewish judge in that case [Michael Mukasey, now Attorney General of the U.S.] too pretended that the venue of the trial itself was in danger of being attacked by Islamic militants. The prosecutor in that case claimed that there was a Jihad Army in America whose leader was the Blind Shaikh.

Here we have poor Momin, a man who has never broken a law in his entire life, is being treated like the technologist linchpin in a worldwide terrorist plot. As a Canadian, which is a democracy, he probably thought that by talking against Israel and U.S. aggression or saying nice things about Osama [which most Pakistanis habitually do] he could not possibly be prosecuted as a terrorist.

One of the Exploits of the Democratic Party Government
A Forgotten "Day of Infamy." The Murder of Layla al-Attar
by Jeff Archer [San Diego, California] [Special to New Trend.]

Many countries have one or two days a year that indicate a national tragedy. In the U.S., December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, is labeled a "day of infamy." Almost 60 years later, September 11, 2001 surpassed December 7 as a rallying cry for U.S. solidarity.
Iraq, a country much smaller than the U.S., and never as large a player on the international scene, can claim several days of infamy: January 17, 1991 (the beginning of Desert Storm); February 14, 1991 (the destruction of the Amiryah Bomb Shelter); March 20, 2003 (the start of the U.S. illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq); and April 9, 2003, (U.S. forces enter Baghdad) among others. But, one date that gains little international attention is imbedded in the hearts and minds of most Iraqis: June 26, 1993.
On that date, the U.S. military, under the command of Bill Clinton, ordered 23 Tomahawk guided missiles to demolish the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence services, in central Baghdad. Twenty of the missiles hit the agency complex, while "only" three missed their targets.
A jubilant Clinton took to the airwaves and proclaimed victory. He was happy that only three missed their mark. One could think he was addressing the public about the score of a sporting event.
Of the three that missed, one destroyed the home of Layla al-Attar, killing her and her husband, and blinding her daughter.
Layla al-Attar was the director of the Iraqi National Art Museum and a leading Arab artist who was revered in Iraq much the same as Norman Rockwell was in the U.S. In addition, she was a spokesperson for international peace, for the inner peace of women, and for resistance against U.S. hegemony. Layla al-Attar symbolized Iraq.
When news of al-Attar's death broke, Iraq mourned. A special person who transcended political ideology and represented all of humankind had been assassinated.
During the Gulf War, her home was almost totally destroyed by U.S. missiles. Two years later, shortly after the completion of the house's reconstruction, an "errant" missile finished the job that its cousin had only partially performed in earlier years.
Although never proven, it is quite easy to give credence to the theory that Layla al-Attar was the target of a missile, not merely a casualty of "collateral damage" from a misguided projectile. Every Iraqi believes she was marked, but shortly after her execution, the rest of the world forgot.
Outside the Arab world, Layla al-Attar was on the verge of becoming a top international artist. European art galleries were beginning to highlight her work. In the U.S., however, she was little known. Little international outrage was heard when she was killed.
The reason behind the attack was as bogus as any given during the Bush I years. Clinton stated that information was in-hand that showed Iraqi operatives were behind an aborted assassination attempt on former President George Bush in April 1993 at a ceremony praising him in Kuwait. Clinton added that Saddam Hussein ordered the attempt on Bush's life. At the last minute, those who were to carry out the attack were apprehended and Clinton had to teach the Iraqis a lesson.
The big lie still persisted. Those arrested were merely drug and alcohol smugglers. In the aftermath of the June 26 missile attack, one-by-one the mythical would-be assassins were released from Kuwaiti jails, but, the U.S. media did not consider this information newsworthy. It was not as exciting as assassination plots and missile attacks.
On November 1, 1993, the New Yorker published an article by Seymour Hersh titled "A Case Not Closed." In it, Hersh went into detail about the entire event and basically showed there was no validity to Clinton's claim.
Why did Clinton order this attack? At the time, Republicans and pro-war Democrats criticized him for being "weak" on Iraq and other invisible threats against the U.S. Clinton had to earn respect. What better target than Iraq, a defenseless country that was isolated because of U.S. propaganda?
According to Hersh:

Three of the million-dollar missiles missed their targets and landed on nearby homes, killing eight civilians, including Layla al-Attar, one of Iraq's most gifted artists. The death toll was considered acceptable by the White House. Clinton administration officials acknowledged that they had been "lucky," as one national security aide put it, in that only three of the computer-guided missiles went off course.
Thus, on a Saturday in June, the president and his advisors could not resist proving their toughness in the international arena. If they had truly had full confidence in what they were telling the press and the public about Saddam Hussein's involvement in a plot to kill George bush, they would have almost certainly ordered a far fiercer response than they did. As it was, confronted with evidence too weak to be conclusive but, in their view, perhaps not weak enough to be dismissed, they chose to fire missiles at night at an intelligence center in the middle of a large populous city.

Over the years, many people have uttered, "Saddam tried to kill Bush's father," in defense of Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq. In March 2008, the story took another turn as an unlikely organization admitted the plot was a hoax: the Pentagon.
The March 23, 2008 issue of Newsweek ran an article called "Saddam's Files," written by Michael Isikoff. It stated:

President Bush said lots of things about Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the Iraq War. But few of his charges grabbed more attention than an unscripted remark he made at a Texas political fund-raiser on Sept. 26, 2002. "After all, this is a guy who tried to kill my dad at one time," Bush said. The comment referred to a 1993 claim by the Kuwaiti government—accepted by the Clinton administration—that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) had plotted to assassinate President George H. W. Bush during a trip to Kuwait that spring ...
But curiously little has been heard about the allegedly foiled assassination plot in the five years since the U.S. military invaded Iraq. A just-released Pentagon study on the Iraqi regime's ties to terrorism only adds to the mystery. The review, conducted for the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command, combed through 600,000 pages of Iraqi intelligence documents seized after the fall of Baghdad, as well as thousands of hours of audio- and videotapes of Saddam's conversations with his ministers and top aides ...
... But the Pentagon researchers found no documents that referred to a plan to kill Bush. The absence was conspicuous because researchers, aware of its potential significance, were looking for such evidence. "It was surprising," said one source familiar with the preparation of the report (who under Pentagon ground rules was not permitted to speak on the record). Given how much the Iraqis did document, "you would have thought there would have been some veiled reference to something about [the plot]."

Despite the Pentagon coming clean after 15 years of the public believing a myth about the nonexistent assassination attempt, not too much has changed in the perception and reporting of those times. In April 2008, weeks after the Pentagon announced the Kuwaiti hoax, the National Defense University, a quasi-government organization, published a report called Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath," written by Colonel Joseph J. Collins, a retired U.S. Army officer.
Collins seemed to be writing about a fantasy scenario of Iraq. His assessments were not accurate and at times, differed greatly from the facts. One of them stated: "Since the Republicans had last been in power, Saddam had tried to assassinate the elder Bush." No one challenged Collins' statement, despite the Pentagon's earlier declaration. It appears that no matter how many people debunk this lie, it has a life of its own and will go down in history as fact.
Hersh was quite right in his assessment of picking on the weak. U.S. citizens take pride in the fact that their society scorns bullies who pick on defenseless adversaries. However, they contradict their own philosophy by cheering on the murdering of foreign civilians who are the weakest prey of all.
I know that a few days from now, most Iraqis will be mourning the assassination of Layla al-Attar that occurred 15 years ago. And, on that day, those resistance fighters who are at work will remember her as well. Her legacy is why they are fighting today. I wonder if Bill Clinton, as he leaves his church of choice this Sunday, Bible in hand and being photographed by the press, will remember Layla al-Attar.

WAR NEWS: by New Trend's Media Monitor
Afghanistan: Classic Guerrilla Warfare: Taliban hit hard, Disappear: 78 Truck Convoy Wiped Out

June 24: Taliban fighters on motorbikes attacked a very large convoy of trucks carrying military supplies for NATO on the Kandahar-Kabul highway. The convoy was attacked at Saydabad in Wardak province. The mujahideen killed 8 of the Karzai security guards and rapidly set fire to the entire convoy. According to Associated Press, 78 trucks went up in flames, some of them blowing up and falling off the road.

NATO military forces, in armored cars and helicopters, rushed to the spot while Karzai troops sealed off the roadway, but the Islamic fighters had disappeared. It was a classic guerrilla attack, superb in execution and exit, hitting the occupation forces in their weakest point, their military supply line from Pakistan.

The same day, June 24, a NATO special forces trooper [from USA] was killed and 3 wounded in a hit and run Taliban attack in the Khagyani area of Nangarhar province. In a simillar pin prick attack, a British soldier was killed in the Sangin area of Helmand province.

None of the 1200 people who escaped from Kandahar prison after a martyrdom operator blew it open have been recaptured. Of the escapees, 390 were Taliban
June 23: Another important escape: Mullah Dawood, an intelligence chief of the Taliban, escaped from the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison near Kabul with two of his companions. According to the daily Ummat of Karachi [Pakistan], this escape is a serious blow for Karzai's "Ministry of the Interior" because Mullah Dawood had been sentenced to death. His death warrant had been signed by Karzai himself and he was to be hanged early in July. It appears that the Taliban bribed the guards at the prison. [Two of them have been arrested.] Earlier, another important Taliban leader, Maulvi Habibullah, escaped from a Kabul prison after bribing the guards.

The U.S. administration has expressed concern at Mullah Dawood's escape and is preparing to takeover the prison but is also concerned that such action would invite Taliban attack.

Taliban attacks are widespread across the country, in spite of air raids by U.S. jet fighters which have killed 15 Taliban in Paktika province. The Taliban are now shooting at attacking helicopters with better weaponry.
June 22: A Taliban spokesman took credit for two U.S. helicopters shot down in the Zukhrunj area of the central province of Nooristan. The troops in the copters perished but details are not available. {Pakistani media.]

June 17: In a Taliban attack, Four British elite troops were killed and one wounded in the area east of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.
June 24: Late news: Canadian media have been reporting that the Taliban were expelled by NATO forces from the 13 villages in the Arghandab area north of Kandahar after they took the villages following the prison break. Pakistani reports say that as the Canadians attacked with maximum fire power, Taliban withdrew from 3 of the villages but are still in control of the 10 villages which are heavily wooded and easy to defend. Karzai's representative Asadullah Khalid held a press conference in one of the undefended villages and claimed that "hundreds" of Taliban had been killed. However, the Canadian commander was much more cautious and said that Taliban in groups of 50 and 100 are still in the area. Karzai's rep had a problem: he could not show even one dead Taliban to the assembled media, let alone "hundreds."

IRAQ: Daily Conflict, steady death toll. U.S. Media Keeping Quiet

June 24: Twenty five U.S. troops have been killed and 59 injured in the first 21 days of June. [Source: wire services] The U.S. media reported only three incidents of fighting in the news ticker with NO major coverage. More than 150 Shi'ite troops working for the U.S. were killed in trying to crush Islamic resistance in Mosul. Every day brings a new tragedy. The most recent was a martyrdom attack by an Islamic woman in the police center in Baqubah run with U.S. funding by Shi'ites. Among those killed were 8 police officers. A dozen police cars in the parking lot went up in flames.
The situation is so bad for the U.S. and its Shi'ite allies that the frequent propaganda videos of U.S. success, peaceful bazars and U.S. guests walking around under heavy security, so common before, are no longer being shown.
It's a long, hot, deadly summer in Iraq. The U.S. corporate-Zionist media have their orders. They are not reporting anything from Iraq: Even the deaths of U.S. elite troops get less coverage than the pregnancies of 17 pre-teens in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Bangladesh: 400,000 Bengali Women taken to India and forced to become Prostitutes: 50 Women a Day

June 18, 2008: Bangladesh has set up a special police investigation unit to stop the trafficking of Bengali Muslim women to India. The Home Advisor to the Bangladesh government, Maj. Gen. [retd] M.A. Matin told the inaugural ceremony of the unit that the statistics are stark and tragic. EVERY DAY an average of 50 women are lured to India and forced into prostitution. More than 400,000 women have met that fate. More than 300,000 boys have also been taken but their fate is unknown, he said.

The intense poverty, land fragmentation, natural disasters, landlessness, and demand for dowry push people of Bangladesh to search for opportunities in India and abroad, he said. The traffickers have set up bases in the border areas; Bangladesh has a 4222 kilometre border with India. [Source; Daily Star, Dhaka.]

What AIPAC wants USA to do to Iran

Congressional Resolution Demands Bush Act on Iran
Monday 23 June 2008
by: Maya Schenwar and Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t | Report

President Bush in Germany on June 11 emphasized that "all options are on the table" when discussing taking actions against Iran if it is found to be researching or developing nuclear weapons. Expected to arrive on the House floor this week is a non-binding resolution that leaves the door open for a military blockade of Iran.

A non-binding resolution to demand that President Bush impose "stringent inspection requirements" on trade with Iran - language that leaves the door open for a military blockade - will likely come to the House floor this week, according to sources close to Congressional leadership. The legislation, H.Con.Res.362, which is paralleled by a similar Senate bill, has gained bipartisan support rapidly, with more co-sponsors signing on by the day. Once it hits the floor, it's bound to "pass like a hot knife through butter," a staffer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office told Chelsea Mozen of the nonprofit Just Foreign Policy. Trita Parsi, co-founder and president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), concurred, saying passage may happen as early as Tuesday. "This bill will likely be put on the floor under suspension - meaning that it will pass without even a vote," Parsi told Truthout. Bills placed under rules of suspension are usually uncontroversial. However, this one is an ominous exception, according to Parsi. "It sets the stage for a very dangerous escalation," he said.

The most strongly worded section of the legislation is article three, which states: "Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress - (3) demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia [among other things], prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."

The resolution makes no mention of the National Intelligence Estimate report released in December 2007, which found that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003.

The language regarding inspection requirements and restrictions of movement have led critics of the bill to suggest that, if implemented, this type of international sanction would amount to an embargo and would have to be put into place at gunpoint. Such action would be illegal under international law, unless approved by the UN, according to Ethan Chorin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Middle East Program. UN approval is not mentioned in the bill.

Moreover, the resolution would unquestionably send a hostile message to Iran, according to Chorin.

"The Iranians would certainly view this as an act of war, whether or not they acted on it as such," Chorin told Truthout. "All of this would confirm the Gulf Arabs' perceptions that the US is playing an increasingly destabilizing role in the region."

However, despite the new Iran resolution's hard-line language, it counts some of Congress's most liberally voting members among its co-sponsors, including Representative Robert Wexler, an outspoken advocate of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney; Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, one of Congress's most vocal critics of the Bush administration's missteps; and Representative Jan Schakowsky, rated the most liberal Democrat in Congress by the nonpartisan vote-tracking project GovTrack .

Mozen cites heavy lobbying as one motivation for the resolution's widespread support. The bill was promoted by the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which, according to Parsi, has been the driving force behind its momentum.

"[H.Con.Res.362] was the top agenda point of the 7,000 AIPAC members who descended on Capitol Hill two weeks ago," Parsi said.

A spokesperson for AIPAC denied allegations that the legislation would necessitate a naval blockade or military actions to accomplish its goals.

"People describing it as a blockade [are] totally inaccurate. This bill is about increasing sanctions on Iran and banning the sale of refined petroleum products to the country," AIPAC spokesperson Josh Block told Truthout, adding, "it is being misportrayed by groups like NIAC."

The self-titled America's pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, has been pushing for increased pressure on Iran to prevent that country's alleged goal of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Just days after the bill was originally introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Gary Ackerman (D-New York), AIPAC put out a memo detailing its support for the intentions of the legislation. The memo does not specifically mention the proposed legislation, but contains almost identical language.

AIPAC memo:

The United States should sanction the Central Bank of Iran for its involvement in the funding of terrorism and the financing of Iran's proliferation activities.

H. Con. Res. 362 (2)(A):

Congress urges the President, in the strongest of terms, to immediately use his existing authority to impose sanctions on - the Central Bank of Iran and any other Iranian bank engaged in proliferation activities or the support of terrorist groups;

AIPAC memo:

The United States should impose sanctions on companies that have invested more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector in violation of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), originally passed in 1996.

H. Con. Res. 362 (2)(C):

Congress urges the President, in the strongest of terms, to immediately use his existing authority to impose sanctions on - energy companies that have invested $20,000,000 or more in the Iranian petroleum or natural gas sector in any given year since the enactment of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996.

AIPAC memo:

The United States also should use existing authority to sanction foreign entities that continue to do business with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ...

H. Con. Res. 362 (2)(D):

Congress urges the President, in the strongest of terms, to immediately use his existing authority to impose sanctions on - all companies which continue to do business with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

"We don't draft legislation. We support this Congressional effort. We were reflecting the sentiment of the legislation in our statements," Block said when asked about the similarities.

Jordan Goldes, press secretary for Representative Ackerman, the bill's author, did not return calls for comment on the similarities between the two documents by press time.

Besides AIPAC's strong pull, Mozen pointed to the resolution's references to diplomacy as a draw for some vocal antiwar Democrats.

"Some in Congress see such a resolution, in part because it is non-binding, as a way to forestall or prevent more serious action against Iran," Mozen said. "However, with the atmosphere as it is on the Hill, with the election debate hinging in part on the debate about Iran, most folks in favor of diplomacy won't be pro-active for it, I gather because they think this will open them up to criticism. Those in favor of stronger action on Iran are pushing for it now and they have AIPAC pushing too. As a result, the folks that want to wait it out are looking to non-binding resolutions to quiet the need for stronger action and buy them time until January. I suppose it seems like a tug-o-war with only one side tugging and the other thinking about when to tug in the future."

Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy's national coordinator, noted that the bill's "non-binding" status is deceptive. The bill does not immediately do anything; it merely expresses a "sense of Congress." In itself, it does not authorize war, he added.

"It still has consequences," Naiman told Truthout. "The Kyl-Lieberman resolution was a non-binding resolution and it helped lead to the Quds Force being classified as a terrorist organization."

While liberal-leaning Congress members may perceive the passage of a non-binding resolution as a stall tactic, keeping the administration sated while waiting for a new administration to take office, Mozen called the legislation a "slippery slope" toward further tensions.

"It certainly would not be good to set such a precedent from Congress that could taint the ability of the next administration to make progress in US-Iranian relations," Mozen said.

2008-06-29 Sun 21:10:44 cdt
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