"I'm as jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo" -- Blanche (Golden Girls)
I realize that the shameless misleading that led to the Iraq war has made us all very vigilant to never let that happen again. However, we owe it to ourselves, after all being part of the self-proclaimed "reality-based community", to always try to examine the facts before forming an opinion.
Recently, we seem to be going from one outraged shouting match to another. Yes, I do understand a lot of the anger. But it should not stop us from making sure we have all the data.
The latest example is, of course, the Kyl/Lieberman resolution. It is a resolution containing language that contains designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organizaion, and lists accusations against Iran about arming Shiite militias.
People jumped on it, in a top recommended diary, and proclaimed that it was a vote for war on Iran, and that the bombs would start falling soon.
But hold on a minute.
The resolution is not binding. It is a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, expressing the opinion of the Senate. It is the kind of resolution that we would condemn as "toothless" if it were to be a resolution about pulling troops out of Iraq.
The resolution was watered down substantially. Originally it contained language such as
it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran [...]
"combat, contain and roll back" was then changed to "stop in Iraq" and was then scrapped altogether. To see how this editing worked, look at the scanned document available at thinkprogress.
More importantly, a paragraph referring to "military instruments" was removed, making it yet more toothless.
It does still contain this part:
the United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization
However, note that this is a non-binding resolution. On top of that, it says "should designate"; it doesn't even claim to be able to do that. Also, for at least one of those lists, the process is initiated by the State Department. This is a seperate process, described on this page.
This is not a vote for war. It does not put the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on a list. It does not authorize Bush to do anything. No, I don't agree with the Senators who voted for it, and there are enough reasons to dislike it. But please, let's make sure we have all the facts before we scream ourselves hoarse.
With credit to Michael D, who posted Lieberman-Kyl confusion needs clearing up. Read that diary too. I just thought it was important to bring this up again