Obama Details Iran Strategy

(AP)  Sen. Barack Obama said Friday that as president he would personally negotiate with Iran, offering economic incentives and a chance for peaceful relations if Iranian leaders would forego pursuit of nuclear weapons and support of terrorists.

Citing a long history of progress through diplomatic gestures toward China and the former Soviet Union, Obama laid out in stronger terms his call for diplomacy with Iran - a policy with greater emphasis on negotiation than the Bush administration policy and a stance that has been ridiculed by his fellow Democratic presidential candidates.

"There is the potential at least for us finding ways of peacefully resolving some of our conflicts, and that effort has not been attempted," Obama said. "And if we don't make that attempt, then we're going to find ourselves continuing on the path that Bush and Cheney have set, and we're seeing the rhetoric rise every day."

"It has consequences not only for our strategic interests, it has consequences for our troops in Iraq and it has consequences for our economy," Obama told NBC's "Today" show.

He reiterated statements in a New York Times interview, published Friday, in which he said Iran might be offered membership in the World Trade Organization and assurances that the United States would not seek "regime change" if Iranian leaders changed their ways on key issues.

"We would be very clear with Iran and say 'We don't accept your development of nuclear weapons'," Obama told NBC, saying he would also strongly reject Iran's financing of terrorist organizations and its anti-Israel rhetoric.

Obama also introduced a Senate resolution late Thursday that says President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran, the latest move in a debate with presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about how to respond to that country's nuclear ambitions.

Clinton's campaign accused Obama of playing politics instead of taking a leadership role from the outset.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Illinois senator drafted the measure in an effort to "nullify the vote the Senate took to give the president the benefit of the doubt on Iran."

Burton was referring to an amendment sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that passed 76-22 on Sept. 26 and designates Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

Clinton was the only Senate Democrat running for president to support the measure, and her rivals have argued that Mr. Bush could use it to justify war with Iran. Clinton insists her vote would not support military strikes and instead was a vote for stepped-up diplomacy.

Last week, the Bush administration declared the Revolutionary Guard a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and announced new sanctions meant to isolate Iran. The Iranian government contends its nuclear program is aimed only toward providing nuclear power.

Clinton and 29 other senators wrote to Mr. Bush Thursday to tell him he has no congressional authority for war with Iran.

The four Democratic senators running for the White House split over whether to sign the letter. Chris Dodd of Connecticut added his support, while Obama and Joe Biden of Delaware declined.

The letter accuses Mr. Bush of "provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran."

"We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran," it says. That includes the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, the letter says.

Obama missed the vote on the amendment because he was campaigning. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said if Obama was so concerned about the amendment, he should have been there to vote against it. Singer said Obama also should have signed Webb's letter and co-sponsored two other pieces of legislation that reaffirm the president cannot use force against Iran without congressional approval.

"It's unfortunate that (Senator) Obama is abandoning the politics of hope in favor of the kind of political games he is so critical of in his book," Singer said. He pointed to a passage in "The Audacity of Hope" where Obama is critical of the tendency to "exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case."

Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "With her vote for the war in Iraq and her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Hillary Clinton has now given George Bush the benefit of the doubt not once, but twice. While she's trying her best to change her position on yet another critical issue facing our country, Senator Obama knows that it takes legislation, not letters, to undo the vote that she cast."

His resolution says any offensive military action against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress, and seeks to clarify that nothing approved so far provides that authority.

Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said Biden believes the amendment could be used to justify military action.

"He has also made clear many times his view that the president lacks the authority to use force against Iran absent authorization from Congress," she said. "He didn't need to clarify that position. He's been clear from the start."

Even though Dodd shares that view, he signed the letter because "we felt that it was necessary to make it clear that this administration cannot take military action against Iran without the express authorization of Congress," said Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan.

[nycprophet]

Sadly, even though Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, and a host of Laws aimed at removing your liberties, so many Democrats are blinded by her cult of personality that I predict they will overwhelmingly vote to put her crime family back into office. While I''ve made some progress in educating Liberals as to the phony staged consensus of the left-right paradigm, the fact remains that a majority of Democrats still see the White House as some kind of political Super Bowl, where the success of their "team" is the be all and end all - to the expense of America as a whole. The Punch and Judy show theatre that was the "troop surge" debate in the Senate characterizes Hillary''s role in hoodwinking Americans perfectly. The debate is framed as not whether the U.S. should get out of the Middle-East altogether, but the relative minutia of whether to feed thousands of more troops into the meat grinder or not. Clinton''s Campaign Manager recently compared Hillary to Margaret Thatcher, which translates as more war, more dead Americans, and a further desecration of the tattered shreds of what''s left of our Constitution. Clinton is the ultimate global elitist and represents the Democrats supposed base, the poor and downtrodden, about as much as Lindsay Lohan represents grace and dignity. I''m sure she informed the likes of David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix as to her presidential aspirations during her last visit to attend the Bilderberg Group conference, which brings me to my next prediction.

[nycprophet]

Under The Patriot Act, the government''s Law enforcement branches have used their prosecutorial discretion to target citizens who voice their dissent. The Law enforcement targeting of citizens who exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion since 9/11 is certainly no exception. The oxymoronically-named Patriot Act section 802 defines domestic terrorism so broadly that it could apply to an individual exercising his or her freedom of speech, expression, and assembly through acts of civil disobedience. In June 2004, Buffalo, New York, artist Steve Kurtz was detained by Law enforcement and had his home searched by FBI agents. Despite finding only harmless paints, which Kurtz uses in his politically motivated art projects. The FBI proceeded with a Grand Jury hearing to indict Kurtz under the Patriot Act''s biological agents provision. The Justice Department frequently uses Section 805 of the Patriot Act, "Material Support for Terrorism," to imply that a person has some link to terrorism. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole''s May 5, 2004, testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary explains that "in many cases, those who have been charged with material support have done nothing more sinister than to exercise their First Amendment right to freedom of speech or freedom of association." It gets worse.

[nycprophet]

With the full support of Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain, President Bush recently signed into Law the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, which, according to Senator Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually "encourage the President to declare Martial Law." It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of Laws that limits the President''s ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic Law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions. Public Law 109-364, or the John Warner Defense Authorization Act (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the President in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of your Governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder." President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act. In a sense, the two Laws compliment one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad of those who dissent and are stripped of their citizenship, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America.

[nycprophet]

Following the Reichstag Fire, a historically-proven act of False Flag Terrorism which Hitler''s own party staged to encite fear in the German population, Hitler promoted the Enabling Act, which is eerily similar, in many ways, to our own John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which gives the President the power to suspend Congress, The Constitution, and to impose Martial Law following any event he or she deems an "emergency." Here''s what Hitler told the German people:

"The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures...The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a Law is in itself a limited one."
- Adolf Hitler

Does that ring any bells? It should, folks. It''s nearly the same promise that George Bush made to us support of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, one of the many Orwellian Laws which Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain all voted in favor of in the Senate.

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
- James Madison

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and those who would exploit our fear for power and their own personal, selfish, cynical gain."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

[nycprophet]

Right alongside the widely-held notion that man is somehow to blame for global warming and that we should therefore pay a global Carbon Tax administered by the U.N., when I think about the myth that is our the "Global War on Terrorism," the following two quotes come to mind:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda minister

"That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda''s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success."
- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

[candide666]

I LUV HILLERY CLINTON. I THINK WE SHOULD MAKE HER THE MUTHER *** QUEEN. WE DONT BE NEEDING NO *** BILL OF RITES AND NO *** CONSTETUCHEN. SHE KNOWS WHATZ BEST FOR ALL US AND THATZ WHY I TRUST HER. AND IM TIRED OF ALL THEM RON PAUL MUTHER ****** IN HEER TALKING BOUT ALL THEY *** TU. NEXT TIME I SEE ONE OF THEM WHITE BOY RON PAUL MUTHER ****** IN MY HOOD IM GOIN TU KICK THEY RASIST ***. I NO I CAN TRUST HILLERY CUZ HER HUZBAND WUZ ALREDY PRESIDENT ONCE. BESIDES THAT OPRAH AND AL SHARPTON LIKES HER TO AND THATZ GOOD ENUF FOR ME. I CANT WATE TILL SHE BECOMZ PRESIDENT AND PUTS ALL YALL MUTHER ****** GUN TOTIN WHITE BOYZ WHO KEEP TALKING ABOUT ALL YALL RIGHTS AND ALL DAT *** AND DONT WANT TO SAVE OUR PLANET FROM GLOBEL WARMING LIKE ME AND HILLERY DO IN THEM THERE FEMA CAMPS YALL MUTHER ****** ARE ALWAYZ TALKIN BOUT AND WATER TORTYUR YO ***** TIL YALL TELL THEM WHO YALLZ MAMA IS. NEXT TIME I SEE ONE OF YALL BIBLE THUMPEN RASIST WHITE BOYZ COME TU MY DOOR TALKIN BOUT ALL YALLS RITES AND YALLS FREEDUMS IM GOING TO KICK YO *** TO AND MAKE YO WHITE *** MY ****. *** ALL YALL WHITE BOZO MUTHER ******. COME ON DOWN INTO MY HOOD WHITE BOY. I DARE YO ***. AINT NO NEED FO NO *** RIGHTS. WHAT YOU NEED IS YO MAMA AND YO MAMA IS HILLERY. SHE TAKE CARE YOASS REEEL QUICK.

[nhprophet]

To those who don''t vote: Voter disenfranchisement and apathy infects the heart of our Republic. Get off your couch, put your remote control down, and become active in your nation''s political process. The pathetically few people that do vote in this country, a.k.a., "the ruling class", who currently get to decide under what kind of conditions (and Laws) you and your family will live, are certainly involved. I can assure you of that. In fact, the ruling class would be much happier if you would just continue to stay home and watch TV in your pleasantly distracted and brainwashed, stupor. That way they can continue to elect their political ****** to office, and continue to maintain their grip on 100% of the political power they currently own in this country. If you voted (God Forbid), it would cancel-out their vote, and they would lose control. They can''t have that. Can they? If you don''t vote, my friends, you''re nothing but an unwashed "Pleb" to those that do, and the ruling class should rightfully consider themselves superior to you in every way. They do, after all, have all the power, while you have none. If you''re too apathetic and powerless to do anything for yourself more time-consuming than driving down to Mickey D''s to buy a milk shake in order to sieze control of your life, and your country''s destiny, then perhaps you deserve to be ruled over like the "Pleb" that you then are. The time to act is now. The time for political revolution has come.

[nhprophet]

My fellow Americans just don''t seem to care that our nation, along with The Constitution upon which it was founded, is being flushed-down the NWO toilet by our nations'' bought and paid for politicians and media. While the Oligarchs warn and insite fear in the sheeple about the prospect of terrorism, they at the same time leave our border wide open, and fund and conduct illegal wars overseas that do nothing but encite the terrorism which their Orwellian Laws like the Patriot Act and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act pretend to protect us from. Wake up America! It''s not about protecting you from terrorism, or saving the planet from Global Warming, or any of that other fear-mongering garbage the sold-out, mainstream media feeds you 24/7. It''s about feeding the bankers and the military industrial complex, and facilitating the global elite''s ability to ratchet-down control over the American people, placing us into a total control grid where they can surveille, track and control everywhere we go and everything we do. It''s the groundwork for totalitarianism. It''s the New World Order plan of Bush, Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Giuliani, et.al., being executed quite beautifully. You''re a frog in a pot. In order to cook a frog, you don''t throw him into a pot of boiling water. If you do, he''ll resist and jump-out. What you do instead is, you turn the heat-up REAL SLOW, and by the time the water is boiling he won''t be able to jump out anymore, because it''s too late--he''s already doomed.

[nhprophet]

Since its first meeting, the Bilderberg Group, a secretive gathering of global power brokers, which includes Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, et.al. has inspired layer upon layer of ridicule, which the group has done little to dispute. Over the years, the deeds laid at the group''s devious door have included the creation of the European Union, the invasion of Iraq and their current efforts to create a North American Union, which will erase U.S. borders and national sovereignty. All to service its most cherished goal: the creation of a world government. After it was reported that a well-received speech by Senator John Edwards at their meeting in Stresa, Italy, was one reason for his selection as John Kerry''s vice-presidential running mate in 2000, people began to ask, "Is the Bilderberg Group now molding worldwide public policy?" Over 100 of the world''s most powerful politicians and business leaders attend the annual, invitation-only gatherings to discuss global issues and to formulate policy objectives. The hotels involved are closed-off to other guests, and to reporters. Guards are placed around the perimeter. Attendees promise to keep quiet about what they hear and say. "They do not have to sign anything, but they understand that they do not talk," said Maja Banck-Polderman, the organization''s executive secretary. Tony Gosling, a British reporter who has followed the group says, "I think that a forum where so many rich and powerful people meet should be open to public scrutiny."

[nhprophet]

Under The Patriot Act, the government''s law enforcement branches have used their prosecutorial discretion to target citizens who voice their dissent. The law enforcement targeting of citizens who exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion since 9/11 is certainly no exception. The oxymoronically-named Patriot Act section 802 defines domestic terrorism so broadly that it could apply to an individual exercising his or her freedom of speech, expression, and assembly through acts of civil disobedience. In June 2004, Buffalo, New York, artist Steve Kurtz was detained by law enforcement and had his home searched by FBI agents. Despite finding only harmless paints, which Kurtz uses in his politically motivated art projects. The FBI proceeded with a Grand Jury hearing to indict Kurtz under the Patriot Act''s biological agents provision. The Justice Department frequently uses Section 805 of the Patriot Act, "Material Support for Terrorism," to imply that a person has some link to terrorism. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole''s May 5, 2004, testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary explains that "in many cases, those who have been charged with material support have done nothing more sinister than to exercise their first amendment right to freedom of speech or freedom of association."