–People who want to visit a National Park in a state that doesn’t cooperate with new Federal ID systems

–People who want to attend a public Presidential event and silently express their opinions via a t-shirt or bumpersticker

–People who use a phone or the internet

–Brown-skinned people who aren’t dressed for white collar jobs

–People who read blogs like this one

What, you don’t think its patheticness was by design? Democrats explicitly give Cheney the authority to attack Iran, with only two dissenting, one (Ron Paul) a Republican. That’s isn’t a mistake, that’s what they want. You can’t call it a mistake when the whole frigging Senate votes for it.

It strikes me as a better idea to hold the feet of the Democrats to the fire. After all, we tend to vote for them — some here even give them money — and we might get somewhere if we focus on them. Holding Cheney’s feet to the fire is a lost cause, since he doesn’t give a damn if they burn.

Oliver, you know better. Quit pretending that’s the point. They never gave a damn about catching or prosecuting anyone other than maybe Saddam Hussein.

Remember when they debated revoking the AUMF but didn’t?

Remember when they had a chance to explicitly deny Bush the authority to attack Iran, but, again, didn’t?

Certainly, explaining their massive, catastrophic failures to the public as the GOP cranks up the fear mongering should be lotsa fun.

The best way I can put it is that the IRGC is kind of like what the SS was in Germany vis a vis their regular armed forces. They have their own intelligence agency, their own companies, etc. Almost a state within a state type of situation.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose through the ranks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the pra­etorian guard dedicated to advancing and exporting the revolution that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini inspired in Iran in 1978–1979.

Ahmadinejad has appointed many of his Revolutionary Guard cronies to key positions throughout the government.

That reads to me like the IRGC practically took over the Iranian government, more than it being some autonomous entity. Maybe your information is just a bit out of date?

It is no secret that the IRGC is a major support of Palestinian terror groups, as it is part of their unofficial exported activities.

A prelude to war: What’s really behind Bush’s Iran move

The White House hawks in Dick Cheney’s office and elsewhere who want to stage an attack on Iran are clearly winning the internal power stuggle. And an often overlooked sub-plot on the long road toward war with Tehran is this: How could Bush stage an attack on Iran without the authorization of a skeptical, Democratic Congress?

Today, the White House has solved that pesky problem in one fell swoop. By explicitly linking the Iranian elite guard into the post 9/11 “global war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush’s lawyers would certainly now argue that any military strike on Iran is now covered by the October 2002 authorization to use military force in Iraq, as part of their overly sweeping response to the 2001 attacks.

http://www.attytood.com/2007/08/a_prelude_to_war_whats_really.html

This isn’t al-Qaida or Islamic Jihad, here. They are a government institution, funded by the state of Iran. Which, now that I write it, makes it seem clear to me that if you want to attack a state under the aegis that said state sponsors terrorists, then all you have to do is declare that one of their regularly funded government entities is a terrorist organization.

But hey, Labor Day is coming. Time to roll out some new product.

If imposed, the declaration would signal a more confrontational turn in the administration’s approach to Iran and would be the first time that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist organizations.

The Revolutionary Guard is thought to be the largest branch of Iran’s military.

Or are you splitting some hair that no one but you and a bunch of other hacks can see in the first place by saying that, well, they’re part of the military but they aren’t THE military? What the fuck is the difference?

Spider, that is incorrect.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or Pasradan as it is known was created in 1979 after the revolution, to specifically guard the revolution itself, nothing more. The Qods Force, part of the IRGC, operates outside the country specifically for the purpose of terrorist operations and terrorist training.

You’re confusing the IRGC with the Islamic Republic of Iran Army/Air Force/Navy.

Talk about a transparent step towards “justifying” air strikes.

Iran’s Guard is a branch of the regular military…the largest branch, in fact. Declaring the Guard a terrorist group is like declaring the USMC a terrorist group.

They may in fact be an hostile fighting force, but I don’t understand why we need to declare them “terrorists,” unless we don’t want to deal with anymore pesky Geneva Convention protocols if we capture any Guards.