This from the Culpepper Star Exponent today. This kind of talk is just the excuse the Iran regime needs to use US as an excuse for a massive crackdown.
Cantor: Iranian regime?s ?brutality? on display
STAFF REPORT
Published: June 22, 2009
Culpeper?s Congressman continues to add his voice to the mix of federal legislators boldly condemning intensifying violence in Iran following the country?s presidential election June 12.
?The Iranian regime?s brutality is on full display for the whole world to behold,? Republican Whip Eric Cantor, representative of Virginia?s Seventh District, said in a speech Friday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. ?I rise today in sympathy with the victims of Iranian political oppression who have been injured or killed protesting the outcome of their election.?
Iran says at least 17 protesters have been killed since President Mahmuod Ahmadinejad was declared winner of the elec-tion. Challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi and many others consider the election a fraud.
President Barack Obama, however, has advanced cautiously when speaking about the situation to avoid being drawn in as a meddler in Iranian affairs.
Congress has taken a markedly different approach though, passing a resolution Friday condemning Tehran?s crackdown on protest rallies and government interference with cell phone and Internet use.
Cantor, in supporting the resolution, said it was America?s ?moral responsibility? to speak out in protection of human rights when they are violated. Regardless of the outcome of the disputed election, Cantor said, he had no doubt about who holds the power in Iran.
?It lies with a clerical regime who conducts its most egregious activities in the dark, hidden from the world?s eyes and thus escaping media attention,? he said, naming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as an active sponsor of terrorist activity across the Middle East.
?We must rally around the cause of the Iranian people, and ? I urge President Obama to follow the lead of this House to speak out on behalf of the Iranian people and their quest for freedom and human rights.?
Questioned about the next phase in relations between Iran and America, Cantor said he did not support Obama?s plan to ?engage with a terrorist regime,? a regime Cantor said ?turns on and off the spigot of democracy.?
Saturday, Obama offered his harshest criticism of the situation in Iran, challenging the government to stop its ?violent and unjust? crackdown on protesters. ?The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights,? he said in a written statement.