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From the National Office

By Barry Romo

President Bush and the neocons said we were going into Iraq to stop torture and to make Iraqi lives better. The Iraqi people are paying for these pipe dreams with blood and tears. Newest reports show an average of five hundred Iraqis killed a day.

It is estimated that 2% of the population has been killed since we invaded that poor country. Amnesty International says that torture is now at a higher level than it was under Saddam Hussein. Iraq is the new Vietnam only worse.

And, as Seymour Hersch has said in the New Yorker, they are planning to attack Iran. The same people in the Department of Defense who made up the Iraq Crisis Committee form the Iran Crisis Committee.

A UN spokesman and an atomic energy expert monitor agreed that Iran is not even close to being able to make a bomb. Of 100% capability, they are only at 3%. You would not know this by just paying attention to the "liberal press."

We can only hope that there is a change in congressional committee chairs. At this point we have to pull out. Each death, each mutilation, each wound, mental, physical and moral is not "for nothing." Nothing is an auto-accident. Our suffering is in an evil cause.

If this wasn't bad enough in the middle of this war we give carte blanche to Israel to fight three wars.One against Hezbollah, one against the totally innocent Lebanese government and people, and finally their continued smashing of the Palestinians.

Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas have been kidnapping each others people for decades. In fact the Israelis have kidnapped over fifty Palestinian civilians, legislators not soldiers. During a war capturing soldiers is expected.

Israel's response to both Hezbollah and Hamas, let alone innocent Lebanon, is completely out of proportion. Hezbollah fired WWII Katushkas into Israel. Former Israeli Prime Minister Barak said these caused fifty military deaths and fifty civilian deaths, while Israeli forces probably killed two thousand Lebanese civilians.

Israel was so out of control that they even bombed Christian communities that had been their allies. In fact we saw stunned Lebanese Christians asking, "Why the hell us?"

Why didn't Israeli troops fight better? Because they have spent so much time policing and oppressing Palestinians, most of whom could not fight back, that they lost their edge as a military fighting machine. Good god, Hezbollah even took on their navy; they hit their ship, killed Israeli sailors and kept them away from the shore. Their tank units, the sons of veterans of the Six Day War that defeated armored Arab divisions, could not penetrate Hezbollah territory without heavy casualties.

Jane Fonda and Barry Romo at October 2006 showing of Sir! No Sir!

Western pundits seem to be saying that Hezbollah merely survived. But Hezbollah fighters with RPGs, without tanks, helicopters, or a navy were able to fight Israel to a standstill.

For every one Israeli citizen that Hezbollah killed, forty Lebanese civilians died. So who are the terrorists? Katushkas cause random deaths, half civilian, half military. The Israelis, with radar, smart bombs, pinpoint weapons and total control of the sky, were either totally incompetent, the three stooges in jet fighters, or they were deliberately trying to break the back of the civilian government and the will of the people in Lebanon.

The Bush administration's position was there for all to see. While the entire world cried out for a cease fire, the United States was resupplying Israel so that they could go on bombing as long as they wanted .

We should really be careful about saying that one government has the right to attack the citizens of its neighbor because a third party not under that's governments control attacks the first.

The terrorists from Pakistan have been bombing India for decades. India has one of the highest rates of terrorist incidents in the world. If Israel gets to attack Lebanon, why shouldn't India get to attack Pakistan?

Recently at the UN, we saw a tiff between the Afghan president and the Pakistani president. The Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are coming out of Pakistan. Need I go on?

A final word please. During the rocket attacks the Israeli military and media made a lot out of the fact that Hezbollah rocket attacks hit Jewish and Arab homes equally. But they don't get equal help from Israel's government. Unfortunately for the Arabs they are getting even less help than the Katrina victims.

Arab casualties were higher because, unlike Jewish homes, their homes had no bomb shelters. When rebuilding, Arab citizens only get 40 % of the compensation that Jewish citizens get.

Arab-Israeli citizens suffer other abuses. The Industry and Trade Ministry got around the law requiring use of local construction companies to rebuild the local economy by refusing to authorize most Arab companies eligible for contracts. Environmental Minister Gideron Ezra suggested that Israeli-Arab towns be made ineligible for any aid.

The only way that there will be peace in the Middle East is if Israel, its neighbors the Palestinians and its own citizens are treated with dignity and respect. The two state solution is the only answer. Back to the 1967 borders.