Anti-colonial rebellions are brutal and bloody, and their suppression is even more brutal and bloody. From the American Revolution to the Algerian and Vietnamese wars for national self-determination, military occupations force those resisting it to fight asymmetrical battles, with only a fraction of the firepower at the disposal of the occupier. Thus, as the resistance leader in "The Battle of Algiers" told the French press corps when asked why they disguised bombs in baby carriages, "if the French air force will lend us their jet bombers, we will happily lend them our baby carriages."
The whole truth needs to be told about Iraq. Some elements of the resistance are sectarian and target civilians, but the majority of the young fighters who are dying in their thousands are no different than the American Minute Men of 1775 or the Algerian or Vietnamese National Liberation Front fighters. They fought and are fighting because a foreign colonial power has seized their homeland, abuses their families and terrorizes and tortures their communities.
We need to end the war. We need to bring our troops home now (not slip them over the border to occupy Iraq's neighbors) so that no more young Americans are killed or maimed. To do that, we need an anti-war movement that tells the whole truth. This war against the Iraqi people did not begin with George W. Bush. His father began this war in 1991. Bush I killed an estimated 200,000 Iraqis, civilian and soldiers. Bill Clinton killed thousands more in hundreds of bombing raids and missile strikes. Far more deadly were the starvation sanctions imposed by the Clinton administration, which targeted only civilians, and killed 1,000,000 of them. Now, Bush II is continuing the killing. In order to end it, we need to recognize that the people of Iraq have the right to run their own country, and that the Democrats do not have the rights to the anti-war movement's votes.
Todd Chretien is running for US Senate against Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Green Party ticket in California. www.Todd4Senate.org
The whole truth needs to be told about Iraq. Some elements of the resistance are sectarian and target civilians, but the majority of the young fighters who are dying in their thousands are no different than the American Minute Men of 1775 or the Algerian or Vietnamese National Liberation Front fighters. They fought and are fighting because a foreign colonial power has seized their homeland, abuses their families and terrorizes and tortures their communities.
We need to end the war. We need to bring our troops home now (not slip them over the border to occupy Iraq's neighbors) so that no more young Americans are killed or maimed. To do that, we need an anti-war movement that tells the whole truth. This war against the Iraqi people did not begin with George W. Bush. His father began this war in 1991. Bush I killed an estimated 200,000 Iraqis, civilian and soldiers. Bill Clinton killed thousands more in hundreds of bombing raids and missile strikes. Far more deadly were the starvation sanctions imposed by the Clinton administration, which targeted only civilians, and killed 1,000,000 of them. Now, Bush II is continuing the killing. In order to end it, we need to recognize that the people of Iraq have the right to run their own country, and that the Democrats do not have the rights to the anti-war movement's votes.
Todd Chretien is running for US Senate against Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Green Party ticket in California. www.Todd4Senate.org
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