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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