THE WORLD Multi-national force a coverup U. S. intends takeover of Lebanon The death toll has mounted to 253 with scores still missing from the suicide attacks on the U.S. and French bases in Beirut, Lebanon Oct. 23. The U.S. has sent in 300 replacements and is leaning heavily on Congress to increase their presence in the area. Mean- while the multi-national force comprising the U.S., France, Italy and Britain have been placed on full alert, sandbagging their bunkers and threatening to ‘‘shoot to kill’? anyone coming near their camps. It was on this background that Tribune reporter Kerry McCuaig received the following account from Linda Martar, president of the League of Lebanese Women’s Rights, at a women’s conference in Budapest, Hungary. The women’s league is part of a coalition demanding that all foreign troops leave Lebanon, as a first step in restoring peace in the region. Lebanon has been a prime target of U.S. strategy for the past two decades. There is a long standing conspiracy between the U.S., Israel and the reactionary Arab states to either partition Lebanon into a series of states based on religious divisions or in- stall a reactionary dictatorship, which would facilitate the expul- sion of the Palestine Liberation Organization from the country and allow the U.S. to use Leba- non as a beachhead into Africa Today the life, security and freedom of the Lebanese people is being sacrificed to these ‘‘vital U.S. interests’’. Reagan is trying to convince Lebanon that there is a dispute between the U.S. and Israel, that Tel Aviv is rebelling against the Washington-inspired Israel-Lebanon treaty which cal- led for a pull-back of Israeli troops. Israeli still occupies all of southern Lebanon, they are only 26 miles from the capital. It is at- tempting to entrench itself on the and the Middle East. SG? __Books From MAD to worse - U.S. nuclear policy With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush & Nuclear War, Robert Scheer, Random House, New York, 1982, Hardcover, $19.50 When Ronald Reagan came to Washington in 1980, he brought with him a weird and frightening assortment of ultra-right wing ideologues — his friends and supporters — with which to assem- ble his administration. Certainly the most virulent group of people to occupy the Reagan bandwagon were the Nuclear Use Theorists (NUTs), who believed that the United States should actively prepare to fight — and win — a nuclear war against the Soviet Union. They were men like Eugene Rostow, who told the press that “*we are living in a pre-war and not a post-war world’’. Reagan made Rostow chief of arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. There was also Richard Pipes, whose views are so rabid that he is rarely permitted to speak to the media. In one of his few public interviews, he insisted that ‘‘the Soviet leaders will have to choose between peacefully changing their communist system... or going to war’’. Pipes is today the top White House ‘‘Soviet expert’’ on the National Security Council. And T.K. Jones, Reagan’s Deputy Under Secretary for Defence, who claims that “nuclear war is nothing to fear’’, and should it happen we need only follow his simple prescription for survival: ‘Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors and then throw three feet of dirt on top .. . it’s the dirt that does it . . . ifthere are enough shovels to go around, everybody’s going to make it.”’ The evolution and triumph of the NUTs within the U.S. estab- lishment is the subject of Robert Scheer’s thorough and well-. documented book, With Enough Shovels. Scheer, a former editor of Ramparts magazine who presently writes for the Los Angeles Times, has certainly done a masterful job of exposing the profound and deadly changes that Reagan’s people have wrought upon U.S. nuclear policy. The key problem with Scheer’s book — and much of the contemporary literature on this theme — is that it fails to lead us to an understanding of the underlying causes of today’s war danger. We are left to believe that Reagan and his cabal of NUTs are political freaks; if we could only remove them from power, saner nuclear doctrines would take hold. This is not an analytical framework that can be trusted. With Enough Shovels, is an excellent description of the current nuclear war threat emanating from Washington, but contributes vir- tually nothing toward an explanation of it. —Fred Weir PACIFIC TRIBUNE— NOVEMBER 2, 1983—Page 10 territory by destroying the Lebanese economy, terrorizing and arresting its citizens. As a re- sult of efforts by the National Lebanese Resistance Front (a coalition of Lebanese national forces, political parties, women and youth groups, supported by Syrian troops) and widespread opposition at home, Israel has re- assembled its forces behind the Awali River consolidating its hold on southern Lebanon and mini- mizing its losses around Beirut. Employing its divide and rule tactics it has organized religious- based armies in the south and is creating conflict among the people, thereby enabling it to in- crease its domination over the territory. _The War in the Mountains Israel began a partial with- drawal from the mountain areas following the massacres at Sabra and Shatila last year. It did so secure in the knowledge that it had created the conditions for civil war by removing the Druize Muslim leadership in the villages and replacing them with Christian Phalangists. Israel’s ultimate aim is to establish a Phalangist puppet government. Israel withdrew from the moun- tains despite demands by the Lebanese Government that the withdrawal be ‘co-ordinated with the Lebanese army, which could have averted the civil strife. At the same time American battleships appeared in the Lebanese sea, followed by the French and British under the guise of a multi-national force. Lebanon’s worst fears were realized when civil war extended to all the villages in the mountain region at the cost of thousands of civilian lives. Caught in the foray are 100,000 refugees, displaced by the Israeli seige of Beirut and other cities. There is no shelter, food, clothing or medical supplies for them. The death toll mounts daily simply from exposure and starvation. The civil conflict has now been extended to the capital and reg- ions in northern Beirut. There is . = no safety in the cities. Palesti- nians continue to be harrassed and murdered. Thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese are in detention and fear mounts for their lives. The U.S. could have used its presence to put an end to the con- flict, to facilitate a political solu- tion. Instead it used the Lebanese tragedy to fasten its domination on Lebanon, to impose its mili- tary presence, bolstering the 6th fleet with the battleship New Jer- sy. The U.S. is taking an active part in the war on behalf of the Phalangists; bombarding Na- tional Resistance forces and mov- ing marines into the mountains. There is reason to believe that they were behind the massacre of the Communist Party of Leba- non. On Oct. 15, members of Lebanon’s right-wing Musilmont Party circled the party’s head- quarters in Tripoli, Lebanon. They attacked, killing 69 and wounding 159. The intentions of the U.S. have become increasingly obvious to the Lebanese Government who have opposed their actions in offi- cial statements. The government has called for a ceasefire and is In the southern city of Tyre alone, damage is estimated at $75-milliol The destruction of the Lebanese economy is part of the strategy wh would impose an Israeli-U.S. takeover of the country. and return of all Palestinian at _Canada next April as a guest of supervising negotiations betwee! the different factions. But the U.S. is putting road blocks in the way of a ceasefire, # pre-condition for any dialogue They are attempting to distort thé true picture of the war, -implyins that a peaceful settlement is in’ possible without their dire¢! intervention. France, Italy and Britain havé bought this senario and are pus!t ing at the United Nations for 4 team of supervisors to be sent 1 the area, formenting a division © Lebanon as happened i in Cypnis and Korea. If the U.S. succeeds in its pla it will mean the occupation Lebanon by the Marines unde! the cover of the UN. A political solution is possiblé| in Lebanon, based on the wil drawal of all foreign troops; 44 end to the civil war; the releas® Lebanese war prisoners from IS rael: guarantees to safeguard civ! lian lives and the recognition of Lebanese sovereignty to choos¢ its own path. Linda Matar will be touring the Congress of Canadial Women. — Peace Congress hits invasion The invasion of Grenada in time-dishonored tradition of red- neck, gunboat U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean and Central America, should serve as a terri- ble warning to Canadians of the dangers of a future in NATO dominated by a U.S. Government led by buccanners. Nicaragua is plainly next on their list and the Cubans are fully aware that they too are targeted for attack when a pretext can be arranged. Reagan and his supporters further intend to do this all around the world while mouthing cover slogans about freedom and demo- cracy. The justification given for. Canada remaining in NATO is that it protects our people. On the contrary, it is the only source of grave international danger our people face by making us poten- tial enemies of peoples who otherwise are eager to be our friends. The Canadian Peace Congress urges that the Canadian Govern- ment joint the world-wide publi¢ and a majority of governments ip their protests and demand il mediate U.S. withdrawal from Grenada. City or town Postal Code ee lam enclosing: Tyr. $140 2yrs.$25 0 6 mo. $8 0 OldO New L Foreign 1 year $20 0 Bill me later 1 ike’ BY BT BY LY ADP LD LLG a SG ABP A Don't miss an issue J RIBUNE Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V6L 3X9. Phone 251-1186. \ Read the paper that fights for labor N , Name. «2°. 2253599 to-go y ' ee Bole e 052 ere 9. 958 =, 5's)