Longview Daily News from Longview, Washington • 10

A10 The Daily News Longview Wash Thursday September 27 1984 Lebanese know 'why' of bombing Editorial Page The Daily News organization the majority of southern Lebanese suffering under Israeli occupation are Shias the United States protected that occupation by its veto so the United States had to receive Shia punishment The objective of the earlier bombings as stated by the perpetrators was to get rid of the US presence from the whole Middle East But the reason underlying all the four attacks is one and the same to expel and punish the United States because of its total support political military financial diplomatic of Israel which has become the bedrock of US Middle Eastern policy Rather than face the hard fact that US Middle East policy is rejected by the Middle East apologists in the White House State Department and elsewhere are now putting forward a cloudy theory of a worldwide anti-Western con- the reason underlying the attacks is to expel and punish the United States because of its total support of Israel i Lebanese militant groups but Shia communities are usually financially self-supporting because devout Shias are meticulous about paying zakat the tithe and in addition make extra contributions known as khums There would be no real need for external financing to pay for arms explosives trucks and false license plates which are all easily obtainable in Beirut So apart from generalized Shia inspiration and enthusiasm from Iran impinging on the Lebanese Kho-meinists it would be fanciful to imagine that there is some one person or organization in Iran issuing direct orders to a group in Lebanon to blow up the US Embassy As the threat of Sept 8 shows Lebanese Shias have ample reasons of their own for wanting to punish the United States Thus last Monday Lebanon solemnly recalled the second anniversary of the Sabra and Chatilla massacres perpetrated by the Falangist surrogates of the Israeli army many of those victims were Shias Three days later and three hours before the embassy bombing members of a new Israeli surrogate force the so-called South Lebanon Army went on a reprisal-rampage in a south Lebanon Shia village killing 13 civilian Shias in the immediate presence of the SLA commander and of Israeli officers No further provocation was needed for the Shias to attack the United States The underlying security mistake made by the US Embassy in Beirut was to take it for granted that Christian East Beirut was quieter that it was better controlled than the disorderly western Muslim half This assumption was not based on fact There have been many bombings and shootings in the east usually the result of protection-racket disputes but after all the president-elect of Lebanon Bashir Gemayel was blown up two years ago in his very heavily guarded party headquarters in the east and earlier his 18-month old daughter died in a car bombing: "The bomber will always get through" as the British said in World War II especially if the bomber is a young Shia fanatic prepared to die in the attempt The best the only protection against him is to remove the reasons for his anti-US hatred which would mean a policy change not a 180-degree turn but just 90 degrees from blatant partisanship to a balanced even-handedness between Israel and the Arabs Jansen is an author and foreign correspondent who has covered the Middle East for many years By GH Jansen Special to the Los Angeles Times Finding and acting on the answers to the "why" of the second bomb attack on the US Embassy in Beirut is far more important than finding answers to how it happened Yet the excited noise over the "how" is drowning out the questioning on the "why" The answer to why was clearly and explicitly provided by the culprits themselves: On Sept 6 Warren Clark the US delegate in the United Nations Security council vetoed a resolution sponsored by the Lebanese government asking the Israelis to "lift all restrictions and obstacles to the restoration of normal conditions" in southern Lebanon All the other 14 members of the council including American allies voted in favor with the result that as so often in the United Nations now the United States stood alone in defense of Israel Since the Lebanese thought that they had an open-and-shut case on what was essentially a humanitarian appeal the US veto aroused great disillusionment and bitterness in Lebanon The usually calm and mild-mannered premier of Lebanon Rashid Karami publicly and formally "cursed" the United States for supporting the oppressor against the oppressed while preaching hypocritically about human rights The Lebanese were especially angered because of the reason given for the US veto: The Lebanese resolution was allegedly unbalanced because it made no mention of the Syrian occupation of parts of Lebanon But unlike the Israelis the Syrians have not cut off their area from the rest of the country they are not dumping their agricultural surpluses into an agricultural area destroying the local economy the Syrian army is not trying to bully the local population into submission and consequently that army is not under daily attack from the occupied as are the Israelis Two days after the veto on Sept 8 the Reuters and Associated Press offices in Beirut received telephone calls from someone claiming to speak for "Islamic Jihad" and also for a new group "the Islamic Revolutionary Brigades" He said that because of the US veto "this flagrant and continuous defiance of our Arab nation will get an appropriate answer Very soon we shall strike at one of the vital American Installations in the Middle East" The motivation of attack was somewhat different from that of the preceding ones in that it was more specific Islamic Jihad is a Shia spiracy somehow linked to the "state terrorism" sponsored by Iran Syria Libya and North Korea This is nonsense And Indeed the State Department has already half-removed Syria from that list because it has been described as "having changed" and become "helpful" in Lebanon Of course Islamic Jihad if it exists has "links" with Iran all Shias and all Shia organizations have links with the mother country of Shiism It is still not known whether Islamic Jihad is a single organization or merely a cover-all designation adopted by ad hoc groups like the Islamic Revolutionary exploiting Islamic fearsome reputation The members of Shia militant groups in Lebanon such as Hisballah led by Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on whom Islamic Jihad seems to be based are all Khomelnists in that they have the distinctive Shia reverence for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and accept his hard puritanical interpretation of Islamic behavior and his opposition to the West and in particular to Western policy on the Palestine issue: Khomeini is obsessed with the return of Jerusalem to Muslim sovereignty Iran probably provides some financing to the Oregon voting laws part of the problem THE RED- PINK- and purple-clad followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh preach his gospel of love and peace But inspiring hate and fear among longtime residents of Wasco County in the Central Oregon desert Those residents claim political control of the county is at stake liberal voter registration laws may be too Oregon requires only that a person live in the state for 20 days before registering And to encourage high voter turnout potential voters may register as late as election day Anyone moving into Oregon by Oct 17 may register to vote the day of the Nov 6 general election Washington in contrast requires potential voters to register at least 30 days before the election The bhagwan and his followers were little more than a curiosity when they arrived in 1981 to set up their social experiment of a classless society But the 25000 Wasco County residents have seen the Rajneeshee influence steadily increase The followers took over the tiny town of Antelope earlier this month they voted to change the name to Rajneesh as a complement to the town of Ra-jneeshpuram which they founded on their ranch The Oregon Court of Appeals backing claims that forming a city in the middle of range land violates state land-use laws ruled in June that the Incorporation of Rajneeshpuram was invalid The case is pending before the state Supreme Court If it fails there the three-member Wasco County Commission will decide whether to allow another incorporation vote Two of the commissioners are up for re-election In November and where the fear comes In Many county residents are afraid the Rajneeshees will pack the polls and carry the county commission race with write-in votes The 2000 Rajneeshees in the county do It alone But they have started importing homeless people all over 18 all US citizens from the streets of New York Chicago Los Angeles Phoenix and other cities to live on their ranch The group is opening its land to the homeless Rajneeshee spokeswoman Ma Anand Sheela says simply to share their surplus There are valid reasons to restricting the new residents to adults who are US citizens But non-Rajneeshee factions in the county claim a less generous motive saying the Rajneeshees plan to register their new guests to vote exercising real electoral power About 1000 of the homeless have arrived in Wasco County so far Old-time residents may be justifiably frightened at the thought of losing control of their county It may not seem fair but the Rajneeshees breaking the law If the people they import choose to vote for Rajneeshee candidates they will be simply taking advantage of lenient voter registration laws Oregon state Rep Wayne Fawbush a fourth-term Democrat whose district includes Rajneeshpuram and Rajneesh has said he wants a special session of the Oregon Legislature called to change those laws preventing the new residents from voting in November That might solve the problem It might be legal But like the criticism of the Rajneeshees changing the rules so near the election be fair Letters to the Editor Going to Portland To the Editor: You had a very interesting article on why the Longview merchants are losing to a Portland market One area I would like to add to the article is the example that we have a lumber retailer also doing business as an appliance dealer that has done what I would call an unethical practice My experience was that my dryer motor quit working (or so I thought) The local dealer was requested to order a replacement which was picked up After replacing the motor I found my breaker box defective and it was replaced for $700 Upon attempting to return the unused motor for refund I was told the return cost would be $20 A Portland dealer was called to deter mine if this was a company policy The response was a definite My round trip to Portland would have saved: 1 Sales tax 2 $20 from our local merchant Donald Graham Longview Fun shortened To the Editor: In reference to the recent front page article "Six Arrested in Raid at Pleasure thank goodness for modern day technology in police investigation Otherwise instead of investigating at the Palace for only three hours it could have taken up to a week Dale Burleson Longview Reader commentary Let's throw By Raymond Palmer Longview Resident Election time is near once more I urge all of you to search your souls and ask if this country can afford another four years of Reaganomics gunboat diplomacy and his demented view of what America should stand for It is also time to think about whether a place in our democracy for the Republican party This party represents very few Americans and has to date turned out at least two tyrants Nixon and Reagan I feel Reagan is on his way to being a fascist demagogue almost destroyed all social programs built a trllllon-dollar deficit on military buildup He has continually backed right-wing dictatorships no matter how murderous just as long as they're anticommunist Reagan's vision of America Is a combination of the 1890s and the 1950s In fact that seems to be the Republican position Reagan out Reagan has appeared on TV time and again to expound on the great danger of communists marching from Central America to our doorstep But there he was in China talking about friendship between our two nations I thought government was communist If we can negotiate with them why not with the Central American communists? Maybe Reagan spent too much time in that California sun chopping wood Reagan has come down hard on unions here but he praises their right to exist in Poland Also he's been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan He claims blacks don't understand him Maybe they know him better than others Now Reagan seems to be moving towards combining church and state Surely you can see that if this man is re-elected he will take it as some kind of divine mandate to shape this country into whatever vision he has of America Therefore we have no other choice but to throw the bum out this November Reader commentary Many treaties honored Reader commentary free trade absorbed into tne body and becomes a part of bones and teeth in partial substitution for calcium is a potent cause of cancer There was widespread public alarm in this country and around the world It did not take long for President Kennedy and Premier Khrusehev to complete an agreement banning aboveground tests To my knowledge there has never been a claim that this valuable treaty has ever been violated I imagine that Donald Vickaryous and Win Jones are not much worried about Strontium 09 in the breast milk of Russian mothers and in the bones and teeth of Russian children but I have difficulty imagining that they would have such hatred and fear of the Russians that they would forgo the Limited Test Ban Treaty and let our American mothers nurse their babies with milk contaminated with Strontium 99 Instead of dealing with the postwar treaties I listed Vickaryous simply trotted out tired old John Birch Society propaganda eliehes which have no connection with reality I would be glad to respond to them but space does not permit Suffice it to say despite the feet we do not like the Soviet economic or political system the Russians are every bit as human as we are They have their national interests and we have ours We do have though one huge overriding and overlapping interest with them namely not to blow up this planet which we both must share for better or for worse and which we must not poison so that it becomes unlivable Treaties ere essentially a codification of areas of mutual interest and therefore we do in fact have a basis of trust in treaties made with the By Arthur Mottet Longview Both Donald Vlekaryoui and Win Jones dispute my criticism of Ronald Reagan for his incapacity to negotiate with the Russians They claim in effect that the Russians are constitutionally incapable of keeping an agreement and therefore such agreements art worthless These gentlemen did not really address themselves to my commentary I listed 2fl agreements concluded with the US8R since World War II by the six presidents preceding Reagan from Eisenhower to Carter Neither Vickaryous nor Jones showed bow a single one of these treaties had been violated The reason that they did not cite treaty violations is that there were none The information I have prepared by unbiased experts on the subject indicates that the 29 treaties have been well observed by both sides Occasionally one side might complain to the other on some relatively minor point arising usually from some differences in interpretation of treaty terms but generally the treaties can be said to be adhered to and effectively accomplishing their agreed purposes I would like to cite here as an example one of these treaties that has been of Immense importance and value to all of us: the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 This treaty stopped the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere in which both we and the Russians had been engaged throughout the 1950s So much radioactive Strontium 90 became dispersed throughout the atmosphere all over the world that it began showing up in milk and in bones and teeth Strontium 90 which is The Not really To the Editor: I still don't understand where our Congress and our president can call what we have with Japan and other countries who dump their manufactured goods on our country "free trade" Their idea of free trade Is for us to pay out in balance of trade deficit $120 billion this year That Increased from $40 billion last year and below $10 billion some time before that They state that the main reasons for our declining competitiveness in certain industries are comparatively high labor costs poor quality control and management practices Two factors that actually accomplish the greatest decline in competitiveness ere as fellows The unreasonably high value of the dollar on the foreign markets due to the manipulation of the Federal Reserve System started in 1913 to try to control inflation and to stop the recessions from affecting the economy of our nation Instead of that desirable effect the direct opposite is now true We've had more inflation more recession and even more wars and heavy rearma- ment caused by the greed of that ungovernmental body than at any time in our or the world's history The Federal Reserve System is composed of a body of men who are not elected to the job but acquire that position through selection by bankers because they give aUegianee to the bankers and net to the country The Federal Reserve System has virtual control of the issuing of money the value of money and even the existence et local banks They lend money to every country in the world including the United States and control the amount of interest paid in each case I don't think it makes any sense for a small group of people to have that much control over the destiny of so many other people That $120 billion balance of trade deficit would give work to six million people et $20000 a year And $120 billion In the balance of trade deficit would give four million people a job at $30000 a year That does not sound like free trade to me Melvin Pederson Longview News pgbhthedby Igngview JM McClelland 195J-1MI JM McClelland Jr Wl ifigman PfftiaeA June Nilsson Steve lafady Roger Waller gn Treasurer A Puhtier Prize-winning Newspaper Daily Wgthmgtft Ted Nett Gesten Jerry ingeba tails Clark Wilbur Kemper Mgneger Waneae Koethke William Cellini Mgnggep Mgsegef Snyder Dick Pollock fg'W Kenneth Weakley Marketina QiNKTAf Robert I Robert display Advertising Charles iguiiteg lonnie Qttice Managaf.