A GROUP of US anti-war activists on Saturday said they will head to Lebanon to denounce their government's failure to call for an immediate ceasefire between key ally Israel and the Hezbollah.
The group made the announcement after two days of talks in Jordan with Iraqi parliamentarians on ways to gain US Congress backing for a swift end to US troop deployment in Iraq and US funds to rebuild Iraq.
"We are leaving tomorrow (Sunday) for Syria and hope to go the next day to Lebanon," said Medea Benjamin, founding director of the US human rights organisation Global Exchange and member of several other anti-war groups.
Ann Wright, a retired US army colonel and veteran diplomat, said the group wants "to bear witness to what is happening" in Lebanon and hook up with civil rights groups to assess the humanitarian crisis and help provide aid. Celebrated US anti-war campaigner Tom Hayden,famous for his involvement in the anti-war of the 1960s, meanwhile questioned the motives behind Israel's onslaught. Hayden will not be going to Lebanon but he joined Benjamin, Wright and 12 other US activists in meetings Friday and Saturday with Iraqi MPs to discuss a US troop pullout from Iraq.
Iraqi MP Salman al-Jumaili, one of seven deputies who met with the US peace activists, told reporters: "We have found a voice inside the United States that backs us." Yes, indeed: on the other side. |