City must take stand in Iraq war.Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Bruce Bowers Bowers is a surname, and may refer to
At 7:30 this evening, the Eugene City Council will consider a resolution seeking withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq The withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq has been a contentious issue within the United States since the beginning of the Iraq War. As the war has progressed from its initial invasion phase to the more than four-year occupation, U.S. . Despite the fact that U.S. military involvement in Iraq has become the most controversial issue since the Vietnam War Vietnam War, conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. , some may legitimately question whether such a resolution is within the council's purview The part of a statute or a law that delineates its purpose and scope. Purview refers to the enacting part of a statute. It generally begins with the words be it enacted and continues as far as the repealing clause. . We think it is. Eugene would not be alone. Scores of cities nationwide, including Portland and Corvallis, have passed similar resolutions. These leaders understand that federal actions have local effects, making those actions fair game for judgments by local bodies. To date, Eugene taxpayers have paid more than $107.5 million for the war and occupation in Iraq, which, as of March 19, will have lasted four years. That amount of money could do a lot for Eugene: four years of Head Start for nearly 3,500 children; four years of medical insurance for more than 15,000 children; four years' wages for nearly 450 public school teachers; or more than 900 housing units. Our invasion and occupation of Iraq, justified under the newly minted policy of unilateral preventive war A war initiated in the belief that military conflict, while not imminent, is inevitable, and that to delay would involve greater risk. , has resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,200 Americans - including 79 from Oregon and one from Eugene. Total casualties - dead and wounded from both `hostile' and `nonhostile' causes - amount to an astounding a·stound tr.v. a·stound·ed, a·stound·ing, a·stounds To astonish and bewilder. See Synonyms at surprise. [From Middle English astoned, past participle of astonen, 52,367. While the number of wounded being treated in Oregon is not available, the recent expose by The Washington Post on the problems facing returning wounded veterans due to an inadequate budgets for military hospitals suggests that their treatment may well be straining the budgets of Oregonians and their families. A resolution unanimously passed by the Lane County Board of Commissioners last month recognized this very problem. Then there is the sorry state of the National Guard. A Register-Guard editorial on March 6, referring to a report by the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, stated that `nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units and 45 percent of Air National Guard units not currently deployed overseas have severe equipment shortages. As a result, the Guard is at its lowest readiness level ever, putting Americans at risk from Oregon to Florida.' Our National Guard's readiness should be of paramount concern to state and local governing bodies. Our young men and women have been killed and injured in response to a threat that never existed. We have learned that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction Weapons that are capable of a high order of destruction and/or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people. Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons, but exclude the means of transporting or and that intelligence was manipulated when Congress voted to go to war. Should not local government bodies speak out about this unconscionable Unusually harsh and shocking to the conscience; that which is so grossly unfair that a court will proscribe it. When a court uses the word unconscionable to describe conduct, it means that the conduct does not conform to the dictates of conscience. sacrifice of its citizenry cit·i·zen·ry n. pl. cit·i·zen·ries Citizens considered as a group. citizenry Noun citizens collectively Noun 1. ? In a guest viewpoint published in the Feb. 16 Register-Guard, Craig Mahaffey made an eloquent case for supporting two bills in Congress - one in the House (House Resolution 508), and one in the Senate (Senate Bill 448) - that would initiate an orderly and safe withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. However, he also suggested that Congress has so far proved to be `like a dysfunctional family dysfunctional family Psychology A family with multiple 'internal'–eg sibling rivalries, parent-child– conflicts, domestic violence, mental illness, single parenthood, or 'external'–eg alcohol or drug abuse, extramarital affairs, gambling, member who enables an abuser' by continuing to support the funding of the Iraq occupation. The central demand of the resolution before the Eugene City Council tonight is that Congress use its power of the purse The power of the purse is the ability of one group to manipulate and control the actions of another group by withholding funding, or putting stipulations on the use of funds. The power of the purse can be used positively (e.g. to oppose further funding of the Iraq occupation - except for funds necessary to carry out a safe, rapid and orderly withdrawal that fully protects American troops from harm, and to support Iraqi reconstruction efforts. Despite the electoral message sent by Americans in November, Congress still is dragging its feet on the Iraq war Iraq War: see under Persian Gulf Wars. Iraq War or Second Persian Gulf War Brief conflict in 2003 between Iraq and a combined force of troops largely from the U.S. and Great Britain; and a subsequent U.S. . Our representatives need to hear from citizens, organizations, cities, counties and states that we want decisive action now. At the state level, a resolution urging withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq has been passed out of committee on a bipartisan 6-1 vote. It is now pending in the Oregon House. We live in a globalized world. Local government bodies should no longer hide behind the old saw that foreign policy issues are not their business. We urge citizens to fill the City Council Chamber tonight and let their council representative know where they stand on this issue. Bruce Bowers and Aria Seligmann are members of the Take Back America Coalition, which is organizing a rally against the U.S. occupation in Iraq at the old Federal Building in Eugene. It is scheduled for noon Saturday, one week before the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. |
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