2
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I N I O
N
Editorial…
County missed an opportunity
The Deschutes County Commissioners
should have gone ahead with their discus-
sion of issues related to Sisters Eagle Airport,
instead of canceling it after it had been
announced (see story, page 1).
While it’s true that the shape of a pro-
posed state-recognized airport boundary
remains undetermined — and thus any dis-
cussion would have been speculative —
the commissioners would have neverthe-
less benefitted from a thorough briefing
on issues that are of significant interest to
their constituents in this part of Deschutes
County.
The County may ultimately have little
or no jurisdiction over airport activities in
the Sisters area — but the residents who are
affected by those activities are still the con-
stituents of the County commissioners. Those
constituents need to know that their elected
representatives are at least interested in the
issues that affect them.
A sense of disenfranchisement is rife in
America right now. Across the political spec-
trum, many people feel not only that their
voice is not heeded, but that it’s not even
heard. The belief that government is by and
for the connected and the special-interests
instead of by and for the people is spread-
ing. The Deschutes County Commissioners
had an opportunity to show a different face of
government to their constituents — and they
missed it.
Jim Cornelius, News Editor
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
Correction
A typographical error was introduced into
Bruce Mason’s letter to the editor regarding
the Sisters Eagle Airport last week. A sec-
ond zero was cut off along with the % sym-
bol when the % symbol was replaced with the
word “percent.”
The sentence should have read: “It
appears that Sisters Eagle Airport is seeking
an increase in their airport zone footprint of
approximately 400 percent.”
s
s
s
To the Editor:
Kudos to Sisters City Council President
Nancy Connelly and Council members
Andrea Blum and Amy Burgstahler for voting
to provide financial support for the proposed
Housing Works affordable-housing rental
project. Thanks also to interim city manager
Rick Allen for helping identify funds for the
project and to former mayor Chris Frye for
bringing this opportunity to the Council for
consideration.
Meeting the acute need for lower-income
housing in Sisters is vital to providing the
workforce necessary to sustain our essen-
tial service and tourist industries. Depending
upon private-sector developers to provide
higher density, multifamily homes just
isn’t working. A recent case in point is the
decision by Hayden Homes to withdraw
its previously approved plan for building
lower-cost housing units so they can con-
tinue building higher-end, low-density hous-
ing on Sisters’ dwindling available land
inventory.
The long-term effects of the City contrib-
uting to affordable housing include provid-
ing housing for families bringing children to
town to help reverse the declining enrollment
in Sisters schools and providing the high-den-
sity development necessary to future efforts to
expand the city’s urban growth boundary.
Roger Detweiler
s
s
s
See letterS on page 19
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
thursday
Friday
Saturday
Slt. chance showers Slt. chance showers Slt. chance showers Mostly sunny
61/33
60/33
64/38
73/40
Sunday
Monday
Sunny
Sunny
77/40
79/na
The Nugget Newspaper, Inc.
Website: www.nuggetnews.com
442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759
Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com
Postmaster: Send address changes to
The Nugget Newspaper,
P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759.
Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon.
Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson
News Editor: Jim Cornelius
Production Manager: Leith Williver
Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken
Advertising: Karen Kassy
Graphic Design: Jess Draper
Proofreader: Pete Rathbun
Accounting: Erin Bordonaro
The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area.
Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55.
Published Weekly. ©2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which
appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for
information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition-
ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently
available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts.
Rachel
Marsden
American Voices
Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump
recently gave a non-interven-
tionist foreign policy speech
suggesting that he wants to
make new allies of old foes
and find common ground
with them on shared national
security challenges. He noted
that 88 U.S. generals and
admirals have endorsed him,
and that “the current strategy
of toppling regimes, with no
plan for what to do the day
after, only produces power
vacuums that are filled by
terrorists.”
Trump should tell that to
the 51 State Department offi-
cials who called for ramping
up U.S. military intervention
in Syria in an internal memo
that was reviewed by CNN in
June prior to being classified.
Hoping to force Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad
back to the negotiating table,
these State Department offi-
cials figured that in lieu of
diplomacy, it would be a
good idea to prolong a con-
flict that has already driven
millions of migrants —
including Islamic State ter-
rorists — into Europe and is
demographically overwhelm-
ing that part of the world.
The State Department,
which works closely with the
CIA in providing official dip-
lomatic cover to CIA officers
abroad, has long been at odds
with the Pentagon over Syria.
It’s no wonder that Pentagon
generals are backing Trump,
while just a few weeks ago a
handful of former CIA direc-
tors publicly did the same for
Democratic candidate and
former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton by signing a
letter denouncing Trump.
Documents sent to and
from Hillary Clinton’s pri-
vate email server while she
was secretary of state suggest
that she wanted to remove
Assad despite the power vac-
uum it would create.
In March 2012, accord-
ing to a document released
by WikiLeaks, Clinton
instructed special assistant
Robert Russo to print an
email sent to her titled, “An
interesting proposal from
(CIA veteran) Bruce Riedel
re how Israel could help get
Assad out of office.”
Another email found
on Clinton’s private email
server, this one purport-
edly from Clinton herself,
reiterates: “The best way to
help Israel deal with Iran’s
growing nuclear capability
is to help the people of Syria
overthrow the regime of
Bashar Assad.”
This is precisely the kind
of reckless interventionist
mindset that has long infused
the State Department.
Meanwhile, a classified
Defense Intelligence Agency
report from August 2012
obtained by Judicial Watch
actually predicted the rise of
the Islamic State as a result
of the U.S. aligning itself
with various “rebels.”
“ISI (Islamic State in Iraq)
could also declare an Islamic
State through its union with
other terrorist organizations
in Iraq and Syria, which
will create grave danger in
regards to unifying Iraq and
the protection of its terri-
tory,” the report stated.
This issue underscores
the clash of worldviews
between the Clinton and
Trump campaigns. Former
Defense Intelligence Agency
Director Michael Flynn, a
retired lieutenant general
and key Trump defense and
intelligence adviser, had long
warned about Syria turning
into a terrorist hotbed.
Unlike Flynn, the Clinton-
CIA-State Department axis
either didn’t see the emerg-
ing threat, or it didn’t mind it
enough to nip it in the bud.
Even if the Islamic State is
ultimately defeated, there are
still more State Department
proxies waiting in the wings
to fill the void and wreak
more havoc. Consider the
Uyghurs of East Asia, an
Islamic group. The World
Uyghur Congress, which
appears on China’s list of
domestic terrorist organiza-
tions, has received more than
$200,000 in annual fund-
ing from Congress via the
State Department’s National
Endowment for Democracy.
A Clinton administration,
emboldened by intervention-
ist enablers in the CIA and
State Department seeking
to play their next obvious
proxy card in the Middle
East, could end up landing
America in a direct confron-
tation with China.
Just when you think
American foreign policy
couldn’t possibly get any
worse, we might get to see
what Hillary Clinton could
do with unfettered executive
power.
© 2016 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.