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Wednesday, February 8, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
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Rachel
Marsden
American Voices
Lebbers bo bhe Edibor…
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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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.
To the Editor:
I am writing in regard to an item published
in last week’s “City Snapshot.”
Readers were encouraged to look at a list
of FAQs concerning the February 8 hearing
on the airport’s request for an upgrade in sta-
tus as an appendix “M” category Airport of
State Concern. That list of FAQs was recently
posted on the ODA website in response to
some of the questions community members
have been asking for months.
Unfortunately, several responses raise addi-
tional questions or are at odds with informa-
tion the airport and governmental entities have
provided. Several questions regarding future
implications remain unanswered. There is,
for example, conflicting information regard-
ing boundary expansion and funding. Both
of which carry the potential to increase noisy
activities such as skydiving.
I base some of my observations from reading
ODA’s FAQs and the “Land Use Compatibility
Handbook” referenced in those FAQs.
For example per the FAQs: “Would this
designation allow the airport to apply for
and possibly receive any grants or other
Government funds they cannot apply for under
their current designation?” ODA’s response:
“No, not at this time.” Yet in the January 18
issue of The Nugget, the airport is reported
as saying that they are seeking listing as an
Airport of State Concern in Appendix M in
order to help qualify for funding.
I am not anti-airport. I come from a flying
family with airplanes, not cars, in the garage. I
am however deeply concerned about the qual-
ity of life in Sisters Country, and the potential
for increased noise and lack of privacy above
our homes. It seems the airport is pursuing
changes that could negatively impact us all.
Noise created by more skydive planes, heli-
copter tours is not a positive addition to our
See LETTERS on page 14
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PARIS — As someone
living in France, a country
subjected to multiple Islamic
terrorist attacks over the past
couple of years, I’d be the
last to criticize the spirit of
President Trump’s initiative
to secure American borders
through extreme vetting. I’ve
witnessed firsthand the result
of creeping insecurity and
cultural disintegration directly
attributable to Europe’s insis-
tence on treating its borders
as mere suggestions rather
than enforceable boundaries.
If Trump fails to get a handle
on the situation, America will
look a lot like Europe.
The problem isn’t lim-
ited to dangerous radicals
who might commit terrorist
atrocities — it also expands
to include those communities
hiding these individuals from
authorities, protecting them,
harboring them via a code of
silence. Police sources have
told me that these areas are, in
essence, no-go zones where
the police are at high risk of
attack. This is the endgame
of a national immigration
policy that fails to take into
account security and cultural
compatibility.
Entering America is a
privilege, not a right. Every
country that has succeeded in
maintaining its cultural iden-
tity has a selective system in
place that rejects or approves
entrants based on country of
origin.
The civil rights crowd
that whines about arbitrary
screening should welcome
reliable vetting. Anything less
would subject immigrants
to ongoing suspicion. The
problem for civil rights advo-
cates, however, is that proper
government vetting requires
intelligence work, which
these proponents typically
reject in favor of personal pri-
vacy protections.
Trump should keep in
mind the lesson of Napoleon
Bonaparte. A grand strategist,
Napoleon nonetheless failed
in 1812 to pay attention to the
logistics of forcing his foot
soldiers to rely on the sparse
Russian landscape for food
and water (rather than supply
wagons) during the attempted
conquest of the country. This
defeat was instrumental in his
downfall and eventual exile.
As the old adage goes, ama-
teurs talk about strategy, pro-
fessionals talk about logistics.
And talking about logis-
tics, whoever implemented
Trump’s order to temporarily
ban “immigrants and non-
immigrants” from seven
Muslim-majority countries
— Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya,
Somalia, Sudan and Yemen
— from entering the U.S.,
should be drop-kicked into
a black hole. The logistical
implementation of Trump’s
executive order was just about
as effective as Napoleon’s
Russian Campaign, minus the
frostbite and starvation.
On Saturday morning, for-
mer New York City Mayor
Rudy Giuliani told Fox News:
“(Trump) said put a commis-
sion together, show me the
right way to do it legally. I put
a commission together ... and
what we did was we focused
on, instead of religion, danger
— the areas of the world that
create danger for us.”
If we’re talking about
terror-sponsoring nations,
why are Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Bahrain, Pakistan and other
nations omitted? Moreover,
what act of terrorism has
Iran committed or sponsored
against the United States?
The selection of the seven
countries is interesting unto
itself. So is the fact that
Giuliani attended the 2012
Paris rally of the Mujahe-
deen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an
Iranian dissident group that
was on the U.S. State Depart-
ment’s list of foreign terrorist
organizations. The MEK and
the Islamic State share a com-
mon sponsor — Saudi Arabia.
In 2007, the Associated Press
reported that Saudi Arabia
was one of “Giuliani’s law
and lobbying clients...” Is that
why they were not targeted?
The ban has caused need-
less chaos for law-abiding
travelers worldwide. Legal
permanent residents of the
U.S. were detained at airports,
not sure if they would be
allowed to return home, dual
passport holders were con-
fused as to whether the direc-
tive applied to them and inter-
national airlines employing
foreign cabin crew, already
vetted six ways from Sunday,
scrambled mid-flight. There’s
no excuse for this.
You asked someone to
build you a sleek new sky-
scraper and provided them the
overall vision. But someone
didn’t check the angles, and
what you got back was the
Leaning Tower of Pisa. That
leaning monstrosity, like this
administration, now has your
name on it.
© 2017 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.