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Commentary Oregon Daily Emerald Thursday, July 21,2005 .JTHE PRESIDENT'S NOMINATION OF itSUPREME court is an OOr/tM&m msibtf CANDIDATE COULD BE FURTHER an-OF THFMMRWM THAN (BijiML# MX THE JllDICMi RECORD oFiSi&iy) 15 AN fiTRQUIY'' NO American SHOULD 5WD W J7/ M 1ST ME TF/i iWMA-tITHINK*F (MnjNUM wm COURT..,. 7777^Ti L JfEOPLt 5 mm, > % r T OPPOSE 7y,; w/LL START $0R ON(£ \fjfftfz £6T * NAME.. a A fUKfmbtik Bret Furtwangler | Graphic artist NEWS STAFF (541)346-5511 SHADRA BEESLEY EDITOR IN CHIEF GABE BRADLEY NEWS EDITOR NICHOl AS WILBUR NEWS REPORTER SHAWN MILLER SPORTS EDITOR RYAN NYBURG PULSE EDITOR AJLEE SLATER COMMENTARY EDITOR TIM BOBOSKY PHOTO AND ONLINE EDITOR WENDY KIEFFER DESIGN EDITOR JENNY GERW1CK COPY CHIEF BRET FURTWANGLER GRAPHIC ARTIST BUSINESS (541)346-5511 JUDY RIEDL GENERAL MANAGER KATHY CARBONE BUSINESS MANAGER ALEX CORBIN ALAN FULLERTON RYAN JOHNSON DISTRIBUTION ADVERTISING (541)346-3712 MELISSA L»USI ADVERTISING DIRECTOR MIA LEIDELMEYER SALES MANAGER KEU.EE KAUFTHEIL STEPHEN MILLER KATIE STRINGER CODV WILSON SALES REPRESENTATIVES CLASSIFIED (541)3464343 TRINA SHANAMAN CLASSIFIED MANAGER KORALYNN BASHAM KAIY GAGNON KER1 SPANGLER CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING ASSOCIATES PRODUCTION (541) 3464381 MICHELE ROSS PRODUCTION MANAGER KIRA PARK PRODUCTION COORDINATOR The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub lished daily Monday through Fri day during the school year by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co. Inc, at the University of Ore gon. Eugene, Ore. The Emerald operates independently of the University with offices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial Union. The Emerald is private property. Unlawful removal or use of papers is prosecutable by law. ■ Guest commentary Cartoon makes false assumptions about Guantanamo Bay prisoners This is in response to a cartoon pub lished by Bret Furtwangler (ODE, July 14). The cartoon (depicting an Arab man freed from Gitmo, then killing an Amnesty International representative while yelling “Death to Infidels”) is based on erroneous assumptions. And this is beside a mention of the obvious ly stereotypical Arab caricature, remi niscent of Disney and Looney Times’ “chinamen” and “redmen” that were abandoned decades ago. You can do better than that, Furtwangler. The first assumption falsely made by Furtwangler is that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are terrorists, eager to kill any and all Americans. While some prisoners have been freed (even some who have later taken up arms) and others have been brought to trial, most of the prisoners that have been held since our invasion of Afghanistan have never been charged. Yasser Hamdi comes to mind. Bush et al. claim these prison ers are enemy combatants with ties to terrorism, but if this were the case, they would have been charged long ago with a crime. Instead, our govern ment has brazenly violated several of the provisions outlined in the Univer sal Declaration of Human Rights. Another popular falsehood is that Amnesty International can’t be taken seriously, and that its allegations were irresponsible. This is a classic “slime and defend” strategy — con fuse the issue by vilifying the messen ger (a tactic currently being used against Joe and Valerie Wilson by the way). The fact is, AI is an apolitical organization; when anyone anywhere violates human rights, AI calls them on it. AI would have left Gitmo alone if there was nothing to report. As the leader of the free world, the U.S. gov ernment should stand unequivocally above reproach in these matters. Un fortunately, the AI report is only a small portion in the growing body of reports of abuses resulting from our war on terror. These include investigations by several credible organizations as well as countless eyewitness reports. The war on terror is tragically mis guided at best. Bush took his sights off bin Laden long ago (remember, “I don't really think about him much”?) and misled us into an unjustified war (the Downing Street memo clearly in dicates that Bush was seeking to cre ate conditions that could justify war; there were no WMDs, no evidence of WMDs, no sale of nuclear weapons, no real ties to al-Qaida, no substantial threat). As many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians died within the first few months of our invasion (read the Lancet report); the humanitarian sit uation hasn’t improved; violence is n’t decreasing — it’s increasing; near ly 2,000 coalition troops have died, thousands more injured; and a CIA agent has been outed by someone with rank in the White House. With all of this, the Bush administration has refused to set any concrete stan dards for success (in criminal con tempt of congress, according to last May’s defense appropriations bill), and has refused to discuss our current situation is real terms (“it's hard work,” “we’re winning the war on terror” and “we're spreading free dom” aren’t cutting it anymore). It’s time for all of us to seriously question the ends, means and motives of this war. We can no longer afford to restrict our thought along party lines. The answers can only be brought about by open, public and honest de bate, which our administration has never been eager to facilitate. Eric Carman is a University graduate student in the middle secondary education program ecarman@gladstone. uoregon. edu Cartoon and column wrongly present Karl Rove's claim Both Bret Furtwangler’s political car toon (ODE, July 19) and Ailee Slater’s opinion piece (” The Rove reprimand: where is it?,” ODE, July 19) present as fact the claim that Valerie Plame sent her husband Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2003 to explore the (false) reports that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium there. However, this claim comes from Karl Rove, in a clear attempt to discredit Wilson’s bona fides, and the CIA dis putes it. A July 14 editorial in the INBOX Minneapolis Star Ttibune states: “It also wasn't true. On July 22 (2004), Newsday reported that a ‘sen ior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a directorate of operations undercover officer who worked ‘along side’ the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her hus band to undertake the Niger assign ment.”’...the CIA always said Plame did not recommend her husband.” Whether Plame was instrumental, incidental, or coincidental in Wilson’s being given the Niger assignment is not yet clear. The Emerald’s phrasing (and political cartoons) should ac knowledge that uncertainty. What is absolutely certain is that Wilson was right in his report that Saddam Hus sein had not tried to acquire uranium in Niger, and the Bush administration was wrong. No attempts to discredit Wilson can erase that. The American media, and the American electorate, should be very wary about any ad ministration that would rather shoot the messenger than hear the news he brings. Gina Psaki University professor, romance languages ■ Editorial The Court gets another white male: John Roberts Tliesday night President Bush an nounced his Supreme Court nominee to the nation: Judge John Roberts, a Harvard graduate with law experience within the White House and the Justice Department. Unfortunately, Judge Roberts is not the moderate replacement to retiring Justice O’Connor many liberal groups thought the nominee would be. To begin with, President Bush departed from the widely held assumption that a woman would be nominated to keep the (semi-existent) balance of gender in the court. Analysts also predicted Bush might choose longtime friend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to ensure some level of diversity on the court. If Judge Roberts is confirmed, the U.S. Supreme Court will consist of seven white men (six of them with a Christian affilia tion) out of nine total justices. As a pre mier maker and definer of laws, the Supreme Court should be anything but filled with members who are exactly the same. It the law will apply equally to all citizens of the United States, there should be at least some attempt to give U.S. citi zens equal representation on the Court. Bush has accomplished just the opposite. Further upsetting to many is Judge Roberts’ empirical position on abortion: In 1990, Roberts helped write a brief claiming Roe v. Wade should be overturned. This same document also advocated the ban of federal funds for counseling related to abortion. Justice O’Connor was well known for her continual role as a swing vote in favor of abortion rights; if her re placement is in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, that’s exactly what might occur. The American Civil Liberties Union has also commented that without Roe v. Wade, there may be no precedent for privacy in cases involving sexual orientation. When the Texas law prohibiting sodomy was overturned in 2003, a main precedent in the decision was Roe’s definition and guar antee of privacy. One of Roberts’ first tie-breaking deci sions (one of many, considering O’Con nor’s moderate position) may be at the end of the year, when New Hampshire's parental notification law is evaluated. The notification law states that a minor cannot receive an abortion without telling her par ents; liberals and others argue that there is no health exception in the law, making it extremely dangerous to young women. It should also be argued that for young women with abusive parents, it may not be possible to notify a parent without the fear of violence. When the Senate battles out its decision, whether to confirm Bush’s nominee Judge Roberts, Senators ought to give Roberts a significant evaluation. Although promi nent politicians are already calling for a speedy confirmation, these speed monkeys should remember that a Supreme Court Justice is for life: One bad decision could mean a breakdown in the civil rights that all of us take for granted. EDITORIAL BOARD Shadra Beesley Ailee Slater Editor in Chief Commentary Editor Tim Bobosky Photo and Online Editor
