The Clackamas print., January 22, 2003, Image 2

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CORY PRICE Clackamas Print
Above: Over 20,000 Portland residents joined national efforts to march for peace on Saturday. Portland’s
rally was held downtown. The peaceful protest was amongst the largest in the country. Right: A single pro­
testor finds a solitary place to make his statement.
Marchers say no to war
PEACE
Gulf War vet speaks
of 'poisoned patriots'
PTK sponsors symposium on campus to
educate about 'What really happened in the
Gulf War'
Editor-in-Chief
In light of the recent threat of war in
Iraq, students from Phi Theta Kappa
gathered information from the
American Cancer Society and teamed
up with the Northwest Veterans for
Peace to hold an-anti war symposium
entitled, “What really happened in the
gulf war.. .poisoned patriots sympo­
sium.”
The symposium, held at Clackamas
Community College, was nearly
packed Thursday, Jan. 16. Students
from all over campus, as well as mem­
bers of, the Northwest Veterans for
Peace, gathered to learn about the
effects of the Gulf war on American
and Iraqi citizens alike.
“I really believe it’s a time for ques­
tions and not answers,” said Jennifer
Nelson, president of Phi Theta Kappa.
“We are trying to open up the doors for
discussion. We need to have enough
courage to think independently and to
get the word out. This isn’t something
you are going to see on CNBC.”
Guest speaker Will Campbell is a
veteran of the Gulf war. He spoke of
the terror he encountered in the Middle
East and on how people’s lives were
and still are affected.
“I know exactly what happened
over there...we dumped our shit on
them and we’re not going to clean it up,
because we are America, the land of the
free,” Campbell said sarcastically.
“Everybody has gotten a little taste of
it. This stuff (nuclear weapons, urani­
um, ect) doesn’t discriminate. The
department of defense is in complete
denial about this.”
After the 1991 Gulf War, American
troops destroyed a large munitions
depot called Khamisiyah in southern
Iraq. Some of the Iraqi rockets stored at
the depot contained a mixture of the
chemical nerve agents sarin and
cyclosarin. In 1997, s ix years after his
term in Iraq, Campbell received a letter
from the Office of the Secretary of
Defense informing him that he might
have been exposed to the nerve agents.
“When rockets were destroyed in
the pit area at Khamisiyah on March
10, 1991, the nerve agents sarin and
cylosarin may have been released into
the air. If you were with your unit at
this time, you may have been in an area
where exposure to a very low level of
nerve agents was possible. However,
our analysis shows that the exposure
levels would have been too low to acti­
vate chemical alarms or to cause any
symptoms at the time,” wrote Bernard
Rostker in the letter he sent out to
Campbell on behalf of the Office of
Secretary of Defense.
Three years later, Campbell
received another letter stating: “Using
state of the art computer modeling
See POISON on page 8
Staff Writer
Citizens ranging from Buddhist
to Christians, and war vets to teach­
ers all came together Saturday, Jan.
18, for one cause: to protest waging
war against Iraq.
Hundreds of thousands of people
gathered in Washington, San
Francisco and many other cities
nation wide, including over 20,000
people in the park blocks of south­
west Portland, to promote peace in
the Middle East.
Many people carried signs bear-
ing messages including “keep
Enron out of Oregon” arid quotes
from Ben Franklin stating, “There
never was a good war nor a bad
peace.” Amongst the crowd stood a
man holding a sign with a simple
message, “No peace and love for
tyrants.”
A man who would not identify
himself stated, “Our primary goal
for this rally is to get Portland to
unite with other cities from around
the country to take a stand against
the war in Iraq.
Chicago has
already stepped forward and thirty
other cities are predicted to do the
same.”
The rally consumed four blocks
as the guest speakers said their
piece, and the march stretched over
ten blocks. Amazingly, with all
these different cultural groups no
major problems arose.
After the
march
through
Portland a celebration started,
which had a live band for every­
one’s listening enjoyment. People
danced and enjoyed themselves,
celebrating what they called a victo­
ry for the fight for peace and free­
dom.
City Council will meet today to
decide if they will join the other
cities in a stand against the war.
PETE FORD Clackamas Print
Voters gather on the steps of the State Capitol building on Monday to lobby for a ‘yes’
vote on Measure 28. If passed, taxpayers will see a temporary income tax increase
until the year 2004.
Voters rally for Measure 28
News Editor
More than 6,000 people assembled
for a rally on the steps of the State
Capitol building to “demonstrate the
need for adequate and stable funding
for public education.”
The gathering, funded by the
Oregon Education Association (OEA)
hopes to salvage as much money for
the future of education as possible.
Currently, Oregon’s economic
recession has caused the state and
local services’ budget to be reduced.
Income tax revenues for the state’s
2001-2003 budget have been slashed
by 16 percent (an approximately $1.8
billion deficit).
This is one of the reasons for
Measure 28 and Monday’s rally.
Measure 28, if passed, will raise per­
sonal and corporate income taxes for
2002 until 2004. Any individual with a
taxable income over $6,450, or cou­
ples with a joint income over $12,900
will be affected. The tax raise will be
See MEASURE 28 on page 8