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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2004)
COMMENTARY 4 • T he C lackamas P rint A pril 14, 200 Time for Bush to call it quits Ben Maras O pinion E ditor As we stare down the barrel of a possible draft, watching the death toll rise like mercury, it is only natural to question why we are here and wonder when our troops will be back home. More than two years ago, Bush and company started pok ing : at Saddam Hussein, accusing Iraq of breaking U.N. Resolution 687, which prohibited them from developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). A year later, the push for war began, despite the U.N. inspector’s pleas that Iraq was compliant and in no violation. Only a handful of countries were fooled, but who would have thought that Prime Minister Tony Blair would have joined in? The English have good reason to call him “Bush’s poodle.” The time it took to supposedly “gain .control” of Iraq was very short, as coalition forces raced to a statue of Saddam in Baghdad, so that the President Could wear his spiffy flight suit and stand in front of a big sign that says “Mission Accomplished.” He must have meant that other mission—the one he didn’t tell anyone about—to secure the second largest oil reserve in the world (Yet our gas prices contin ue . to rise?) because we Americans were told'the mission was to find those pesky WMDs. Possibly the biggest surprise came in December when the Since that time, American efforts have been directed to “restoring order and peace” in Iraq. The word “restoring” is a tad misleading though, because the prefix “re” indicates there was order to begin with. -WB exiled Hussein was found hiding in a hole in the ground. Yay, everyone dance in the street— we found Saddam! At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theo rist, one must consider that the fruit on the trees in the back ground of the video seems to indicate that it was filmed in summer, not winter ... just some “food for thought.” The one good thing in this mess is that Saddam is out of power. However, we must recog nize the cost. The country is in shambles; the deterioration is even worse than what was left after a decade of crippling U.N. sanctions (which killed more than 1.6 million Iraqis alone). More than 740 U.S. soldiers have died, $131 billion of our money has been spent, and more than 10,000 innocent Iraqi civil ians have been killed (less than 3,000 lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks). From an Iraqi standpoint, the difference between the Saddam regime and U.S.' control is small: Iraqis arc still killed for being ene mies of , the state; they still perish from dis eases and hunger.. We must understand that just because the Iraqis hate Saddam, it doesn’t mean they love Americans. They didn’t want Saddam’s regime, but they don’t want ours either. They want to be free. What is the answer? We could retali ate with peace. What if we took the money that would be devoted to bombs and bullets and instead dedicated it to food and blankets? Would they still hate us? Maybe this is too big an idea for the self-pro claimed “war president” to grasp. time that Bush gets on his knees and begs the U.N. for help and forgiveness. There can be no withdrawal with honor; there was no honor to begin with. The United States can not win this war, and it is foolish and idealistic to imagine that we can. We must right the wrong and support our troops ... by bring ing them home. Public inquest could prove detrimental to investigation Frank Jordan T he C lackamas P rint The public inquest now scheduled to take place after a grand jury decides the fate of Portland Police officer Jason Scry will not serve the interests of Jus tice and will give the minority cit izens of the city of Portland more reason to distrust the police and the legal system in general. This inquest will take place after a grand jury convenes April 20 to look into whether to indict; this officer for murder, which it could do, and this inquest could hamper any potential criminal I case against Scry. The public has a fight to know the facts of this case, but the inquest is a bad way to go. An inquest jury will decide just four things: Who died? When and where did it happen? What type of death was it: accident, suicide or homicide? What caused the death? ' On the heels of the Kendra James shooting last year, the Portland Police Bureau is back on the defensive, trying to con trol the damage to its already fragile reputation in the minority community. Multnomah County DA Michael Schrunk called for the public inquest almost imme diately after the shooting, with out so much as getting feedback from the police bureau. 1 think that maybe he jumped the gun. The inquest jury is not with considering charged whether the : killing was justified or criminal. That is left to the grand jury. A grand jury will take place before the inquest and will look at the shoot ing in secret. This will help protect the evi dence in case the grand jury decides to indict ueeiues muici ! Officer Scry for murder, Any evidence that comes out in a public inquest will NOT be admissible in court. Docs anyone think , for a minute that the inquest will stop at the four basic questions? The public will be more frustrated at this situation than they arc now. The basic dilemma is this: Any evidence that can be used to convict this officer of murder, if revealed in the inquest, will be thrown out in court. A murderer will get off scot-free. Sery filed.a motion in court to block the inquest, arguing that the inquest would be prejudicial against him., Monday, the county DA announced that the inquest would take place after the grand jury decides if any charges are to be filed against the officers involved. The inquest will take place only if there is no indict ment handed down by the grand jury. With the change in the order of the events, District Attorney Schrunk has received assurances from the officers involved that they would testify at an inquest, and testify without any sort of immunity. Scry’s attorney said that because of the change in sequence, that his client would drop his legal action to prevent the inquiry from hap pening. My only question remaining is this: If a grand jury fails to indict these officers for what looks like a brutal crime, then how will the city of Portland Co Editors-in-Chief: Sports Editor: Nie Dclzcll Photo Editor: Jesse Lamond Sports Copy Editor: Frank T he C lackamas P rint M 19600 S Molalla Ave. Oregon City, OR 97045 (503) 657-6958 ext. 2309 The Clackamas Print is a weekly student publication and is distributed every Wednesday except during finals week. Cyndce Mady and (Lory Price Ext. 2576 (Mady) or ext. 2447 (Price) Copy Editor: Katie l'unk News Editor: Karlin Johnson Opinion Editor: Ben Maras Feature Editor: Karen Hill A&E Editor: Isaiah Creel react? Could it possibly turn into a Rodney King-fueled riot in the streets of the Rose City? It could, but 1 hope it does not. 1 would like to think that the citi zens of this city could show some restraint until after at least the public inquest. But it could be a dicey few days until that happens. Real change is needed at the Portland Police Bureau. From tactics to training, from person nel at the bottom to the person nel at the top. But real change is needed at the citizen level, as well. Citizens of Portland need to take more responsibility for their actions and their lives. Help the police do their job and maybe tragic incidents will be cut to almost nothing in the future. Note from the editors Dear Reader, As the warning on the fror page indicates, page seven, which is part of our special section on the war in Iraq, coi tains material that some may find disturbing. It is a photo graph taken in Falluja, Iraq, after the incident in which a vehicle containing four American mercenaries was fin bombed and their bodies wci\ dragged through the streets before being strung up from a bridge by a frenzied mob. Similar pictures were print by The Oregonian on an inside page. The New York Times also printed the pictun but in full color on the front page. We,decided as a staff th in light of the actions taken b other reputable newspapers, and because of our goal to report the news in an “hones, unbiased, and professional manner” (see staff box below that it was appropriate to run the photo regardless of the graphic nature. The decision to run the images was not taken lightly; the page designers deliberated for some time over the ethica issues raised in running the photo. Some of the questions asked were: What are the poss ble consequences of running such a graphic image? Should! we use a more indistinct phot in representing the bloody nature of the deaths? And most importantly: What are 0 motives in running this pictur It is our feeling that it was not only appropriate but our journalistic duty to show this “other” side of the war by rut ning it alongside othcrs such 1 the statue of Saddam Husseit being toppled in Baghdad. Wt believe that doing anything 1« would be a disservice to our readers; if a person is old enough to enlist, they are old enough to sec the grim truth the lesser-shown side of war. When the page-design con mittee presented this case to our staff of student editors, the surprising vote was unani mous to run the image in the special section. It is in light of this that wi have decided to run the pic ture, and following the “AP Style Guide” and the lead of The Oregonian, we chose to run a warning on our front page so that readers who do not wish to be subjected to tl kind of ugly violence depicte in the photo may abstain fror viewing the page. Letter to the Editor Student speaks on founding fundamentals I have heard in the media constant invocation of “Christian fundamentals” when it comes to U.S. law, notably with the homosexual marriage Controversy The ironic thing about saying “this country was founded on Christian fundamen tals” is that it’s only partially true, if true at all, in the sense Christians would like to think it is. If we go back to the ancient creators of Democracy (Grecce) and Republicanism (Rome), we have two of the most sexually liber al societies of ancicnt/world history. Greece was a society that openly accepted homosexuality as well as many other kinds of “sexuality.” Rome, prior to its Christianization, had a thick culture of sodomy and other sexual deviations. Jordan Staff Writers: Robb Egan, Joel Gaynor, Hilliary Ferguson, Jessica LcClaire, Bethany Monroe, Jeff Sorensen, Jennifer Trank I f we go to our founding fathers, we find that many of them were Deist—rejecting a dcitj that performs miracles and answers prayers. Thomas Jefferson was a devout Deist and a firn advocate for secularization with a library of dozens of irreligious books. Other founding fathers who didn’t embrace most, if not all, of Christianity include: Ben Franklin (an open and passionate Deist), John Adams and James Madison, to name a few. In my opinion, America wasn’t founded on Christian fundamen tals; they had to find their way in. Joe Clement CCC Student Production assistant: Michacle Cooper, Brian Hill, Sharon James, James Tombe Photographers: Truman Anderson, Angela Gerhart Adviser: Linda Vogt Department assistant: Lautcn Vuylsteke Goals: The Clackamas Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased, professional manner. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect thosi of the student body, college administrate its faculty or 77>e Print. E-mail common to chiefed@clackamas.edu. The Clackamas Print © 2(>
