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
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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
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