THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2017
FRIDAY EXCHANGE
5A
Health care disconnect
I
recently heard a snippet of a
radio commentary. A gentleman,
who identified himself as a liber-
tarian, was speaking. He indicated
that he did not favor health care
for all, or health care as a right. He
indicated that he did not want his
hard earned money to go to some-
one who did not work as hard as
he does. At about the same time,
I heard a police car, or ambulance
scream down the road. These two
events seem incongruent.
The gentleman supports police
and fire protection for all, but not
health care for all. Put simply and
personally, sometimes he cares
whether or not I die, and some-
times he does not. Mr. Libertarian
does not want me to die from a bur-
glary at the local grocery store, but
he does not care if I die of pneumo-
nia. He does not want me to burn
to death in a house fire, but he does
not care if I die of cancer. Why is
one death of more importance than
another? Why does he care about
me in one situation, but not in
another?
I do not understand the discon-
nect in this line of thought. Basic
care such as police protection, fire
protection and health care need
to be part of the everyday life of
myself and my fellow Americans.
KATHLEEN ADAMS
Hammond
A simple matter
can’t believe our politicians can’t
figure out how to charge $3 a
month to single-metered multiple
units (“City water customers could
help pay for parks,” The Daily
Astorian, June 6). Just bill the land-
lord $3 a month for each apartment
on that meter. I am sure the landlord
can figure out how to add the fee to
the rents.
DICK DARBY
Astoria
I
Give workers a shot
I
t is amazing. The city wants to
raise water again, $3 a month.
Well, my wife and I are the only
ones in our house, that we rent, and
we pay all of our utilities. Our water
bill is very large.
In The Daily Astorian help
wanted section, I noticed the city
of Astoria was taking job bids for
maintaining city parks and clean-
ing city restrooms. Why not hire a
person like me, with all the skills it
takes to do everything, instead of
hiring a landscaping company or a
janitorial company?
Look at my resume, city of Asto-
ria. Give us working Joes a shot. I
have a family and bills to pay, too.
VALIANT R. LEFFEL
Astoria
Parking for customers
ummer is here. Downtown is
busier — a lot more people, and
few parking places. I own a busi-
ness downtown, and would love it
if the employees would not park in
front of our shops, and park else-
S
where. I know parking is limited,
but if customers have nowhere to
park, then they really aren’t custom-
ers after all.
I know that parking has not been
enforced for several years now,
and will not be enforced in the near
future. I also know that I haven’t
any solutions for the limited park-
ing places, but I wish the employ-
ers would talk to their employ-
ees about this. Summer is when we
make the money to survive the win-
ter, but that will not happen with no
customers due to unavailable park-
ing spaces.
Also, we need a few speed limit
signs on Commercial Street in
downtown, so people are aware of
the 20 mph they are supposed to be
driving. I am aware that this letter
will get me nowhere, but after see-
ing the same cars day after day after
day parked in front of the places
of their employment, I just had to
vent.
VICKI McAFEE
Astoria
Gearhart as we know it
he Gearhart community has
been under siege for over a year
now, bombarded with flyers from
vacation rental corporations and
speculators offering financial incen-
tives for converting homes in the
single-family residential zone into
illegal commercial use as short-
term vacation rentals.
T
As a recent example, the anon-
ymous Vancouver, Washington,
entrepreneur “Joseph” flooded our
mailboxes with a postcard prom-
ising “top dollar for your home”
because “I need to purchase another
rental property in the area.”
Last year our City Council,
after years of deliberation and pub-
lic input, set up a defense against
this onslaught against our quiet
permanent and seasonal commu-
nity. Passing an ordinance grand-
fathering existing short-term rent-
als (a great concession), it regulated
them to both minimize their impact
on our neighborhoods and gradu-
ally reduce them to a manageable
number, while making more homes
available for long-term rental as a
solution to the countywide hous-
ing crisis.
Though that 2016 ordinance
was recently validated by the state
Land Use Board of Appeals, it is
now threatened by a new initiative
petition to repeal and replace it by
allowing all homes in residential
neighborhoods to be commercial-
ized as short-term, largely unregu-
lated vacation rentals. That action
would violate the Comprehensive
Plan — the city’s covenant with
the community — which recog-
nizes “the importance of the city’s
residential neighborhoods and the
need to protect them from the neg-
ative impacts of the transient rental
of property”; likewise, the Compre-
hensive Plan calls for permanent
“housing availability for all resi-
dents of the Gearhart area.”
It is to be fervently hoped that
the repeal and replace petition fails.
If it succeeds, it will mean the end
of Gearhart as we know it.
PENNY SABOL
Gearhart
Gearhart vs. big money
W
ith the repeal and replace
petition now circulating
against the city’s 2016 ordinance
regulating and limiting short-term
rentals, Gearhart is up against big
money. According to the Oregon
Secretary of State, the out-of-state
sponsor has already invested close
to $16,000 (cash and in-kind ser-
vices) in the petition drive; addi-
tional contributions from poll-
sters, lawyers, and, of course,
realtors bring their total war chest
up to $20,000 and more (http://bit.
ly/2sVCNpl).
The repeal/replace petitioners
now claim to have already
acquired the 175 signatures
required by law, with little pros-
pect of gullible signers withdraw-
ing their names before the July 8
deadline. So, Gearhart taxpayers are
faced with another expenditure of
close to $10,000 for a special elec-
tion in November.
This is big money talking, and it
won’t stop there. The petitioners are
in it for keeps. The question is, will
Gearhart be able to stand up once
more and fight for what amounts to
its very survival as a community?
RICK SABOL
Gearhart
Better health care
n the middle of our daughter’s
medical struggles in Germany
came the added worry that when
she returns to the U.S., her
pre-existing condition might not
be covered if her work circum-
stances were ever to change. That
frightening knowledge came to
her when she was receiving top-
notch care from providers in Ger-
many, who work in a system that
costs the patient half what it costs
here. It is not socialized medicine,
but it links private and public enti-
ties in ways that for decades have
provided guaranteed health care for
each citizen.
And now our House and Senate
leadership want to make our embar-
rassing national health care situa-
tion worse in an effort to replace the
Affordable Care Act under cover of
secrecy, without any hearings, and
making decisions that will likely
take away health insurance for mil-
lions, and add to the angst of fami-
lies like our own.
The process and the content of
their work is wrong and must be
resisted. We can do better … much
better.
JOHN and JACKIE WECKER
Astoria
I
The great Muslim civil war — and us
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
ASHINGTON — The
U.S. shoots down a Syrian
fighter-bomber. Iran
launches missiles
into eastern Syria.
Russia threatens
to attack coalition
aircraft west of the
Euphrates. What is
going on?
It might appear
a mindless mess, but the outlines are
clear. The great Muslim civil war,
centered in Syria, is approaching
its post-Islamic State phase. It’s the
end of the beginning. The parties are
maneuvering to shape what comes
next.
It’s Europe, 1945, when the
war was still raging against Nazi
Germany, but everyone already
knew the outcome. The maneuvering
was largely between the approaching
victors — the Soviet Union and
the Western democracies — to
determine postwar boundaries and
spheres of influence.
So it is today in Syria. Everyone
knows that the Islamic State is
finished. Not that it will disappear as
an ideology, insurgency and source
of continuing terrorism both in the
region and the West. But it will dis-
appear as an independent, organized,
territorial entity in the heart of the
Middle East.
It is being squeezed out of
existence. Its hold on Mosul, its last
major redoubt in Iraq, is nearly gone.
W
Arab 24
U.S. forces patrolling on the outskirts of the Syrian town of Manbij, in
Aleppo province, Syria, in March. Syrian government and allied troops
have inserted themselves into the battle against Islamic State mili-
tants by capturing key areas on the flanks of the coalition-led battle
to seize Raqqa. They have positioned themselves as indispensable
possibly spoilers in the fight to uproot the militants from Syria.
Raqqa, its stronghold in Syria and de
facto capital, is next. When it falls
— it is already surrounded on three
sides — the caliphate dies.
Much of the fighting today is
about who inherits. Take the Syrian
jet the U.S. shot down. It had been
attacking a pro-Western Kurdish and
Arab force (the Syrian Democratic
Forces) not far from Islamic State
territory.
Why? Because the Bashar Assad
regime, backed by Iran, Hezbollah
and Russia, having gained the upper
hand on the non-jihadist rebels in
the Syrian heartland (most notably
in Aleppo), feels secure enough to
set its sights on eastern Syria. If it
hopes to restore its authority over the
whole country, it will need to control
Raqqa and surrounding Islamic State
areas. But the forces near Raqqa are
pro-Western and anti-regime. Hence
the Syrian fighter-bomber attack.
Hence the U.S. shoot-down. We
are protecting our friends. Hence the
Russian threats to now target U.S.
planes. The Russians are protecting
their friends.
On the same day as the
shoot-down, Iran launched six sur-
face-to-surface missiles into Syrian
territory controlled by the Islamic
State. Why? Ostensibly to punish
the jihadists for terrorist attacks two
weeks ago inside Iran.
Perhaps. But one obvious objec-
tive was to demonstrate to Saudi
Arabia and the other Sunni Arabs
Shiite Crescent. It’s already under-
the considerable reach of both Iran’s way. As the Islamic State is driven
arms and territorial ambitions.
out of Mosul, Iranian-controlled
For Iran, Syria is the key, the
militias are taking over crucial roads
central theater of a Shiite-Sunni war
and other strategic assets in western
for regional hegemony. Iran (which
Iraq. Next target: eastern Syria
is non-Arab) leads the Shiite side,
(Raqqa and environs).
attended by its Arab auxiliaries —
Imagine the scenario: a unified
Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shiite
Syria under Assad, the ever more
militias in Iraq and
pliant client of
the highly pene-
Iran and Russia;
trated government
Hezbollah, tip of the
For Iran,
of Iraq, and Assad’s
Iranian spear, dom-
Syria is
Alawite regime.
inant in Lebanon;
(Alawites being
Iran, the regional
the key,
a non-Sunni sect,
arbiter; and Russia,
often associated
with its Syrian
the
central
with Shiism.)
bases, the outside
Taken together,
hegemon.
theater of
they comprise a
Our preferred
a Shiite-
vast arc — the
outcome is radically
Shiite Crescent —
different: a loosely
Sunni war
stretching from Iran
federated Syria,
through Iraq, Syria
and can-
for regional partitioned
and Lebanon to
tonized, in which
the Mediterranean.
Assad might be
hegemony.
If consolidated, it
left in charge of an
gives the Persians a
Alawite rump.
Mediterranean reach they have not
The Iranian-Russian strategy
had in 2,300 years.
is a nightmare for the entire Sunni
This alliance operates under the
Middle East. And for us too. The
patronage and protection of Russia,
Pentagon seems bent on preventing
which supplies the Iranian-allied side it. Hence the Tomahawk attack
with cash, weapons and, since 2015, for crossing the chemical red line.
air cover from its new bases in Syria. Hence the recent fighter-bomber
Arrayed on the other side of
shoot-down.
the great Muslim civil war are the
A reasonable U.S. strategy, given
Sunnis, moderate and Western-allied, the alternatives. But not without risk.
led by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states,
Which is why we need a national
Egypt and Jordan — with their Great debate before we commit too deeply.
Power patron, the United States, now Perhaps we might squeeze one in
(post-Obama) back in action.
amid the national obsession with
At stake is consolidation of the
every James Comey memo-to-self?