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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 12, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, April 12, 2017 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Conference center has the heart of the community The citizens of Hermiston dug into their own pockets and willingly gave more than $600,000 of their own money to help renovate a hulking, vacant downtown building once home to a grocery store. It was an excellent use of funds — the money was used to create the Hermiston Conference Center, which has given a home to numerous events and helped the Hermiston Chamber of Commerce, who in turn helped fuel Hermiston’s explosive economic growth. But now the future of the building is up for debate, as another publicly- owned competitor has been built just down the road. Many events are likely to migrate to the new Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center. The city has informed the chamber of commerce, which has operated the conference center, that it wants to go in a different direction with the building. It is considering a recreation center and recommends relocating the chamber to the basement of the old library across from city hall. Some sort of rec center would be an excellent addition to Hermiston, and we imagine many residents would embrace that change. It topped a recent citizen survey commissioned by the city. But because so many public dollars went into the conference center, public input must be heard. And councilors need to debate the issue openly and honestly with the community that made it possible. The future of the center should be decided by elected officials and their constituents, not city employees. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. YOUR VIEWS Freedom of speech under attack in America Our nation faces a major crisis. The First Amendment is the glue that holds our system of government together and allows it to function. This concept of “free speech” allows for open debate without fear of retaliation. It embodies the idea that we must listen to opposing viewpoints with a degree of courtesy and to give equal time for each. It allows for all sides to have the opportunity to express their opinions and to be heard. Unfortunately, the past decade or so has seen increasing numbers of attacks on these rules. On college campuses, in news and social media, and even in the halls of our Congress, free speech no longer exists. Opposing voices are no longer allowed to be heard in open debate. Under the guise of various rule and procedural changes, free speech is being buried. Allegations of “fake news” or “alternative facts” are being thrown back and forth. Our leaders are behaving like playground bullies. Repeated rule-breaking will eventually create a new tradition of dictatorship, a “one-party” system where no one is allowed to speak except those following the approved party line. This must not be allowed to happen. Our elected representatives must all be held accountable in order to prevent this from going any further. This is not an issue for politics. We must stop the finger-pointing and the excuses that “they did it first.” We the people must speak with one united voice. The rules of free discourse and debate must be reestablished and set in concrete. If the current state of affairs continues, we may destroy our very democracy. Dale Hilding Pendleton Republican proposals will make health care worse As per David Brooks in a recent editorial, the Republican health care proposals fail the smell test because they contain no vision for providing health care and continue to be about a way to grab a huge hunk of billionaire taxes that support the ACA back as part of their plan to cut taxes. Their attempts to reduce cost all involve eliminating coverage no matter how they dress it up. The latest proposal would allow states to “opt out” of essential benefits and pre-existing condition coverage. For example, we will happily insure cancer patients but not for anything related to their cancer. Republicans also seem to continue to promote the idea that people on Medicaid are no accounts and wastrels, and if we provide them with health care, we will “de-incentivize” them to go out and get better paying jobs. Those who cannot work or work at lower paying jobs should not get health care until they work their way up the rung of success. Working at nursing homes and later in home health and hospice as a RN, nearly my whole clientele was on Medicare and/or Medicaid. Many of them were what we would consider poor as well. Most worked hard all their life but ended up with little, some had made poor choices or had bad luck they could never recover from. Some had mental illnesses or physical disabilities. Others were just what I would call hapless despite trying to do the right thing. We forget a lot of these folks are elders in nursing home care who rely on Medicaid to be able to afford it, despite a productive work life. Yes, there were some I wanted to shake some sense into and give a piece of my mind regarding work and responsibility. But you know, I never once thought the human being in front of me did not deserve care. Despite my frustration at times, I don’t think you can or should base health care on individual worthiness. I hear echoes of Ebenezer Scrooge in my head: what would you have these people do, just die and decrease the surplus population? Friends, I ask you to reflect and ask if living in a civil society means we care for the least among us. There are plenty of real cost-cutting measures Congress could be working on. Greg Walden needs to hear from you. Anita Burrows Pendleton Bond would help schools keep up with growth On May 16 voters will have a chance to vote on the approval of the Hermiston School District bond of $104 million. I am writing to encourage voters to vote for the bond. Our community is growing at an exceptionally fast rate and in seven years, according to Portland State University, it is expected for the district’s population to grow 24 percent. That is approximately 800-1,100 students. To give you an idea of how large that number is, the high school can only accommodate 1,600 students at the maximum. Hermiston High School is very close to that maximum number currently. Not only is the high school dealing with capacity issues, but many elementary schools have similar situations. Without the needed expansions, there will be many problems in the future. Adding modules will not solve this problem. We would need a total of 56 new modules in order for the predicted students to fit in the school district. The schools do not have enough space to have that many modules rented and put on site. As a student at Hermiston High School, I’ve learned that modules can cause some problems, including having to walk across campus just to use the bathroom or having to walk across campus to return a book. The school district needs a long-term solution to the enrollment growth and the bond will give the district that solution. If you vote yes on the bond, you won’t just be saying yes to expand the district, but you will also be saying yes to creating a better education for the students now and for the students in the future. Make sure to vote yes for the Hermiston School District bond to improve the future of the district and future education of your community’s students. These are your kids or your neighbor’s kids, they need to be educated happily and safely. Emily Wadkins Hermiston Trump was right to strike Syria justifies vilifying and barring those resident Donald Trump’s same babies with his travel ban. Yet airstrikes against Syria were I’d rather Trump inconsistently do the of dubious legality. They were right thing than consistently do the hypocritical. They were impulsive. wrong thing. They may have had political Many of my fellow progressives motivations. They create new risks for viscerally oppose any use of force, the United States. but I think that’s a mistake. I was But most of all, they were right. I’m deeply suspicious of Trump’s Nicholas against the Iraq War, but some policies and competence, but this is Kristof military interventions save lives. The no fly zone over northern Iraq in the a case where he is right and Barack Comment 1990s is one example, and so are the Obama was wrong. Indeed, many of British intervention in Sierra Leone us believe that Obama’s worst foreign and French intervention in Mali. It’s prudent policy mistake was his passivity in Syria. to be suspicious of military interventions, One of Trump’s problems is that he has lied so much and so often that he doesn’t have but imprudent to reject any use of force categorically. credibility at home or abroad in a foreign Want proof that military interventions in crisis like this. I likewise find it unnerving that the Middle East can work? In 2014, Obama he came to the right decision in an impulsive ordered airstrikes near the Syria-Iraq border way, changing policy 180 degrees after compelling photos emerged of children gassed against ISIS as it was attacking members of the Yazidi minority. Those U.S. strikes saved in Syria. Should a president’s decisions about many thousands of Yazidi lives, although war really depend on the photos taken? they came too late to Yet for all my distrust save thousands more of Trump’s motivations who were killed or and capacity to execute a strategy, here’s why I kidnapped as sex slaves. believe he was right. In Syria, the crucial Since the horrors question is what comes of mustard gas during next. World War I a century There’s some bold ago, one of the world’s talk among politicians more successful about ousting Assad international norms has from Syria. Really? been a taboo on the use People have been of chemical weapons. counting on Assad’s fall We all have an interest for six years now, and in reinforcing that norm, so this is not just he’s as entrenched as ever. about Syria but also about deterring the next Moreover, air strips can be rebuilt, and dictator from turning to sarin. if this was a one-time strike then the larger For an overstretched military, poison gas slaughter in Syria will continue indefinitely. is a convenient way to terrify and subdue But I’m hoping that the administration may a population. That’s why Saddam Hussein use it as a tool to push for a cease-fire. used gas on Kurds in 1988, and why Bashar As Secretary of State, John Kerry worked Assad has used gas against his own people in valiantly for a peace deal in Syria. But he Syria. The best way for the world to change had neither carrots nor sticks to offer. Kerry the calculus is to show that use of chemical pleaded with Obama for leverage in the form weapons carries a special price — such as a of military strikes, but Obama refused. military strike on an air base. Now the State Department finally has Paradoxically, Assad may have used leverage. But, tragically, we seem to lack a chemical weapons because he perceived a secretary of state with the clout and inclination green light from the Trump administration. In to seize that leverage and push for a peace recent days, Rex Tillerson, Sean Spicer and deal. Nikki Haley all suggested that it was no longer My proposed course in Syria is the same U.S. policy to push for the removal of Assad, one that Hillary Clinton and many others have and that may have emboldened him to open favored: missile strikes to ground Assad’s the chemical weapons toolbox. That mistake small air force. This should help end the made it doubly important for Trump to show barrel bombs and make Assad realize that he that neither Assad nor any leader can get away has no military solution, and that it’s time for with using weapons of mass destruction. negotiation. The most plausible negotiated Look, for a Syrian child, it doesn’t matter outcome would be a long-term cease-fire and de facto partition of Syria, putting off much whether death comes from a barrel reintegration until Assad is no longer around. bomb, a mortar shell, a bullet, or a nerve Even if we can’t leverage military agent. I hope Trump will also show more strikes into a peace deal, the strikes are still interest in stopping all slaughter of Syrians worthwhile by degrading the air assets that — but it’s still important to defend the norm Assad uses to kill his own people. against chemical weapons (the United States undermined that norm after Saddam’s gas Syria is a spectacular country redolent with attack by falsely suggesting that Iran was to history, and inhabited by a normally warm and blame). hospitable people. Yet Obama’s well-meant Critics note that Trump’s airstrikes don’t caution has allowed Syria’s downward spiral have clear legal grounding. They’re right, and to turn it into a symbol of brutality and that was one reason Obama didn’t act. But suffering that has also aggravated the Sunni- Bill Clinton’s 1999 intervention to prevent Shia schism all over the world. genocide in Kosovo was also of uncertain Because there was no good option on legality, and thank God for it. Clinton has said any given day, we always chose to do little that his greatest foreign policy mistake was or nothing. The result was that more than not intervening in Rwanda during the 1994 300,000 people were killed, vast numbers genocide; any such intervention also would were tortured and raped, almost 5 million have been of unclear legality — and the right refugees fled Syria and destabilized other thing to do. countries, ISIS sowed terrorism worldwide, There are risks ahead, of Russia or Syria and genocides unfolded against the Yazidi and targeting U.S. aircraft or of Iran seeking Christian communities in Syria and Iraq. revenge against Americans in Iraq. War plans For all the legitimate concerns about the rarely survive the first shot, and military risks ahead, now again we just might have a interventions are easier to begin than to window to curb the bloodshed in Syria. I’m end. But as long as we don’t seek to topple glad Trump took the important first step of Assad militarily, everybody has an interest in holding Assad accountable for using chemical avoiding an escalation. weapons. But it’s all going to depend now on It’s also fair for critics to highlight Trump’s whether Trump, who so far has been a master hypocrisy, and raise concerns that he may of incompetence, can manage the far more have fired missiles for political reasons, difficult challenge of using war to midwife to show himself as a leader and distract peace. from political problems. Certainly Trump ■ previously objected to what he is now doing. Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and Referring to Obama in 2013, he tweeted: cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof, a columnist “The president must get Congressional for The New York Times since 2001, writes approval before attacking Syria.” And when op-ed columns that appear twice a week. He Trump speaks about the suffering of Syria’s won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and “beautiful little babies,” one wonders how he 2006. P One of the world’s more successful international norms has been a taboo on the use of chemical weapons. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.