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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 24, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, August 24, 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 Still waiting for better trade deals Reporters at Politico recently election, the U.S. was destined to published an analysis that showed reject TPP in its present form. our 11 former partners in the Trans- Following through on his Pacific Partnership are involved campaign promise, President Trump in 27 separate negotiations with withdrew from the accord on Jan. each other, with major international 23. trading blocs and regional Among the other parties in the powerhouses such pact there are as China. differing opinions as It reports that to what TPP means The TPP was seven deals that without the United seen by many States. Shinzo impact U.S. farmers have been signed Abe, Japan’s prime agricultural since the Trump minister, says the administration deal is meaningless groups as a pulled the United the U.S. boon — now 11 without States out of TPP. Nevertheless, The TPP was seen our trading partners of our former by many, but not around the Pacific partners are all, U.S. agricultural Rim aren’t wasting groups as a boon. time. There are a moving on It included the host of bilateral without us. U.S. and 11 other and multilateral countries — Japan, discussions in the Canada, Mexico, works. China, Australia, Vietnam, Chile, Malaysia, Trump’s campaign nemesis, is trying Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and to make deals with our trading Brunei Darussalam. Japan, Mexico partners. and Canada are among the biggest Throughout the campaign, and trade partners for U.S. agriculture. since taking office, Trump said he’d replace the 12-party pact with Negotiations on the pact began a series of bilateral trade deals that in 2008 under President George W. Bush. A deal was reached in October would bring jobs and industry back to the United States. That sounds of 2015. President Obama supported great. When can we expect that to happen? the final deal and submitted it to Farmers and ranchers, a group Congress for ratification. With an that largely supported Trump’s election looming, Republicans and Democrats in Congress weren’t election, have a lot riding on foreign anxious to be pinned down on a deal trade. The U.S. exports $135 billion that had both support and opposition in agricultural products each year. It that crossed party lines. could always be better, but it’s pretty The pact’s critics included the great as it is. It’s hard to say what dumping Republican and the Democratic presidential nominees. TPP and renegotiating the North Donald Trump said the deal American Free Trade Agreement would undermine the U.S. economy. may mean for the economy in general, and for farmers and As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton raved about the deal, calling ranchers in particular. it the “gold standard” of trade pacts. But at the moment it’s fair to ask Candidate Clinton then opposed the what happens next, and when will deal during the campaign and vowed it happen? We await a tweet, or any to oppose it as president. other appropriate communication, So without ratification prior to the from the Oval Office. 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 March against racism sadly necessary in 2017 The recent march against hate in Pendleton was so bittersweet. On the one hand, there is still a spectrum of deplorable beliefs and behaviors that impact our society. On the other hand, the march demonstrated the widespread intolerance in our communities for hate. Whether we are conservative, moderate, or liberal in our ideologies, I strongly believe we share a common sense of civil decency. In the current political climate where bad behavior has become more enabled and prevalent, it is so important that we demonstrate how unacceptable hate is. We all have our ways, and there is no one right way. Either through community service, how we vote, contacting elected officials, supporting efforts for equality, or just in how we model our behavior to our children and others, we can all make a difference. Thanks to all who organized the march. It is regretful that it needed to happen, but the strong participation speaks wonders. Jeff Blackwood Pendleton Media has picked their side — they’re the Nazis We used to pledge allegiance to our flag that ended “with liberty and justice for all.” When the Hammonds go to prison for starting fires to save their ranch from a government that lusted for their land, their is no more justice in the land. When Lavoy Finicum is murdered in cold blood for protesting that sentence the judge called unconscionable, there is no justice in the land. When Judge Navarro denies defendants the rights of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to the point of ripping a defendant off the witness stand, there is no justice in the land. When Gov. Brown signs a law forcing taxpayers to fund illegal alien, partial birth and sex-selection abortions there is no justice in the land. The East Oregonian has challenged Oregonians to “pick a side, Nazi or American.” The Nazi party denied liberty by erasing those they deemed unworthy. The Nazi party denied justice to those who opposed their oppression and they murdered those who opposed them and the press was silent. Hitler set himself up as judge, jury and executioner and the press and media justified the fascism. Isn’t that what the EO and the media and press advocate by erasing everything, violently if necessary, from our past that offends them? When Judge Navarro set herself up as judge, jury and executioner the press and media, including the EO, has been silent, they have picked their side. When Lavoy Finicum was murdered and the government covered up the injustice, the press and media have been silent, they have picked their side. When Donald Trump exposes the hypocrisy of the press and media railing against white fascism while condoning the racism, censorship and violence of Antifa and BLM, the press and media incessantly rails against the president. Why? Because they have picked their side. Stuart Dick Irrigon 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 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. From Kabul to Baghdad, my bird’s-eye view B weeks earlier, during the campaign to AGHDAD — I just spent eight retake Mosul, two Iraqi soldiers were days traveling with the Air wounded, and hiding from an ISIS Force to all of its key forward bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, unit inside a building 15 yards away. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Using laser targeting, the U.S. team So President Donald Trump’s speech fired a rocket whose size, direction and Monday night was very timely for me. shape were chosen to take down only It was also unnerving. the ISIS building and make its walls It was so full of bombast and Thomas fall in the opposite direction of the clichés, so larded with phrases like Friedman two pinned-down Iraqis. The rocket “we will break their will,” so lacking worked as intended, and they were Comment in details and, most of all, so lacking rescued. in humility in confronting a problem This is war in Iraq today in a and a region that has vexed better men for nutshell. ages that I still don’t know where he’s going For years we’ve measured our involvement — only that he is going there very definitively. in Middle East wars by one pair of indexes I totally agreed with the president’s — boots on the ground and killed in action. remarks that our men and women serving in Because of that, most Americans are now the Middle East “deserve to return to a country paying scant attention to Iraq, where our that is not at war with itself boots on the ground have at home.” But the rank shrunk to a few thousand hypocrisy of this man — and where there have been who has done so much to just 17 U.S. military deaths divide us in recent months since we re-engaged in Iraq to satisfy only his “base” to defeat ISIS in 2014. — using our troops as a But the real story is prop to extol the virtues wings in the air. We are of national unity made me involved in a gigantic sick to my stomach. military enterprise in Iraq. It also made me recall But it’s with massive a lunch I had last week in conventional air power the mess hall at Bagram married to unconventional Airfield, near Kabul, with special forces, who are Chief Master Sgt. Cory advising the Iraqi army Olson from the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing. that is actually doing the ground fighting. This Olson explained that working in Afghanistan is making our presence in Iraq much more he was really disconnected from all the sustainable for us and for the Iraqis. political turmoil in America. Ironically, it might never have happened And then he told me this story: “I was had President Barack Obama not withdrawn talking to this civilian contractor the other day our combat troops from Iraq in 2011, because who just came back from a couple of weeks’ Iraqis couldn’t agree on a legal formula for home leave in Dallas. And this guy told me he their staying. was really relieved to get back to ‘reality’ in After that, the then-Shiite-led Iraqi Kabul — because the politics back home was government began abusing Sunnis, and ISIS so crazy.” emerged in response. That forced Iraqis to You know that U.S. politics has jumped rethink their relationship with us. A U.S. Air the rails when a U.S. contractor is relieved Force special operations officer told me of to get back from America to his little base in returning to Iraq in early 2014 and meeting Afghanistan. with the Iraqi Counterterrorism Service — the Anyway, enough of that. Since I can’t only truly professional, nonsectarian fighting explain Trump’s Middle East, let me explain unit then left in the country. The U.S. officer what I saw here — three things in particular: had come to ask the CTS what material aid the I saw a new way of mounting warfare by U.S. could offer in the fight against ISIS, and the United States in Iraq. I saw in this new the CTS commander responded that he didn’t warfare a strategy that offers at least a need aid: “We want you,” he said. glimmer of hope for Iraq, if and when ISIS is And so Obama began slowly reintroducing defeated. But, though only a glimpse, I saw in U.S. Special Forces back into Iraq and, for Afghanistan an eroding stalemate — with all the first time, sending some into Syria, all the same issues that have undermined stability in a totally new context. When George W. there for years: government corruption, Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam distrust among Afghans and perfidious Hussein, we destroyed the government from interventions by Pakistan and Iran. the top down. We toppled Saddam’s statue. The best way for me to explain what’s And we were advised largely by Iraqi exiles of new in Iraq is with a scene I watched unfold dubious legitimacy in local eyes. Saturday. We were at the joint strike cell in It became our war, producing iconic Irbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan. This is where multiple pictures of U.S. soldiers kicking down doors Air Force television feeds come in live from and pointing guns at cowering women. drones, U-2s, satellites and U.S. and coalition Even though ISIS emerged after we left, we fighter jets. The officers there are coordinating have now returned at the invitation of Iraqis with Iraqi army combat forces on the ground, from the bottom up, not exiles — making and their U.S. military advisers embedded just our presence much more legitimate and behind the battlefront, to hit ISIS targets as the sustainable for any long fight. Iraqi Sunnis, Iraqi army begins its push west. Shiites and Kurds were forced to unify, at Having retaken Mosul, the Iraqi army is least minimally, to defeat ISIS, opening new driving ISIS into the Euphrates River Valley, possibilities. where it looks like it will make a last stand. This is Iraq’s war of liberation. They own This was the second day of the Iraqis’ thrust it. west and they were already meeting resistance The war in Afghanistan is different. The air in a small town on the road to ISIS-controlled power component is there, but U.S. Special Tal Afar. Several U.S. eyes in the sky were Forces are still doing too much fighting and trained on a single-story, flat-roof building, dying. And Trump talked Monday night like they will now do more. And we don’t have the about 30 feet wide, sandwiched between two larger buildings. Iraqi soldiers crawling toward legitimacy you now feel in Iraq. Personal security for our Afghan allies is this building were receiving lots of small-arms still minimal. I stood on the tarmac at Bagram fire from inside, stalling their advance about Airfield and listened as a U.S.-trained Afghan 500 feet away. pilot explained that the last thing he does Their U.S. advisers were sending all this before climbing into the cockpit is call home information to the strike cell in real time. to be sure his kids have not been abducted by Meanwhile, in the strike cell, team members the Taliban, who know that he works with the sitting in front of computer screens were U.S. and have threatened him repeatedly. calculating exactly how much firepower was Again, the fact that this pilot is still ready to required to kill the ISIS fighters and not hurt fly with the U.S. shows real courage. He wants any civilians who might be nearby. They did something different for his country, and he’s a quick tally of the remaining weapons on not alone. But is he in the majority? Clearly the U.S. fighter aircraft in the area — seeing he’s got neighbors who don’t think that we, or which had what smart bombs left. the Afghan government we’re supporting, are Seconds later a call of “weapon away, legitimate. Culture trumps strategy. 30 seconds” rang out as an F-15E released This is going to take ages to fix, and if you a 500-pound GPS-guided smart bomb. The fix Afghanistan, well, you fix Afghanistan. So screen rebroadcasting the F-15E’s targeting what. If you fix Iraq with a real power-sharing pod showed the bomb going straight down accord you create a model that can radiate through the roof. out across the Arab world, because Iraq is a “We have splash,” said one of the microcosm of the Arab world, with Sunnis, controllers in a monotone as a huge plume of Shiites, Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and many smoke engulfed the video screen. Quickly, others. the smoke cleared and the 30-foot-wide ■ building was smoldering rubble — but the two Thomas Friedman, a New York Times buildings to the sides were totally intact, so columnist, was awarded Pulitzer Prizes for any civilians inside should be unhurt. international reporting and commentary. The officer in charge told me that a few Iraq owns their war of liberation. In Afghanistan, it’s American troops who are still doing too much fighting and dying.
