the Green Agenda
Katrina response shows costs of U.S. war in Iraq
To the Editor:
It's official now: Hurricane Katrina demonstrated how the war in Iraq costs us at home.
"Another major factor in the delayed response to the hurricane aftermath was that the bulk of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard was deployed in Iraq," says a confidential Department of Defense report leaked on Oct. 3.
This follows the Sept. 9 statement of Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, head of the National Guard Bureau, who said the Guard lost a day or more in responding to Katrina because of Mississippi and Louisiana Guard deployments to Iraq.
The Guard was sent to Iraq supposedly "to attack them before they attack us." That was the cover story for grabbing Iraq's oil. The real story is Iraq is in ruins. Oil pipelines are sabotaged. Iraqi resistance is growing. And it is costing us dearly at home.
The cost of the Iraq war is far more than the $250 billion in supplemental appropriations already authorized by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support (with $50 billion more currently awaiting congressional approval).
Linda Bilmes, assistant secretary of commerce from 1999 to 2001, recently enumerated a full accounting of the costs, including privatization of military functions, rising recruitment budgets, foreign aid inducements to the so-called "coalition of the willing," interest on this debt-financed war, military hardware replacement, higher oil prices and, most costly, long-term disability and health care for wounded vets.
Using conservative assumptions, Bilmes finds the full cost of a five-year Iraq occupation to be $1.3 trillion, or $11,300 for every U.S. household.
The people of cities like New Orleans and Syracuse, which have similarly high poverty rates of 27-28 percent, are paying the price. That $1.3 trillion could go a along way toward providing the jobs in infrastructure renewal, housing, education, youth programs and renewable energy our cities need.
Every bomb dropped on Iraq is also a bomb of neglect dropped on our communities at home. It's time to bring our troops home and take care of our own people. Forty-six Vermont towns, Chicago, Gary, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other municipalities have adopted bring-our-troops-home resolutions. It's time for Syracuse's Common Council and the Onondaga County Legislature to do the same.
Howie Hawkins
Green Party candidate for mayor
Syracuse
This letter also was signed by Green Party candidates Gary Bonaparte (Common Council 2nd District), Cosmo Fanizzi III (Onondaga County Legislature 16th District) and David Linton (county legislature 17th District).
Active constituents hold leaders accountable
To the Editor:
In a letter published Oct. 7 regarding Howie Hawkins, Ms. Ellen Giroux wrote that she gets "concerned when a candidate believes that the office he or she seeks should rely so completely on constituent input for decision-making." While she admits we have a system of representative government, she seems to have forgotten that the precise term is "representative democracy."
No, Ms. Giroux, I do not believe your responsibility for participation should be overlooked. Perhaps you would like to live under a system where your "representatives" are not responsible to constituents, and therefore unconcerned with the wishes of the people. Such places exist, though the standard of living is probably not what you are accustomed to.
At a time when our government seems to be turning to secrecy and obfuscation to hide its motives, the last thing we need is to berate politicians who seek to bring transparency back into government. I applaud Mr. Hawkins for realizing that an elected official is, in fact, a representative responsible to the people, not a victor who gets to recline on his spoils.
We do not, as Ms. Giroux claims, elect officials to make the tough decisions. Those tough decisions are ours to make, and we should cherish that responsibility. It is the very foundation of our democracy, our freedom and our nation.
Dan Rubado
Liverpool
Hawkins platform addresses key issues
To the Editor:
Thomas Buckel (letter, Sept. 26) is right to identify poverty, crime, poor education, social isolation and disengagement from civic affairs as fundamental issues the major-party candidates for mayor are not addressing. He says, "Matt and Joan, you have the floor." Mr. Buckel should also listen to Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate.
Hawkins' anti-poverty, pro-schools, pro-neighborhoods platform includes: public power for affordable energy; progressive income and commuter taxes; crime prevention through community policing and jobs and recreation for youth; a citywide minimum living wage; community hiring halls to ensure fair access to work on public projects.
Hawkins calls for democratizing city government and the businesses the city supports with economic incentives. Hawkins' plan for a new city charter would establish a neighborhood-based structure for city government.
Neighborhood assemblies would direct development and guide delivery of services, creating a city government more responsive and closer to the people.
Hawkins calls for redirecting the tens of millions of dollars Syracuse gives to absentee owners each year into job-creating public investments. By broadening and democratizing the ownership of these enterprises, we will attack poverty and inequality where it is generated.
The public works program to "Rebuild Syracuse Green" would retrofit the city's energy, sewage, transportation and housing infrastructure for economic and ecological sustainability.
Mr. Buckel, Howie Hawkins has the floor, too.
Sondra Roth
Syracuse
Posted by syracusegreens at October 14, 2005 02:21 AM