Thank you.

Outstanding! Wish I could be there to applaud you. M.H.W.

Randy - This is a smart and intelligent view on Iraq. Please consider running for the senate against Gordon Smith. Your straight talk would be a refreshing change from the incumbent.

It's hard to really know exactly what is the right thing to do in Iraq. Bush and his buddies blew it in so many ways. Decisions based on simplistically perceived circumstances and principles do not and will not really cut it. U.S. troops probably should be extracted given current circumstances, although big problems are likely to occur as a result. It's hard to see that pulling troops out now is going to earn the U.S. much respect. It may not save any lives either. Maybe the value in this action, is in admitting that a mistake has been made.

At least Bush finally was persuaded to get rid of that fool Cheney.

If the Sunni's and the Shiites would just stop fighting each other, and put their heads together in some kind of unified objective, the decision concerning U.S. troops presence there could become much easier. With a little luck and much prayer, that objective would enable a speedy U.S. troo departure. As attractive as that possibility might be, I would hope people carefully consider the consequences that might arise from a pullout at any given time in the absence of a unified Iraqui objective.

Cutting short this nightmarish engagement in Iraq is long overdue. It simply makes no sense to continue pumping 8B a month and losing 100 lives every month for something that has no chance of succeeding.

The problem of course is what to do about the fallout that is sure to follow.

For the price this country will pay for this Bush/neocon adventure is hard to underestimate. Centuries of good will/high-standing earned by previous generations down the drain in a short six years. The most sophisticated army ever assembled defeated by a bunch of ragheads armed with nothing more than rusting remains of third rate russian weaponry.

Most people realize this, that’s why some want to make a final push in a desperate attempt to postpone the expected reckoning. This makes no sense.

Is there any chance to minimize the damage? Yes, but the medicine may be too bitter for some.

Totally disavow Bush, his neocons and his administration. Impeach them, put them on trial for treason, for their crimes. Do whatever necessary to convince others that we realize that they were a total aberration in the history of this country and that we claim no connections to them whatever. That should convince others that we deserve a fresh start.

... convince others that we deserve a fresh start and avoid blame for what transpired in Iraq.

Great gesture, Commissioner Leonard!! Thank you!!

However, the question remains...bring the troops home to what?! ...fighting the Bush Administration for their benefits?? ...fighting against the redefinition of PTSD as a Personality Disorder, thereby limiting disability benefit coverage much like "pre-existing conditions" enable the insurance industry to skirt coverage?? Read up and do the right thing, please...

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Mind_Games_Will_military_own_up_1024.html http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Mind_Games_IIComing_Home_1025.html http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Mind_Game_IIIFull_Metal_1030.html http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Mind_Games_Part_III__Big_1103.html

Why not go to the source of the lies, the source of the deceptions that have led to the rape of Iraq, the decimation of the international reputation of America, the hundreds of thousands of deaths at the direction of a madman, and that have ravaged the national and the local economies?? Why not support what we have been urging City Council to do for the past 7 months, which you know is less symbolic than the "Bring the Troops Home" initiative...adopt the Resolution of Impeachment against Bush and Cheney!!

I realize that it might seem unnecessary now that the Democrats have majorities in both houses of Congress, but the Troops resolution should be part of the Impeachment resolution, for its effect and effectiveness, with the GOP-led federal government so openly hostile to veterans' issues, is very symbolic and limited.

If this is a first step toward your support of a Resolution of Impeachment, my apologies and kudos to you. If not, and this very tardy effort at supporting the anti-war movement is all that you have the nerve to support...shame on you, and shame on the rest of the City Council and Mayor Potter! You are all violating your oaths of office to support the Constitution of the United States.

Steve Keller

Commissioner, are you kidding me? What will this resolution actually accomplish? I really need you and your peers to focus on work in which you have direct power and influence over. I agree we need to fix the mess we have over in Iraq, but you and the Council are not the ones to do it. Please focus your time and energy on important local issues that need your attention.

A reasonable response, I suppose.

But what would happen if we withdraw in this ill-advised war now? Might not it encourage or enflame even more civil warfare? Might not even more human lives be lost?

Are American lives worth more than Iraqi lives? If the answer is "yes", then, indeed, withdraw now. If the answer is "no", then we must stay... we are the only able force to do anything, however little. If we go, just imagine... militias will rule the street, mothers and children murdered (even more than now).

To say "withdraw now" is ignorant, cruel, and selfish.

Unless we are willing to return Saddam to power (frankly a good idea), then why would we withdraw? We caused the grotesque brutality in their country, and our withdrawal would only accelerate it. Withdrawing to save an American life over, say, 10 Iraqi lives shows a cruel-hearted sentiment.

Before withdrawing from Iraq, The City That Works You Over ought to send Czar Randy on over to get them to adopt vote by mail, a corporate kicker rebate, voter-owned elections, and huge property tax breaks for the Baghdad Family of Funds to construct lots of high-design fire stations and aerial trams that would relieve the urban blight we leave behind.

The cost of the Czar's airfare could come right of the top of our property taxes, like they do with the Disability Fraud Fund. He could donate the frequent flyer miles to the City like Sten and Blackmer have been doing, to refill Emilie Boyles' restitution account.

On the way back maybe he'll stop by and check out sovietprisons.com for some new ideas for Portland.

Commissioner Leonard,

Thanks again for a well-written post. Yes, this is a sad day when I think that a tyrannically individual like Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majidida al-Tikriti should have never been overthrowned; let alone by a foreign power, especially Anglo-American interests. As well, he was able to control “this tribalism” very well and without compassion or mercy.

But I say BS too any timetable that does not deal with the citizens of Iraq lives and future with greater compassion than our own troops. It was our government that gave only lies, despair, grief and a non-existent future too 26 million lives-the coalition has very little to do with this. We have to rebuild this country from scratch before our troops come home. Leaving this country worse off than what it was under Saddam’s regime will only accelerate a generations of individuals to truly hate the Western World. Furthermore, it would destabilize the region further and potentially accelerate another regional war.

I think that you all should read about the Gertrude Bell and T.E. Lawrence(bka Lawrence of Arabia), their concerns about British Mesopotamia and the tribalism of the region.

I have seen nothing that would indicate that we are doing anything to keep a lid on the "civil war" in Iraq. I've seen a lot to indicate that we helped to start it to try to undermine the Sunni insergents. We continue to arm and train the so called "Iraqi" police and army that are just the public face of the Shiite militias.

Perhaps if we could send in 500,000 troops to truly keep order and then train an INTRGRATED Iraqi army and police, we could do some good by staying.

I just read the resolution (an action that I suspect some of the people posting here never did). It is thoughfully worded and reasonable. I support it.

No, I do not support everything that Commissioner Leonard has ever said or done. So what? I support this.

The criticism from Harrison and Ramon that the war is not the city's business is not compelling. No, of course the city does not control foreign policy, but if representative government means anything, then the citizens, through their representatives, should control foreign policy. The very nature of representative government is that we give a proxy to someone. In effect, Commissioner Leonard has put forth a proposal for a vote and is asking us to give him our proxy. In this case, I am willing to do that. I am asking him to convey what (I hope) is the sense of the people of Portland to the federal government. But I do not expect a resolution of the sort under discussion to be a detailed blueprint.

The notion that city commissioners should not remark on anything beyond the city limits, or that or representatives in Salem should not remark on anything going on outside Oregon, is a cramped, deliberately impoverished notion. Are Ramon and Harrison now going to slam Governor Kulongoski for going to soldiers' funerals (which are certainly not a part of state business)?

A common argument against withdrawing troops from Iraq is that things will get worse and/or our troops are the only ones accomplishing anything. My reading of the facts does not agree with this idea.

In the years our troops have been in Iraq, the situation has gotten worse, much worse, not better. If one accepts this admittedly incredible fact, it becomes much easier to support the removal of those troops that are making things worse!

Even the inflated numbers used by Sec. Rice (Sadaam killed 300,000) pale by some of the estimates of Iraqi deaths (600,000+) since our troops entered Iraq.

Accept it folks, our troops are making things worse, every day in every way. Lets do the kind thing and bring them home.

Here’s a vote for city council members sticking to issues and concerns that effect the citizens of Portland and avoid grandstanding on foreign policy matters.

I agree with the councilman that the Iraq war was a disaster and share his desire to return our troops as soon as possible. It is simply not the purview of local officials to issue foreign policy edicts that neither carry weight or advance a practical solution to the problem. As another writer noted there is no good solution to our involvement in Iraq with disastrous consequences whether we stay or leave. Has Mr. Leonard considered all the consequences pulling our troops out now would entail?

We elect Congressional representatives to voice our concerns in Washington. If Mr. Leonard has concerns about our involvement in Iraq he should express those concerns to those representatives just as any other citizen would and not waste city council time in this manner.

Just wondering: How do those who oppose Commissioner Leonard's resolution on the grounds that he is "grandstanding" about something that is not city business feel about the hundreds (thousands?) of support-our-troops resolutions that were passed at the city, county and state level several years ago?

Correction to my initial post: I had in mind the fool Rummy, not the fool Cheney.

Contrary to the the opinion of some expressed here, Saddam in power over Iraqui's was not a good idea, and neither would his return to power be a good idea. Unseating him has been one of the constructive results of the U.S. engagement in Iraq. Disparate nations and individuals throughout the globe must find some common, but more effective means of overcoming barriers between them and the lives they wish to lead then through bloodshed, war, and domination.

Saddam's sole purpose for existing, was to rally the entire arab world against the west, by which means the arab world might ultimately switch positions with the U.S. as one of the most dominant nations in the world, employing globally, the same bloody management strategies he used as head of Iraq.

It would be wonderful if U.S. troops could leave Iraq with the citizens of that country of a mind that resumption of power by a force like Saddam would be better replaced by a humane means of self government.

Alright!

And to critics, I would ask you: since when is it the responsibility of one nation to intervene in another's civil war? Genocide aside, anyways.

I'm glad Randy is stepping up on this issue. The Democrats in Congress, even Murtha, are backing away from immediate withdrawal, phased or not.

Here's the way it should work: The U.S. is spending about $8 billion a month on the war (probably more, when you calculate hidden costs). We say to the Iraqis--"We're pulling out and we're going to see if you can act like adults rather than squabbling children, and figure out something on your own. If you can form a stable, functioning government--or split the country into three stable, semi-sovereign entitities--we'll give you half as much as we are spending on the war for the next two years. So it's your choice. You can keep killing each other and get nothing, or you can figure out a way to live in peace and get about $100 billion."

By withdrawing from Iraq without a solid plan to having a whole country still intact and secure, these three groups will not overcome centuries of racial and religious cleansing under the Ottoman Turks, the Arabs and Persian conquerors.

Any notion of separate these three areas in to separate countries would look like a great idea, but that inside itself would cause potentially a regional war with millions of lives at stake. The 1st obvious country would be the region around Barsa, the Shi’a majority would install potentially another theocratic control country in region or be outright absorbed by Iran. Either option not welcomed by the US or its main allies of the UK, Saudi Arabia or Israel. The 2nd obvious country would be the region around Baghdad, the Sunni controlled area would be a small extremely and very dependent on it fellow Sunni Arab neighbors for food and other core imports. Best option would allow this area to be absorbed by Jordan—nearly reuniting the former Hashemite Kingdom to its fullest extent. This option should cause very little concern to all involved, with a muted but short outcry from Israel. The 3rd and final obvious country would be Kurdistan. The Kurds would land the most wealth of the three sections, a lot of cotton and oil. Here is where all the problems truly began. Give the Kurd’s nearly all the area believed that is their homeland and you will be inviting the Palestinian’s the same types of demands—and Israel will never allow that. Then there is KKP, the Kurdish rebel/terrorist group, and its various splinter cells in Turkey demanding the Turkish Kurdistan to allow it own country too be made or allow it to join up with the Arab side of it inside of Iraq. As well, pressure of the Iranian Kurdistan as well; could force Iran and Turkey to use it military might to crush any and all forms of rebelling or political organizing for these types of resolution. The Kurds will have to be forced under Arab, Turkish or Iranian rule for here on out if the region wants any chance of civility.

Therefore, yes I do want our troops to come home only if the end result will be a equitable peace and prosperity to the region, and if we don’t have to re-invest our military assets back in the Middle East in the near future because of arrogantly ignorant outcry from home to get the servicewomen and servicemen home too early because the region is getting a too little messy for us.

http://www.impeachbush.tv/args/points_city.html#job

When they say, "It is not our job to impeach the President."

1. Most City Council members take an oath of office promising to "protect and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. They don't take an oath to fix potholes. If the Constitution is in danger then their primary duty is to defend it. If it is safe, and they have time on their hands, then they can fix potholes.

2. Cities and towns routinely send petitions to Congress for all kinds of requests. This is allowed under Clause 3, Rule XII, Section 819, of the Rules of the House of Representatives. This clause is routinely used to accept petitions from cities, and memorials from states, all across America. As an example, here is a page from the Congressional Record showing petitions and memorials laid on the Clerk's desk on March 6th, 2006.

When they say, "This is not a local issue. "

1. If a federal action has a significant negative impact on this city, then it is appropriate for this city to defend itself.
2. Citizens from this city may be sent, or have been sent, to Iraq to fight in an illegal and unjustified war.
3. Tax funds from this city that could have been spent locally have been spent in Iraq for war. Tax money from this city has been wasted in no-bid contracts with companies like Halliburton with deep ties to the Bush administration. Yet this city can barely afford the emergency services, libraries, and schools that we need.
4. The state National Guard should be available to protect this city from floods, hurricanes, earthquakes or other disasters. But instead they have been sent to Iraq by President Bush.

<hr/>

...on the matter of City Council members taking an oath of office...

http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?&c=cicdi&cce_28238_print=1

Article 2 Elective Offices

Section 2-205 Oath of Office. Every official appointed or elected to elective office before entering upon the performance of his or her duties shall take an oath or affirmation that he or she will support the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of Oregon, and will faithfully and honestly discharge his or her duties; that the official holds no other office or position of profit, and that the official is not a member of any committee of any political party. If such oath or affirmation be false in any particular, it shall be deemed a delinquency in office on the part of such official. [May 3, 1913, new sec. 15; rev. 1914, sec. 27; 1928 pub., sec. 27; 1942 recod., sec. 2-113; rev. Nov. 6, 1962.]

Perhaps the best solution would be to do now what should have been done in the first place: Work with the global community collaboratively to put an end to genocide and crimes against humanity EVERYWHERE while following international law.

Randy, Thank you very much for what you are doing. I truly hope your efforts will encourage others to speak out, as I am doing right now. As an Army medic in Vietnam from 1970-71, I know the insanity of war. I saw the last chapters of America's genocide in Southeast Asia. Not only was I seeing the casualties, but I was seeing the rapid disintigration of American involvement in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. I saw the internal violence, such as the homicides, the suicides, the rampant heroin addiction, racial violence, and senseless accidents. Most Americans have absolutely no idea what the reality of war is. It is about mega death. It is about killing civilians as fast as U.S. weaponry can kill them, especially with carpet bombing and artillery. It is about coming home to America and being ashamed of being a part of madness. It is about the loss of marriages, children, buddies and dreams. It is about being in psychiatric hospitals, and making numerous trips to a VA hospital emergency room, because you are experiencing panic attacks. It is about being suicidal on a daily basis. It is about drinking and drug abuse. It is about hiding out in your walk-in closet, talking to yourself, and crying your heart out. It is about having every area of your belief system dismantled and ambushed by your government. It is about being on emotional death row day in and day out. It is about feeling the extreme toxicity of betrayal from your government and the world you live in. I will close with this: You do not bring the enemy to the peace table by just killing military combatants. You ultimately bring the enemy to the peace table by killing innocent civilians. They are military targets. The primary goal of the aggressor nation is to break the spirit of the people, and its ability to defend its homeland. This strategy is as old as warfare itself. Lying Is The Most Powerful Weapon In War. Mike Hastie U.S. Army Medic Vietnam 1970-71

I really appreciate your comment, Mike.

1) We're in the middle of either a) a civil war or b) hellish chaos. 2) Can we ask one of our sons/daughters to be the last one of us who dies there?

Randy,

Thanks for this important resolution. It is the continuing presence of the ill-planned military occupation that is enflaming the violence, and so withdrawal is the humanitarian thing to do, both for our personnel and for the Iraqi people.

How dare you pass this resolution. I can't believe that you as a commissioner voted on behalf of the people. I never asked you to vote for me. Do you know what we are doing over there or are you just watching the news like most people. Speaking on behalf of my husband who was there (and wants to go back)we here in America really do not know what is going on over there. You never hear the goods things that our troops are doing for these people only the bad. My husband worked hand in hand with these people everyday and he feels like he had made a difference. He is still in contact with his interpertor on a weekly basis. If we pull out and leave those people again we are no better than the terrorists. The majority of the people want us there. I'm sad to say that I live in this state. I never thought I would live somewhere where we turned our back on people who needed us.

Stephanie,

I understand your concerns. A friend of mine has served in Iraq and I know someone now in Afghanistan. You have every right to express your opinion. You are in total agreement with some Ft. Hood military wives recently interviewed on a national news show.

It is possible to have great concern for troops in the field and still question the policy--as combat veterans in Congress in both parties have done.

However, The majority of the people want us there. is not necessarily true. Perhaps the majority of people your husband met feel that way, but it didn't take long on Google to find a news story like this: BAGHDAD, Sept. 26 -- A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

I am proud to live in a state where the Governor visits troops overseas and attends military funerals. I am concerned about whether the VA has the resources to handle all the veterans now and in the future.