Opinion: In today’s pages: Lingering in Iraq, California’s carbon fuel standard
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In Monday’s Opinion pages, liberal icon and former U.S. Sen. George S. McGovern takes President Obama to task for lingering in Iraq. Obama asked to leave 50,000 troops to ‘police’ the country; McGovern wonders how that’s any different from the Bush policy that Obama repudiated during the campaign. Why not pull out this year?
Our policymakers in Washington contend that we must maintain U.S. troops in the Middle East to curb terrorism. I strongly believe that it is our military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East that is driving terrorism against the United States. No country that longs for national sovereignty wants a foreign army in its midst. We taught that lesson to the British Empire in 1776 when George Washington and his ragtag guerrilla army drove the British military from our shores.
Also, more fallout from last week’s Fair Political Practices Commission report on the huge amounts of cash funneled into political campaigns under Proposition 34, the campaign contribution law adopted by voters in 2000. Robert M. Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies and Molly Milligan of the center’s Governance Project call for derailing the money train.
It’s time to change the contribution laws. First, all money raised by candidates and incumbents -- directly or indirectly, through campaign and non-campaign entities -- should be publicly disclosed. This will greatly increase transparency and alert voters to potential undue influence by large donors and possible corruption of elected officials and candidates.
Columnist Gregory Rodriguez reports from New Orleans and examines racial mixing and segregation in the post-Katrina era.
On the Editorial Page, the ed board drills down into California’s proposed Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which comes before the state Air Resources Board on Thursday. The problem is that we don’t yet know everything we need to about how much gunk gets spewed into the air by processing fuels, but we have to start somewhere.
...while the potential unreliability of the computer model is troubling, biofuels backers are overstating the problem. The model is based on the best science available, and it will improve over time as the science improves. Just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t good.
The ed board also has some thoughts about deputy sheriffs who carry guns while off duty (no problem), deputies who drink off-duty (no problem) and those who do both (big problem).