The People Have Spoken
St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
February 17, 2007
Residents of Amery, Wis. weren't paying much attention Friday as the U.S. House repudiated Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq. After all, they voted to withdraw all forces a year ago...
JOHN BREWER
As folks in Amery, Wis., went about their business Friday afternoon -- eating lunch, drinking beer, working -- they were not watching the action in Washington, D.C.
Maybe they didn't have to. The U.S. House debate and vote on the Iraq war was one that this city went through last spring.
"There's a huge lag between where the public is and where their so-called representatives are," said Steve Burns, program coordinator for the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.
His group helped the state's Green Party organize the first referendum on the Iraq war, when more than 30 Wisconsin communities -- including Amery, Frederic and Osceola -- voted on withdrawing troops. Since then, 90 cities, towns, villages and legislative districts in Wisconsin, Illinois and Massachusetts have taken up the cause.
The score is 82 to 8 in favor of the nonbinding measure, Burns said.
"It's definitely had its effect in terms of reflecting public opinion and even moving public opinion," he said.
More votes are scheduled for another referendum this April, including measures that call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Friday's vote in the House didn't go that far but sent a message that the war isn't working. It's the same message Amery already sent, and the same one some of its residents still espouse.
"I don't know anybody that wants this war," said Deanne Sasselli.
The former flight attendant for a military-chartered airline ate lunch with a friend Friday afternoon at Hart's Bakery and Restaurant. She said that during her few years traveling to and from the Middle East, she saw the toll the conflict took on the soldiers.
"The day the war started, we flew into Kuwait. I took a picture of the three guys in my exit row. You can tell in their faces that they were depressed," she said.
She corresponded with the three for six months and then never heard another word from them. She doesn't know their fates.
Joyce Katelhut, Sasselli's friend, extends her criticism of the war to Bush's most-recent claims that Iran is supplying weapons to anti-U.S. forces in Iraq.
"I wouldn't believe him," she said. "He was lying the first time."
Next door, Joyce Kessler stood behind the counter of her jewelry store. The activist isn't afraid to speak her mind, she said, and has protested the war in locations from Luck, Wis., to the bridge between Taylors Falls and St. Croix Falls, Wis., and even in New York City.
Kessler, who helped to collect signatures to get the Amery referendum on the ballot last spring, was bemused that Wisconsin Public Radio wasn't broadcasting the House debate and vote. At the same time, she didn't know what impact the resolution would have.
"Is it actually going to persuade Bush to not send the troops? I don't know how much power they (the U.S. representatives) have," she said, adding that the good part of the vote is that the dissatisfaction with the war "is coming out, getting talked about, getting awareness."
Across the main street, Bob Holm and Jerry Gust took up the war issue inside Uncle Bob's bar.
"We've got no business refereeing a civil war," said Gust, co-owner of Uncle Bob's.
Holm, the bar's manager and namesake, gave more credit to the president's troop surge plan.
"Send more troops for a six-month deal, anyway," he said. "If the Iraqi army can't take over, start withdrawing."
Gust didn't see the point of even a short surge.
"It takes our troops six months to go through basic training, and they're pretty much ready to go," he said. "We've been training these Iraqi troops for four years, and they're still not ready to fight."