
{"id":14042,"date":"2010-11-18T16:20:40","date_gmt":"2010-11-18T21:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=14042"},"modified":"2010-11-18T16:20:40","modified_gmt":"2010-11-18T21:20:40","slug":"county-nixes-resolution-opposing-afghan-war-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/11\/18\/county-nixes-resolution-opposing-afghan-war-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"County nixes resolution opposing Afghan war funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 on Tuesday not to approve a resolution calling for the end of Congress\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 expenditure of tax dollars on the war in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n<p>County resident Mark Marcoplos first proposed the resolution in September.<\/p>\n<p>The resolution, which requests that members of North Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s congressional delegation oppose legislation providing further war funding, states that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an inordinate level of military expenditure is being made by the U.S. federal government for warfare in Afghanistan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which \u00e2\u20ac\u0153creates great and unnecessary harm to the people of the nation of Afghanistan and to U.S. military personnel and their families.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Board members said they did not feel it was appropriate to pass the resolution. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that there are times when this board can appropriately make comments about issues that go beyond the borders of Orange County &#8230; but I also think they have to be well-crafted, carefully thought out and well-balanced, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that this particular resolution rises to this level,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Commissioner Barry Jacobs said. <\/p>\n<p>Commissioner Mike Nelson said he did not have a problem supporting controversial resolutions, but that he trusted the president to try to figure out the right way to proceed, given the complicated nature of the war. <\/p>\n<p>Commissioner Alice Gordon was the lone dissenter and proposed a revised version of the resolution that included statements regarding the loss of life in the war. Gordon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nephew served three tours in Iraq. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quite on my mind what the human cost could be of a war,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I really felt that the important issue was the war and bringing it to an honorable conclusion &#8230; The financial importance is considerable, but I want to put the emphasis on the human cost of war.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Several veterans spoke against the proposed resolution.<\/p>\n<p>Charlie Cleary, a Vietnam veteran and commander of the 40 and 8 American Legion in Orange County, said his organization voted not to support the resolution. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153By not supporting your veterans, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re telling them that all the things they have done are in vain,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, noting that many veterans return from war with severe injuries.   <\/p>\n<p>Robert Nichols, a World War II veteran, said the government should focus on defending the country against terrorists. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The military people in Afghanistan and the other places that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got them are our first line of defense, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to need them and we need to pay them. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot better to lose the money than it is to lose the lives,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My son went to get a job, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been to college for a while, and you know what they told him? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s overqualified. So maybe we need to take some of this education money and put it where it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing most good, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s keeping terrorists out of the country.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Marcoplos said he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand why board members said it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t their role to communicate to state and federal government officials about such issues, pointing out that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done it before with the approval of a resolution opposing the invasion of Iraq. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It occurred to me that those were the Bush years and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all Democratic Party members,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the beginning, I thought they would just pass it, because I felt like a majority of the commissioners had a grasp on the big picture and could see the opportunity for leadership here. I was surprised in the end that they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>The Carrboro Board of Aldermen recently approved a version of Marcoplos\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 proposed resolution. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 on Tuesday not to approve a resolution calling for the end of Congress\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 expenditure of tax dollars on the war in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14042"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14053,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042\/revisions\/14053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}