Hail the Preemptive Heroes

Photo by Daniel C. TsangAfter spending four hours recognizing student achievements, limiting the number of firework stands and expressing interest in magnetic-levitation transportation systems, the Garden Grove City Council got to what's really important at its March 25 meeting: whether the city would be merely pro-war or really really pro-war.

Item 8F of the night's agenda featured a resolution by City Councilman Mark Leyes asking that the city publicly support "the President of the United States and the U.S. Armed Forces in the matter of disarming the despotic regime in Iraq."

An e-mail circulated by local peace activists urged "hundreds" to attend the meeting and dissuade the council from making Garden Grove among the first Orange County cities to support the preemptive Iraqi war. But in the war of attrition that is a city council meeting, only two audience members were left in the chambers by the time the item reached discussion at 10:30 p.m.—and each was asleep.

Debate was limited. Councilman Mark Rosen agreed with Leyes' intent but introduced a counterresolution using the exact language employed by the U.S. Senate and House in their recently adopted support of the president. Rosen argued that the local measure would be better received by the public because the congressional resolution it mimicked won bipartisan approval.

Leyes bristled. "That version gives too much credit to the United Nations," he fumed. "It doesn't say anything about an attack on our own soil."

The congressional resolution gave a brief chronology of the incidents leading up to the current war, mentioning actions approved on Capitol Hill and in the UN that authorized a strike against Iraq. Leyes' declaration was more blunt, attempting to tie Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks and stating, "There is an urgent need for determined and decisive multilateral action to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and the infrastructure in place that supports terrorists and terrorism."

Such a view quickly fell out of favor with the council—not that they disapproved of Leyes' enthusiasm for preemptive strikes. Mayor Bruce Broadwater fondly remembered his stint as a Marine in Lebanon when the United States invaded the Middle Eastern country in 1958. "And that JFK didn't do something about the Berlin Wall wasn't the right attitude," Broadwater barked.

He continued, "Protestors shouldn't be doing anything that takes away from our boys and girls. And they are boys and girls—that's when [the Armed Forces] gets them dumb enough to serve."

The resolution passed 5-0.