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Ward 2 Ald. Frank McNeil wants the City Council to
pass a resolution that calls for the withdrawal of American troops from
Iraq. In last November’s general election, 59 percent
of voters in Capital Township supported a similar advisory question. McNeil says it’s now incumbent upon on the
council to tell President George W. Bush and Congress how the 10 wards in
the city of Springfield feel about the war. “We’ve been there four years and things
are not going well,” he says. McNeil will face resistance. In 2003, just prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
McNeil asked the council to pass a resolution in opposition to war. That
measure never made it out of the public affairs committee. Ward 8 Ald. Irv Smith, a veteran of the Korean War,
says he won’t vote for McNeil’s latest Iraq resolution. “I just don’t think we ought to cut and
run,” Smith says. “I see all these people who are opposed to it
— and they never had to fire a rifle, they never had to put a bayonet
on.”
Christopher Z. Mooney, a political studies professor
at the University of Illinois at Springfield, says citizen frustration with
the war is driving similar measures across the country. “By the time it starts getting to the
Springfields of the world, then you know it’s getting more into
mainstream America,” Mooney says. McNeil’s ordinance, filed at the behest of
Springfield peace-and-justice advocate Bob Wesley, will be heard by the
council’s public affairs committee on Monday, Feb. 5, and could be
voted upon by the full council the next night. Another local activist, Diane Hughes, says the war is
an encompassing issue that impacts every voter. “It sounds like Frank is listening to the will
of the
people.”
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 18-24, 2007.
