Lynnwood man aims to spark war debate

“Are you safer now than you were in 2000?”

Steven Greenebaum of Lynnwood asked that question critical of the Bush Administration in a $20,000, full-page ad citical of the Bush administration in two Seattle daily newspapers.

He hopes people will respond to the Oct. 2 advertisement by engaging in and encouraging fearless, but civil public debate on national issues.

“I kept waiting for someone to do something,” said Greenebaum, a 58-year-old Seattle University student. “I finally realized I was part of the problem because I was like everyone else — waiting for somebody to do something. … I had to put it down on paper to connect the dots.”

Although he was interviewed by a handful of local radio and television stations, he said it is too early to tell if the ad sparked a real public debate.

“People are evidently talking about (the ad). If we are still talking about it in a couple of weeks, then it started a debate,” he said. “If it is about me, it is pointless.”

In the ad, Greenebaum asserts that President Bush and a Republican Congress “have left the United States massively weakened and very unsafe indeed.” Many of his criticisms involve the Iraq war.

Greenebaum claims citizens have become distracted by the Iraq war and have forgotten that a federal budget surplus before the year 2000 has now become a “massive budget deficit.”

He claims that by waging war in Iraq, the Bush administration alienated moderate Muslims and created a “recruiting and training ground for terrorists.”