UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorslals
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan
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April 29,1980
Heroes of a tragedy
In this age of careless exaggeration, tragedy has become an overused word, its meaning diluted to apply to almost any unfortunate event. Language expert Theodore M. Bernstein, however, specifies the meaning and use of the word in his book "The Careful Writer":
"In the Aristotelian sense a tragedy concerns the downfall of a highly superior person caused at least in part by some fault inherent in him. Although the word need not be restricted to that type of situation, it is well to use it only if something great or heroic is involved in the misfortune."
There is no other word, then, that more aptly describes the deaths of eight military men and the injury of four more in last Thursday's aborted hostage mission in Iran. The word and the event are synonyms.
Of the 12 men, five were stationed at Huriburt Field, an Air Force Base in Northwest Florida. Three of these were among those killed; two were injured. They all were from a special co-ordination of men trained at the base.
A pail of sadness now blankets this resort stretch of snowy white sand and dazzling blue water and sky. The sun is scorching the pavement and baking the tourists with 90 degree temperatures, but at least five families take no notice of the typical suburban life when they have tinkered into an iron fist. Military personnel have been ordered not to talk to reporters and officers' wives are answering the phones at the homes of the five victims' families, turning
away the concerned as well as the curious.
Hero is a word that almost has disappeared from the experiences and ideals of the American people. Its meaning was obscured, distorted and too often lost amid the moral turmoil of the Vietnam War. Since then the word has been shrouded in a context of what would be to imagine, unattainable or old-fashioned ideals—honor, loyalty, dedication to freedom and love for one's country and its citizens.
If Americans were to learn one heart-lifting lesson from this tragedy it should be that these ideals still live and breathe in the spirits of many of their countrymen—that the 90 American military men involved in the terrorist, and especially those 12 who were killed, injured, are indeed, heroes.
Hypocritical pot laws violate basic rights
The sadness, as intense as it is there, is not exclusively concentrated at Hurtubur. It pervades our entire country and stretches across seas and borders into other countries. And although some unfavorable reactions have been noted, the general reaction here and abroad is one of overwhelming support for President Carter and his decision to implement the war on Iran. The nation's blame, Americans are only wondering why Carter waited so long.
Many questions will arise and many words will be written about this tragedy before it finally fades into the innermost chambers of our memories. That has not been spoken loudly or often enough in all the reports and analyses.
Guest Columnist
By RON BAIN Court Columnist
A recent report by the national Drug Abuse Council states that the use of mind-altering drugs, including marijuana and methamphetamine, is common in America, but abuse of those drugs is rare.
The council recommended decramalization of possession of marijuana in small amounts, and advocated experimental heroin maintenance programs for heroin
The council's report is the result of a seven-year, $10 million nationwide study of drug abuse, sponsored mainly by the Ford Foundation.
Meanwhile, during the seven years the council studied the "problem," thousands of students and business owners in tenantries, at tax-payers' expense, for simple possession or sale of marijuana. Despite previous and the most recent law, marijuana is still regulated by marijuana laws, the federal government continues to fight a war on marijuana that has lasted the last nine years. Marijuana dealers disbursement of tax-free trade virtually disappeared by mail, tax laws and drug enforcement organizations.
ACCOORDING TO the council report, this situation exists because current drug laws require that most people be a half-century old, despite the fact that many of those assumptions were erroneous.
The case for the legalization of marijuana grows stronger daily. Decriminalization on a state-by-state basis is no longer adequate to prevent future incarceration in Texas and Missouri judges are able to sentence convicted marijuana users to prison terms usually reserved for rapists and murderers while other states, such as Arizona, remain more on longer procedure simple possession laws.
Such an unjust disparity in state marijuana laws can only be corrected by federal legalization, regulation and distribution of marijuana. Tax revenues from marijuana could be used for cancer research, energy research, or other worthy causes.
OBJECTIONS TO legal marijuana are many, but the negative arguments do not stand up close analysis. The most frequent objections to legal marijuana are
that it would be too easily available to minors, or that it is harmful to individual health, or that recreational drugs in general are harmful to society.
Concerning availability of marijuana to minors, no situation but the present one could make marijuana more available to minors. Junior high and high school students should be classified as classmates, whom they see eight hours a day, five days a week. Legal marijuana would probably be sold in much the same way alcohol is sold now, in stores restricted to minors. Laws concerning distribution of marijuana to minors would, of course, stand.
CONCERNING THE POTENTIAL harm of marijuana to the user, the federal government already must have established that Americans have the right to determine whether they should use marijuana their health, or alcohol and tobacco would have been banned long ago. Also, alcohol and tobacco are killing, additive drugs; the state is not known how many unknown, but it is not physically active nor does it kill. Those who are worried about the state of American health should concern themselves with the effects of alcohol and rather than with the effects of marijuana.
Finally, the argument that all recreational drugs are harmful to society has some merit to it, yet it does not take into account the fact that concern victimises crimes. If America was willing to give up alcohol and tobacco for the sake of society, then the laws against marijuana might be justified. But as long as the government allows marijuana on land, then the marijuana laws are unjustified and injust, and must be changed. To use tax money to persecute, harass and prosecute marijuana users is indeed rife with the threat that tobacco affords freely the streets.
THE ISSUE IS not minors, health or society; the issue is civil rights. It is a flagrant violation of basic civil and human rights to discriminate against people who smoke a noxious weed while the government controls it and protects people who smoke a different noxious weed.
The legal for an end to hypocrisy is long past; legalize marjumana now. Grant pardons to those in jail for its possession or sale. Justice will not be served until this occurs.
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor and guest opinions that present different points of view. The letter must be typed, double-spaced and no longer than 500 words. The Kansan reserves the right to edit all letters and letters to the editor must include the writer's address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should in- come from home or faculty or staff position.
U.S. red-faced over bungled mission
Bad craziness. As the news reports came off the wire machines, it seemed as though the world had been convoluted by a violent insanity. A military attempt to rescue the American hostages in Tehran had failed, and the American shaken, embarrassed and dead.
The news of the mission came slowly. It trickled over the news service wires; most reports were more repetitions of previous attacks. The news are still not known, nehrans will be.
What is known is that the operation was a series of casualties that ended in sorrowful failure. Eight men died, four were injured, and one was killed by a small chance for success. The lives of more than 100 United States military men were lost during the fall of a dugged cell of national bravery. Bad craziness.
Not only were the volunteers on the mission endangered, but the rescue attempt very well could have been the death warrant
kate COLUMNIST pound
of the hostages. The militants holding the hostages could have simply lined them up against a wall and machine-guned them down in retaliation for the attempt. Even if the rescue force had gotten into the Eibmay building, there was the chance that the militants would have killed at least some of their hostages, and probably some of their rescuers.
The risks of failure or partial success were too high for the mission to have been planned. The chances of a successful rescue operation were complicated, the terrain unfamiliar, and the enemy unpredictable. Successful completion would require the military move of the century, surpassing any of the brilliant strategies of World War II. Failure was worse than the debacles of World War I.
TO HAIVE SUCCEEDED in their mission, the eight helicopters carrying the rescue team flew to Iraq and Iranian territory, flying from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. The two C-130 planes carrying fuel for the helicopters fell into the Northern Africa, possibly Egypt or Israel.
THE RESCUCE ATTEMPT was a far earlier risk to be launched than continued cooperation in the world peace. The Iranian government could have viewed the mission, whether it had been an attack or a training exercise, could have begun a conflict far more tragic than Vietnam. War could very well have been the result.
The distance the helicopters were to fly would have tested the mechanical abilities of the craft. Choppers are not built for long-distance flight, particularly carry large loads and flying at very low altitudes. The aircraft should also have been refueling by the helicopters.
THE MECHANICAL FAILURE of three helicopters, before the mission was even half completed, seems to indicate that the aircraft could have been inspected, inspections, signs of poor preparation. The
Both the helicopters and the planes had to fly at extremely low altitudes, to evade detection by the Iranian radar system. The aircraft were also deployed world and was supplied by the United States. Low altitude flight requires crack pilots and strong machinery. Although the mission's pilots appear to have been exerting extreme stress in no peak condition.
same type of helicopter used in the Iran mission was also used in Vietnam. There, a group of American soldiers more American soldiers than can ever be counted. Why would troops, well-armed
The rescue force, although a group of the nation's best military men, does not appear to have had adequate direction. There does not appear to have been a single, door-door window that could open when he began to fall apart, literally, when the helicopters failed, the immediate command did not take decisive action. And, when the helicopter collided with the plane in the force panicked, leaking in hakes and behind the bodies of the eight dead men.
HAD THE MISSION made it to Tibera, the 90 commanders had have had to travel into the heart of the city, without being seen. Even with the help of agents who had been
placed in Tebau earlier, it would have been a difficult task. More difficult would have been the task of getting into the Embassy and then departing, without killing some of them in the process.
Risky. The whole business was one big risk after another. The odds were old against the mission from the start, and it is miraculous that only eight men were killed.
But what did they do for 'the off-camp of being able to rescue the hostages? Those two men, who had been in Iran. Their mission was a last-ditch attempt by the Carter administration to save face, and was up against troopless enemies with their own cultures and weak leadership only dosed it.
The rescue attempt has set back diplomatic negotiations. It hace embarrassed the U.S. and its military leaders look like a bunch of bounced-lamel dogs, but it killed eight of them. It must have been a mistake.
Lie detector test adds to job jitters
By WILLIAM G. GAGLIARDI
NEW YORK—There is something very uncomfortable, almost humiliating, about taking a lie-detector test.
After the initial interview for a job, you are sent to a company that gives the test.
You're brought into a small, windowless room and the man asks you to have a seat. He asks you to sit in quiet. The seat is nearby quiet. He asks you to read and sign the permission to be seated to your test.
There were slight differences between the two tests I took, but the basic pattern was the same.
It seems that the questions are basically the same in every polygraph test. Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever seen a psychiatrist? Have you ever used an alias?
The man went over the questions before I was hooked up to the machine. He was a hard, thicky, heaviest and distant man who had the look of being an ex-police officer. He's heard it all before. He made notes as he asked the questions and I wondered what he was writing.
THEERE MUST BE some awfully wicked people in this world People who would steal their mother's wedding ring, hock it, and buy drugs and liquor. In jail cells who ace to get out and spend their children's milk money on a bet for a horse. And this man across from you is almost the same person who is the company that is thinking of humili you
Do you owe money? Do you gamble? Have you ever shoplifted? How much do you drink?
You stare at a tan-colored wall. There are a lot of gray scuff marks there. Probably from some very nervous feet.
THE QUESTIONING BEGINS.
Then be asked you to sit in the chair beside him. You can see the three needles and the stethoscope faces away from the machine. You take off your coat and sit. He places one band on his wrist so it can stay in place in the stomach. He attaches two electrodes to your fingers that measure skin reflexes and the heart rate.
THE QUESTIONING BEGINS.
Is all the information you've given true?
Yes.
There is a long, long pause. You can feel yourself breathing and your heart beating. You wait for the next question and try to recall your scar marks and not thinking about anything.
Have you ever used an alias?
There is another long pause.
Do you gamu
You're breathing too quickly to think. You swallow and wonder if that registers on the machine. You tell yourself to remain calm. Do you gamble?
The questioning stops and you wonder what he is doing with his machine.
THE ANSWER WAS blurted out because of the length of time between questions. He then turned to remain calm. Two fingers on your right hand cramp and tug at it. It hurt. He wiped his nose and then involved in the second round of questioning took no more than eight minutes. It seemed unnatural.
You are asked the questions a third time, this time more quickly and several questions are repeated and you wonder why.
YOU KNOW YOU are telling the truth, but there is the temptation to turn and look at the machine and see what it said.
The questions stop. You can hear the paper being ripped from the machine and folded and though you know you were telling them you want to look at the paper or ask a question.
He unbooks you from the machine and you almost say, *Me* you put on your jacket and peek at the graph paper that is hidden in his hand and again after the machine said you were living.
He hardly says anything. Not even a thank you. Out you go and when you are out on the street, you wonder about a company that would make you take a he-detector test. Of course you could refuse, but they would open air, open up your back door, open air, ask yourself if you would take the job or not. The answer depends on how long you've been out of work.
wiliam R. Gagliardi, who taught writing and literature at Columbia College in Chicago, says that he applied for the job in the University of Missouri but did not get it, though "I told the truth."
Atashi ignores Palestinian suffering
To the Editor:
According to Zedian Atashi, a member of the Israeli Knesset and a recent speaker at Palestine's Knesset, it was occupied by the Israelis in 1948 "have the same rights that Jews have." This is a gross untruth. Let us look at the numbers. The Palestinian minority accounts for more than 16 percent of the population, representation. The Palestinian minority accounts for less than 6 percent. Is this an equal right?
The speaker contended that "Israel Jews and Arabs participated in the same social functions, such as compulsory education." The speaker also stated that 1976, the number of students of compulsory school age as a percentage of the Palestinian minority was 75.8 percent, and that of Jews was 98.2 percent, according to the Israeli government. This reason for this stable discrepancy, according to Moshe Avidor in Education in Israel, is the Israeli authorities are not enforcing the compulsory education law in Palestinian institutions. This contradicts Atash's claim.
The number of Palestinian students who attained a high school diploma per 10,000 of the population was 15, while that for the Jews was 40 (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1977). The reason for the low graduation rate among the Palestinians is that most of the Arabs in Israel, is that more than two-thirds of the degree candidates do not pass their examinations on the education they receive. These figures
are depressing because the Palestinians in disair are the most educated in the Middle East and some of the most literate in the world.
Atashi claimed that the "Arab Israelis can work in any industry except those connected with the defense ministry." The师er is an Israeli national, the Aaron Cohen in Israel and the Arab World, who has described the jobs offered to the Palestinian minority as "unskilled, manual labor," he said. He also well paid. The difference between Arab and Jewish workers is still current . . . even when doing similar work, the rights of Arab workers are suppressed as he progresses professionally."
The condition of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip is much more difficult than it was in 1948, written by Israel Shabak, a professor at the Hebrew University and a champion of human rights, describes the Israeli regime in the occupied territories as the most cruel. He writes:
With all these forms of blatant discrimination and oppression, who would like to live under Israeli rule? Only the Zionists.
Muhi Mishari
Mudi Mishari Secretary, Organization of Arab Students
Research well done in Criterion column
To the Editor:
The recent David Lewis column-
Samuel Adams
Associate professor of journalism
"The Criterion Aids Racial Understanding"—was unusually good. Rather than making snap judgments about the purpose and function of the young struggling newspaper, Lewis obviously did not order to write his opinions That I lauded.
Abortion responses clouded by emotions
To the Editor
The letters on the issue of abortion that have appeared in the University Daily Kansas have largely been only emotional responses to a more complex problem. The complexity of the issue is clearly apparent as scientific, religious and philosophic aspect.
The term "person" implies not only a passive existence (being), but also the person's environment in which are developed through interaction with the person's environment. The fetus is born outside of the mother's environment.
From the moment of conception, all the physical attributes of the fetus are determined by the ovum and the sperm. Some sociobiologists also claim that some genetic material is present in the embryo, although to what extent it is still being studied and debated. All this considered, the fetus is
This potential must be considered by each woman as she makes a decision on the issue of abortion. If a woman's religion or political beliefs make her an owner, then having 'potential' unalienable rights, the decision must be whether these potential rights are as important as her rights under the Constitution. This is a personal matter which is not easily guaranteed by the Constitution.
under the U.S. Constitution. The fetus
though, has the potential to develop into a
person if the pregnancy is not terminated
Although personally, I cannot accept abortion because of the waste of life, it is clearly the woman's choice.
Brett Perry Brattleboro, VT., junior
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