University Daily Kansan, March 26, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansan - UNPS 600-640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall. Lawrence, Kan 6045, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan 6044 Subscriptions by mail are for $15 or six months or $30 per month. Registered California County and $18 for six months or $30 per month. POSTMASTER. Send address changes to the University Daily Kansan 118 Staffer Flint Hall. Lawrence, Kan 6045
It's a start
Talk - all talk
But at least we are talking again. The latest round of U.S.-U.S.S.R. arms talks opened March 12 in Geneva, and should continue through the next six to eight weeks.
The leading negotiators for the United States — Max Kampelman, John Tower and Maynard Glitam — arrived in Geneva with their mandate from President Reagan to "explore every promising avenue for progress."
explore every promising avenue Reagan has set his goals — to see to the development of the U.S. military forces. He wants the Soviets to agree to deep cuts in their arsenal of long- and medium-range offensive weapons yet preserve the U.S.'s options on research and weapon development, future testing and deployment of space weapons.
Other matters, such as Reagan's Star Wars program and the MX missile will make the situation a little touchy. And if the U.S. decides to come down hard on the Soviet Union for violating previous agreements, that could hamper talks, too.
weapons. Kampelman has established his goal — to see that stability prevails between the two giants. And there are the goals of Viktor Karpov, head of the Soviet delegation — to see that the U.S.S.R. doesn't lose any of the military ground it has gained on the U.S.
but time and again, Secretary of State George Shrultz has said that these talks are an effort to find a common U.S.-U.S.S.R. philosophy regarding the nuclear threat. We have had to discard our ideas of isolationism, of retaliation and mutually assured destruction. They are simply obsolete.
Everything depends on stability and trust, balance and deterrence. Those are popular phrases in Geneva now.
But the negotiators and government officials seem to be forgetting something — us, the people who are living among the missile silos. The ones who will be put in uniforms and shipped off to fight a war if negotiators turn into hotheads or the talks fizzle again.
The Russian people and the U.S. people have goals, too. And they aren't all that different. The negotiators only need to look at the human chains formed around deployment sites, feel the tension among people gathered along the White Train tracks and hear the protests of people watching their tax dollars being spent on more warheads to determine what the people want.
people warn.
The representatives in Geneva need to pay attention. After all, the first people sent to war won't be the same ones who were sent to the negotiating table.
So far, yes, it is all talk, but it's a star*
And it definitely beats the nuclear alternative.
The trite war
While the Geneva arms talks and debate over the MX missile capture the attention of the nation, the world's deadliest conflict continues along the desolate border between Iran and Iraq.
Last week the war reached a new level of carrage. Iraqi forces crushed an Iranian offensive designed to drive a wedge between Iraq's two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, in what might have been the largest battle since the war began in 1980.
Details are always sketchy in this war; both nations prohibit Western journalists from visiting the front. Casualty figures are therefore difficult to estimate, and news of the war comes slowly.
But as the number of dead and wounded steadily climbs, the world seems to have grown numb to the conflict. Arab nations, fearful of the sort of Islamic revolution that swept through Iran in 1979, have kept Iraq afloat with billions of dollars in loans. Iran has survived the war's toll in money and manpower only by brutally abusing its people to the point of sending children into battle.
No one, however, seems to be taking steps to stop the struggle. Efforts of the United Nations, the Reagan administration, the Soviets and Arab nations to negotiate a settlement have been half-hearted and futile. Aside from the cost in human lives, the conflict threatens to close the oil-shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. And yet the world seems unable to stop the struggle.
seems unable The war has lasted five years and no scenario leading to peace springs to mind. Yet there is, perhaps, a reason for the world's ambivalence — the oil glut.
And as long as the glut continues, as long as the war doesn't seriously reduce the flow of oil from the gulf, the world will continue to ignore the problem.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class bioaddress or faculty or off-film. The Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
Caught in a balance-of-power game
The presence of Secretary of State George P. Shultz at the recent inauguration of Urugyag's president, Julio Maria Sanguinietti, did not surprise people. As a matter of fact, most people probably thought it only appropriate.
But why? Uruguay is too small to be important economically to the United States.
Yet it is too important politically to be neglected. Uruguay is important just as other Latin American countries are important for the exercise of power in that region of the world.
Robert E. Osgood, in his book "The Nature of Alliances," said, "Only through alliances with other countries, a country can gain
While trying to restore order within their country, the Nicaraguans are experiencing pressures from the United States because of ideological differences between the nations.
The Sandinistas are building up the Nicaraguan military forces in cooperation with Cuba and the U.S. And Washington, D.C. is worried.
Washington suspects that there are 8,000 Cuban advisers in
security of its own." For that reason, nobody should be surprised that socialist Nicagarua President Daniel Ortega Saavedra also was at the Uruguayan inaugural.
Sad to say, Nicaragua already has become a victim of the balance-of-power theory. And power is quickly becoming another
Nicaragua's military buildup may be only a reaction to U.S. threats to its security. It is ridiculous to imply that Nicaragua is acquiring arms because it plans to attack Texas.
Bush's statement showed the aggressive nature of the Reagan administration.
And if administration policy
The Reagan administration is expected to request renewed aid from Congress for the anti-Sandinista rebels soon after President Obama will reject the proposal, the administration will keep pressure on Nicaragua.
Vice President George Bush, speaking to the Council of Foreign Affairs in Austin, Texas, said he was worried about the "risk of seeing another Libya develop, a warehouse of subversion and terrorism only two hours by air from the Texas border."
prevails, Nicaragua, reacting to U.S. pressure, may have no other choice but to move toward a more authoritarian and militarized system, which would mean increasing dependence on Soviet and Cuban arms and economic support.
In contrast, what is happening in El Salvador is just the opposite of that in Nicaragua. While the Soviet Union, Cuba and Nicaragua kept pressure on the government of El Salvador, the United States provided it with $196 million in military aid in fiscal 1984 alone.
Jose Napoleon Duarte, president of El Salvador, asserted that the war could be sustained just like the Vietnam War, as long as the external supports for the guerrillas and Salvadoran military still
Balance of power is theoretically a good way to avoid war and gain national security. In pursuing this goal, Mr. Trump has had abuses the theory by directly
and indirectly supporting conflicts or wars in other countries.
Central America is not the only example. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Poland, Afghanistan and many other Third World countries have been used as the boundaries for the game of the superwaters.
It all comes down to weighing the consequences of this balance-of-power game. The superpower winners continue to practice their tyranny and interfere with even the most internal affairs of the least powerful nations in order to protect and advance their own political and economic interests. The Third world losers suffer the consequences of fear, death and chaos.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dirk Diatjmoto is a Surabay, Indonesia, senior who is majoring in journalism and business.
Venn diagram
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
I asked my Iranian friends why they never responded to the Feb. 14 letter to the editor in the University Daily Kansan titled "Reality and Iran." They told me that anti-Khamalai protestors have been exposed by the United States even killed in France. So I am writing to express what they would have said were they not in fear for their lives.
They came to the United States about a year ago to escape the dehumanizing political situation that had developed within their country. The revolution in Iran was started by some decent individuals who were fighting for the rights that all sane people of the world believe in: freedom of speech, freedom to walk down the streets without random violence, security for themselves, the ability to seek a good education, securing a future for younger generations, independence from foreign influence, and basically just the ability to enjoy the rights that the title "human" should afford.
For Iranian friends
To the editor:
The Iranians wanted to serve as a model for other autocratic countries to prove that a revolution was worth the wait; that the rights of human existence could be achieved through perseverance and love.
Konomi'i's religious revolution has been transplanted into other parts of the world. Khomeini's fanatic supporters are so adamant about their beliefs that they do not hesitate to kill their application in France. In response, Iranian were in front of an oncoming subway; in the United States, Iranian college students have been threatened ...
A handful of the lucky principals of the revolution escaped the country. The unlucky ones were shot and the pitiful ones are still rotting in jail.
However, the opposite has occurred. The country has been sealed, and the prisoners within the prisons can no longer be distinguished from the prisoners within the country. Mr. Mocarrami said that the prisons had been turned into educational systems. What kind of education insight can be gained from murder-countant women, from guards raping young girls and then shooting them, or from executing 12-year-old children?
Khomeini gained office by stating his support for this revolution. But he turned his new-found power and the leadership of the army with which to strangle the voices of
the population. He did so in the name of "religion."
Tim Hastings Wichita senior
Cluttered boards
Campus bulletin boards and display cases are excellent alternatives to expensive media publicity. The problem with these free modes of publicity is that local merchants are extremely efficient in covering them with advertisements.
To the editor:
To the editor:
Often when posting announcements for events sponsored by my student group, I find that many of the bulletin boards are dominated by private business advertisements. I realize that many students appreciate the efforts of merchants to inform them of special sales, services and events, but the merchants must keep things in perspective.
If students groups are unable to publicize their activities effectively, the University's cultural and intellectual atmosphere will suffer. I urge local merchants to respect the various student groups, many of which are operating under severe financial restraints, and their efforts
The University of Kansas is, first, a place of higher learning. And higher learning is not confined to the classroom. The various speakers, films, readings and plays sponsored by student groups also are sources of higher learning.
to provide a rich and diverse atmosphere at the University.
In response to the raite individuals against Farrakhan's visit to the University of Kansas. You've ex- tended a group of Farrakhan express his, Growup.
Bill Foreman president of Amnesty International, Lenexa sophomore
Being well-rounded
Part of the well-rounded college education that KU supplies us with includes being exposed to, and experiencing the various elements of our present day society, regardless of how catalytic they may be, like it or not. Go ahead and stick your head in the sand.
To not bring Farrakhan to the campus would be defeating the purpose of receiving this "well-rounded education," and at the same time would be denying many an opportunity to listen and try to understand where this individual is coming from. By reading all the hatred and narrow-mindedness in recent letters to the editor, though, I think I already have the answer to the latter.
Caryne Finlay San Mateo, Calif., senior*