OPINION
KANSAN
October 27,1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
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U.S. intervention
Some may disagree that Reagan's motives are so pure, though especially when he has involved American soldiers in yet another civil war that has already resulted in the deaths of more U.S. soldiers.
In the largest U.S. military operation since the Vietnam War, 1,900 American troops invaded Tuesday the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada. President Reagan said his reasons for approving the invasion were simple — to protect the 1,000 American citizens who attend St. George's University Medical School on the island and to help establish a democratic government in the Marxist country.
Reagan had other considerations for sending in the troops. Much of the United States' oil imports must travel near Grenada, which is 70 miles north of Venezuela. Reagan also sees the 10,000-foot airstrip being built by the Cubans as an easy entryway for Soviet arms into war-torn Central America.
State Department officials admitted that Reagan had not needed much prompting to approve the invasion. Even the medical school officials had asked him not send troops to Grenada, saying that the country's new leader was keeping his promise to protect the American students.
And after the deaths of the Marines in Beirut, Reagan may have wanted an easy invasion under his belt to show the world that the United States is still a world power.
The invasion will come to haunt us as we continue negotiations with the Soviets over arms deployment and as Reagan strives to prove that he is a world leader who can be trusted to choose his words — and actions — wisely.
Under the Reagan administration, the United States has continued to be the policeman of the world. Expansion of U.S. influence in areas such as Central America and now, Grenada, is not only uncalled-for interference in the political affairs of other countries, but dangerously imperialistic as well.
Rights commission
From the reactions of some congressmen Tuesday, one might think that President Reagan had just declared himself czar. Actually, he only fired three members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, thereby opening seats for his own nominees to the commission. Now Congress just might take long-delicated action on the commission.
Congress and the Reagan administration have been working on a compromise that would create terms for commission members,
Reagan's formal firing of the three commission members who had been appointed by previous presidents was described by a White House spokesman as a use of the president's "constitutional power of appointment." The commission, a watchdog group, is designed by law to serve "at the pleasure of the president." The three members had strongly criticized Reagan's stands on civil rights issues.
and would let the president appoint some new members while old ones would stay on. But the compromise has been bogged down by fights over the nature of the commission: Is the commission to be mostly "independent" or mostly political?
The problem here is not Reagan, who is following the law in a literal sense. Nor is it the commission, whose traditional positions on civil rights issues conflict with the positions of Reagan. The problem is Congress, which has avoided action on the commission.
Some congressmen, in addition to attacking Reagan for the firings, have said they would try to give Congress the power of appointment to the commission. A change in appointment power would not settle disputes over civil rights policies, but it might let the commission, Reagan and the Congress get back to work on trying to resolve their disputes.
King deserves honor
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lots of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."
Robert F. Kennedy's ringing words could have been inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.
Heroes and heroines are honored and even revered for their achievements; the nation does not demand perfection.
Now, on the third Monday of every January, the nation will honor the man who was more tidal wave than ripple as he struggled to sweep America out of the mindless pit of prejudice.
If history finally reveals that King
New ripples of hope came from the House of Representatives and the Senate when they voted to honor Martin Luther King. Persons of good will are sure to find that an occasion for joy.
had warts like everyone else, the nation will endure. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and kept slaves.
-St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press
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LETTERS POLICY
Society makes raising kids hard
Do Americans hate children? Letty Cottin Pogpin asks this difficult question in her article on American society's almost schizophrenic love/hate relationship with children.
Pogrebin, who has been writing for a number of years about children, makes a case that American society is becoming less lenient with child abuse. Those who are independent and perhaps too precious for adults.
"It strikes that chord because, contrary to the belief that we are collectively a child loving people, America is a nation fundamentally ambivalent about its children, and cannot transcend its children," she wrote in her copyright article in the November issue of Ms. magazine.
In a society that preaches self-reliance ad nauseum, children have come to represent an impediment to having an independent lifestyle, free from the disruptive worries that children bring to their parents' lives.
undisciplined beings who must be protected and taught their place in society's order. And if it takes force them, well, then what that it takes
But for some adults, children are also an affront to authority, wild and
KATE
DUFFY
Staff Columnist
threat of nuclear war staring us down, harsh economic conditions forcing millions out of jobs, and the advent of new technology leaving us often breathless and perplexed, many Americans cannot bear the thought of losing control over their children as well.
congressional debate over making public agencies that dispense birth control devices inform parents of underage girls who receive such treatment even though more than half the clinicians already tell their parents.
Even more graphic examples, though, are a push by some parents to restore corporal punishment in schools and to keep sex education high. Rightly rightfully large number of teen-age girls are having babies these days.
mournably, the Reagan administration, with its drive to sanctify the family, has not done much to help families. His budget cuts have hurt them more than he can alike. But the people who suffer the most from the cuts are children.
One in five children is poor; one in two black children. Since President Reagan has been in office, 3 million children and $1.46 billion have been cut from nutrition programs, even though studies have shown that higher-income manhattans can affect people's behavior through their adult years.
In another show of callousness,
the United States was the only country that refused to sign the United Nations code controlling the worldwide sale of infant formula Babies from poor families in other countries who were fed the formula were dying from malnutrition because their mothers had to overdilute the formula to make it go further.
Neither the government nor the business world has shown much concern for what children do while their parents are at work. For the most part, businesses still do not sponsor day-care programs for children. The government must search for dependable – and affordable – day care on their own.
With more women in the job market, reliable day care is necessary to ensure parents' peace of mind about leaving their children. Without knowing that their child is working at work. And business should know by now, that worried parents do not make good employees.
it's not easy bringing up children.
But it should not have to be as difficult as our society makes it.
Coup created excuse for invading Grenada
Grenada's military coup, which left Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and 16 others dead, gave the Reagan administration the opportunity to quickly eliminate a growing source of concern to Washington and its Caribbean allies.
"Grenada was an aberration," said Dominica's Prime Minister Mary Eugenia Charles, adding: "We had invasion We are one region."
A force of 1,900 U.S. troops led 300 soldiers and police from six
DJGBY SOLOMON
Grenada was apparently without a leader, its people forced to stay indoors in an all-day curfew and under military control. The Military Council, which gave soldiers orders to shoot violators on sight.
United Press International
- National divisions are blurred by family ties and friendships in the eastern Caribbean, whose tiny island nations share a common currency and regional organizations.
- Caribbean nations in an invasion of Grenada that President Reagan said was designed to restore the country to its former status. Marxist-rued Caribbean island.
- The island governments were given a democratic veneer by British colonialists and were shocked by Grenada's recent independence. It disaffected thought only happened in Latin American nations.
Heads of government of the 13 nation Caribbean Community of former British colonies, of which Grenada is a member, had three basic reasons to intervene in Grenada:
- *Caribbean leaders knew that Grenada and its Cuban allies maintained close contact with other Caribbean leftists and that, as Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga said, "what happened in Grenada could happen right here in Jamaica."*
Seaga severed relations with Cuba in 1981 and forced out of Jamaica dozens of Cuban diplomatic personnel who he charged with the attacking or opposing to members of the opposing People's National Party.
In St. Lucia, Prime Minister John Compton seized the passports of 18 members of the leftist People's Progressive party who reportedly tried to go to Libya the summer for terrorist training.
Charles, who announced the joint U.S.-Caribbean invasion at a White House news conference alongside Reagan, had to disband her nation's military after it attempted to overthrow her in 1981.
Opposition leader Michael Manley is a close friend of Cuban President Fidel Castro and fostered a build-up of Cuban technicians and doctors during his eight-year reign in Jamaica.
When the uneducated officers of the island's Cuban-trained army killed Bishop — whom they saw as too moderate — in an attack that left 16 others dead, the time was ripe for action.
"This brutality is something unknown to the region and we will not tolerate it," Compton said.
Although many Caribbean leaders were upset with Bishop — who called Charles "an old hen" and referred to Reagan as "a Hollywood man" — his appearance of British institutions in his country
Time for rebuilding Interior Department
WASHINGTON — It is hard to guess what led President Reagan to choose his national security adviser, William P. Clark, to replace James Watt as Secretary of the Interior. Still, now that the choice is made, Clark, and the environmental community — must begin to think how to repair the damage done during Watt's three-year tenure.
Washington is a town where people like to throw rocks at each other — they like both the sport and the notoriety. Watt loved to throw rocks, and his garden thrived around all those hurried back at him. Even when he was on his way out, some of them hurried back at him, some to stick around presumably because he is someone to thrown rocks at.
But the time for rock-throwing is over. We must think now about
ARTHUR PURCELL
Director of the Resource Policy
Institute
rebuilding the Interior Department Watt's departure means the administration and the nation have a chance to bring calm and coherence back into the political agency. These five steps would be a good beginning:
- We must revive and upgrade conservation-related research and development. Such research was surely neglected under Watt. The Bureau of Mines and the Office of Surface Mining were particularly hard hit.
- Clark should seek to coordinate the Interior Department with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies. Under Watt, Interior was an island — to some, a utopian experiment in free market approaches to the management of natural resources, to others, a den of environmental iniquity. Yet the department's mandate includes development and conservation of energy sources, environmental protection and, through its research in precious metals and other critical materials, even defense — all functions shared by other agencies and departments.
- The federal government must increase its commitment to wilderness and recreation areas. The population is growing and so are its needs for calm, clean and uncluttered natural sanctuaries. Pressures for commercial and residential development in the Sun Belt and the West have put these parts of the country in particular need of expanded park and wilderness lands. Neither the new secretary nor the nation can afford to give up such opportunities.
- The government must stringently review and reshape its coal and mineral leasing policies. Watt's approach to this issue was, at best, counterproductive. He stirred enormous controversy by pushing the development of coal, a low growth, nonrenewable resource. And to do so, he leased federal lands to mining companies at ridiculously low prices — land that will be hard to reclaim for recreational purposes.
- The Interior Department should initiate substantive and regular communication with citizens and organizations that have an interest in its activities. Watt not only failed to talk to the environmental community, he prided himself on obstructing and insulting it.
Interior will need all the outside help it can get in the months ahead. Effective communication with concerned citizens and environmentalists is essential. It is time for the reconciliation of the Department of Interior and the people of the United States.
Copyright 1983 the New York Times. The Resource Policy Institute does research on environmental and energy issues.
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