OPINION
September 26,1983 Page4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Day Kannon (USP$ 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Fint Hall, Lavering Kannon, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions. Subscriptions to mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 for a year. Student subscriptions are $3 a semester pass through the student activity file: POSTMATER. Send address changes to Kannon, 118 Staffer Fint Hall, Lavering Kannon, USP$ 650-640.
MARK ZIEMAN
Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM STEVE CUSICK
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
MICHAEL ROBINSON
Campus Editor
PAUL JESS
General Manager and News Adviser
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
DAVE WANAMAKER
Retail Sales Manager
MARK MEARS
National Sales Manager
LYNNE STARK
Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN
Advertising Adviser
Much work left
The world would be a better place if the world didn't need Amnesty International.
Sadly, the world shows few signs of being a better place anytime soon, at least as far as Amnesty International's cause is concerned.
The international organization of volunteers works for the release of political prisoners who have not advocated violence. The group also seeks an end to torture and executions throughout the world.
But the results, despite the worthy aim, have not always been successful, according to the executive director of Amnesty International USA, John Healey, who spoke Friday at the University of Kansas.
His prognosis for change was far from cheery. Even today, he said, Chile, South Africa and Syria torture their prisoners. The Soviet Union and China also are cracking down with ever-increasing ferocity on political prisoners, he said.
Amnesty International so far has been able to deflect most charges of political favoritism. The most vocif-
erous opposition to the group naturally comes from the same countries that Amnesty International criticizes.
The group's most recent report documented torture in 60 nations around the world, Healey said.
Sixty nations. Sixty countries where the circumstances of prisoners and dissidents have drawn the attention of Amnesty International.
And that's only what Amnesty International sees. Imagine what goes on behind prison walls and inside countries where the government undergoes little scrutiny.
Amnesty International has enjoyed a reputation of being a reliable and nonpolitical organization. As such, the group has been successful in getting 1,000 prisoners released each year through letter-writing campaigns to governmental authorities. Healey said.
But the group has much work left to do, he said. In 1983 one would hope that such groups as Amnesty International would not be needed.
Instead, one weeps, because the need appears to be as great as ever.
U.N.-U.S. relationship
Is the United Nations good for the United States, and is the United States good for the United Nations?
These two questions became prominent last week, and have long deserved the attention they may finally be receiving. A decision on them, however, should not be made amid the furor of the Soviets' downing of a Korean airliner.
The questions arose after remarks were exchanged between Soviet bloc representatives and Charles Liechtenstein, U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations.
The Soviet bloc spokesmen criticized the United States for blocking the air passage of Soviet diplomats to the U.N. General Assembly; Lichenstein said the United States would not impede efforts to move the United Nations out of this country. Only a few days later, the U.S. Senate voted to reduce U.S. payments to the international organization.
Certainly the United States has a right to control its payments to the
United Nations; likewise, the U.N. members certainly have a right to move U.N. headquarters to another country.
Yet, before further action is taken by either side, some consideration should be given to the U.N.-U.S. relationship.
The United Nations serves as a mirror to the United States of the rest of the world. Countries ranging from democracies to dictatorships, from wealth to poverty, are represented in the General Assembly. The United Nations is often an irritating reminder of reality.
Moreover, New York City, the first and only site of the United Nations, is one of the key cities in the world in such areas as commerce and communications.
The U.N.-U.S. relationship has been questioned for years, and one event, no matter how terrible the airliner attack may be, shouldn't be the basis for a decision that would have such long-term ramifications.
Misplaced priorities
Kyle Burns of Justin, Texas, is a big kid for 13. Nearly 6 feet tall and weighing more than 160 pounds, he towers above his 7th grade classmates. Next year, Kyle is going to take 7th grade all over again. It should be a breeze . . . nothing but A's on his report card.
Why, then, is he being held back? Because Dad figures that by holding him back a year the boy will gain the size, weight and maturity to make him a super high school football star who will win a scholarship to play at Texas A&M. After that, maybe the pros.
Kyle is not unique. In fact, so many Texans — like parents in other football-happy states — have held their children back a grade in high school that the state's athletic authority has forbidden the practice in grades 8 through 12. Thus Kyle has to repeat 7th grade or none at all.
If young Burns continues to earn all A's through high school, he could win another kind of scholarship, too, an academic scholarship. But priorities are priorities. And in Texas, football is the easy winner.
—St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press
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Reagan gets support for defense increases
Paranoia
WASHINGTON — President Reagan is now finding smoother sailing for his buildup in defense and has made it high on the international front.
New cold war tensions with the Soviet Union resulting from the shooting down of a passenger plane have given the president a new impetus to push for the MX missile — 21 of them for $5 billion — and a modernized arsenal, which would include nerve gas.
Escalating military involvement of U.S. forces in Lebanon is another cause for Congress to acquiesce to Department of Defense requests. And while the Soviets and the Lebanese civil wars are on the front burner, a Pentagon official speaks of the need for a military victory in Central America.
With a backdrop of danger and threatening situations around the
HELEN THOMAS United Press International
HELEN THOMAS
world, Reagan is managing to win support for his military shopping list. The House, bowing to pressures of the new crises, pushed the $187 billion authorization bill for the Defense Department.
equipment and weapons that won't work.
Reagan used the brutal airliner attack and the tragedy that had befallen the victims to make a special appeal for passage of the MX, a super rocket that opponents say is designed as a first-strike weapon. But it is one of the most powerful foresee as a bargaining chip in nuclear arms reduction talks with the Soviets.
In his speech at a fund-raiser for Sen. Strom Thurmond last week, Reagan said, "the debate on defense is about protecting lives and preserving freedom, because they're the source of all our other blessings. . . . it is immoral to ask the sons and daughters of America to protect this land with second-rate
"The savage Soviet attack against the unarmed Korean airliner reminds us: We live in a dangerous world with cruel people who reject our ideals. We can only keep our families safe, and our country free and at peace, when the enemies of democracy know America has the courage to stay strong."
Reagan said that as a result of the military buildup, there was "a new sense of purpose and a transition to America's foreign policy."
In the past year, Reagan has sent two battleship groups to Central America and called for participation in joint military exercises with Honduras involving some 5,000 American soldiers. The United States also is sending troops whose leaders hope to overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
He dispatched a 2,000-man amphibious force from the coast of Africa to the Eastern Mediterranean to be on hand to back up the Marines. And U.S. advisers shoted off equipped with the Lebanese army
He has given the 1,200-member Marine contingent in the peace-keeping force in Lebanon an expanded role, not only to protect itself but all Americans and allied troops. In addition, he has sent the USS Eisenhower to the coast of Lebanon.
In addition, the United States is bolstering its military profile in the Persian Gulf.
America's show of force around the world is designed to assure that friendly governments do not fall. In that respect it has thrown down the gauntlet to the Soviets on a global scale.
The moves on the chess board are all designed to enhance the administration's foreign policy goals. But for all the display of might, peace seems more elusive in the world.
Race for superiority fueled by false data
The race between the United States and the Soviet Union toward military superiority is always on.
The Reagan administration has repeatedly said that the Soviets were aiming for military intervention. The Soviets have denied such a claim.
According to Ruth Leger Sivard in the 1982 edition of World Military and Social Expenditures, the U.S. military budget in 1982 was $122.3 billion but that of Soviet Union was $114 billion
Thus, President Reagan's excuse to increase military spending to bridge the gap between the civilian and military budgets is unacceptable.
Whether Washington actually increases its defense budget or
KALPANA TRIVADI
Staff Columnist
not, the situation today is absolutely clear. It is a case of action and reaction.
As each nation warily regards the excessive arms spending, the politicians are forced to act on them to be false or true information.
Although Reagan voices alarm over Soviet military strength, there are also certain innate weaknesses within the Soviet army. The Soviet economy has grown at a rate much faster than spending. Moscow spends more than 10 percent of its gross national product on defense.
Also, Soviet technology has not been perfected as in the West, according to experts. The Soviets also have the disadvantage of not
having easy access to the oceans as the United States does.
Moreover, at least 5 percent of the Soviet army is held up in the unsuccessful Afghanistan war, and nearly one-fourth of its air transport is being used to supply the Soviet army in Afghanistan, according to Soviet press reports. Another serious flaw in the Soviet military system is the policy of central control, which is unlike the decentralized control in the West where the unit commanders can decide for themselves.
Although the Soviet Union plans to build a heavy carrier with cruisers, destroyers and frigates, the United States will because it has 14 such carriers and years of experience using them.
And the declining birthrate in the Soviet Union means a lack of manpower in the future. By 1990, according to Soviet census officials, there will be a 20 percent drop in the number of 18-year-olds, not enough to cover military needs.
Soviet Asians barely speak Russian, are said to make poor soldiers and get minimum technical training.
A large number of soldiers also try to desert the army, and the country has to make do with unsatisfactory soldiers. It is better for the country that it has divisions to keep soldiers from defecting from home soil.
The recent Soviet shooting of a Korean civilian plane could propel both superpowers to increase their military spending. The Soviet Union's mannecue is that the Korean plane was intended for S. spy plane and that it violated its airspace regulations. The Pentagon has now found a ready ruse to hike up its budget.
There seems to be no end to this game. It is part of the action-reaction process.
U.S. help is needed in Lebanon
WASHINGTON — Until now, the Marines in Lebanon have been primarily a peacekeeping force. They have had an uphill mission, to say the least, but it is the United States took on an even harder assignment — the shoring up of the government of Lebanon.
The United States must help the Lebanese government by backing up its efforts to take control of the Mountains southeast of Beirut.
Time is running out. Syria continues to build up Lebanese groups opposed to the authorities in Beirut particularly the Drusse forces led by Mr. Abbas, progressively weakening the contingent of the Lebanese government.
The great risk is that President Amin Geminal's cabinet will panic and abandon hope of national reconciliation and accept a return to sectarian warfare. In the face of this challenge, the military must use its political influence to military leverage to press the fighting parties toward a settlement.
Two possible dangers face American policymakers - a military
BARRY RUBIN
Senior Fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies
confrontation with Syria and a collapse of the Lebanese army, which is thought to be so weak that the government is hesitant to give it anything but a defensive mission. It seems we want to avoid battle with the United States and, with a little restraint, we can prevent an escalating crisis.
1983 MIAMI NEW YORK
As for the Lebanese army, despite continuing weakness, it has performed better than expected. The main threat, then, is not of the collapse but of a failure of nerve in the Lebanese high command.
In dealing with this delicate situation, the United States should consider these steps:
*The State Department should downgrade efforts to woo Syria out of Lebanon. American attempts to encourage or buy Syrian withdrawal are doomed to failure because Washington can offer nothing that Damascus wants. Nor is there any
prospect of either Arab or Soviet pressure to induce President Hafez al-Assad of Syria to pull back.
The United States is guilty of scandalous appeasement if, as reported, it has encouraged Lebanon to shelve its security agreement with Israel to bring about a Syrian withdrawal. Holding off on the agreement is not likely to bring about Syrian concessions.
Besides, Washington must not broker agreements only to encourage one side to break them. As a Soviet ally and the main obstacle to ending the Lebanese civil war, Syria is hardly a potential American friend. And the Lebanese government will need a gradual Israeli pullback so that it can begin to put its nation back together.
- The United States should encourage Israel to support a return of Lebanese authority in the Shouf. It is hardy in Israel's interest to see
- Anti-government forces in the Shouf must be faced with the prospect of military defeat. Until now, the United States has hoped that Gemayel could make a political deal with Jumblatt, but instead the Druse are now shooting at Marines and threatening Beirut from the east. Jumblatt is not fighting for internal reform but rather, as a Syrian instrument, to block reconstruction of the country. He must understand that if he fails to make a deal, Washington will support the
the Palestine Liberation Organization return to the mountains. And if Jerusalem warns the Drusse forces that Israel will no longer protect their southern flank, Jamblatt might not be so eager to harass the government in Beirut. Washington should encourage Israel to pull back to the international border — at least in the coastal region — in a year or so.
Lebanese army with air and naval fire.
- The Gemayel government must be urged to seek reconciliation with Shite Moslems, the largest single group in Lebanon. In contrast to Jumblatt, the Shites and their organization, Al Amal, are seeking political reform in Lebanon. They want more control over reconstruction money, an end to government displacement of Shite refugees in Beirut and a bigger share of political power. Gemayel should not hesitate to recruit them — with their sizable representation among the army's enlisted men — in his struggle for national unity.
There is no easy way for the United States to deal with the bloody mess in Lebanon, but only firm steps can stem the worsening crisis. Vacillation will only make matters worse.
Copyright 1983 the New York Times
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