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Thursday, November 1, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Too Great a Risk
"Millions of American soldiers, sailors and airmen around the world were put on general precautionary military alert Thursday in an apparent warning to the Soviet Union to keep its out of the Middle East," clicked the Associated Press televet.
Leaning against it was a Jewish professor. He had once lived in Israel. His wife and children still do. He had fought in a past Mideast war. And he is deeply concerned about the present war.
Across the nation, Jews and others are listening for the latest news about the latest war. Most seem to support Israel and to favor U.S. shipments of arms to the enemies of Stroke becoming polarized over the issue, and the polarization defies party and ideological lines.
Some Vietnam hawks have become Mideast doves. Some pacifists now argue for intervention or arms shipments. Occasionally, they maintain their previous positions.
With the announcement of the military alert Thursday, the harsh reality of potential conflict involving the United States became apparent. But is this cause worthy of committing American military supplies and troops? Examine the issues:
Israel is fighting for its survival, or so say the Israelis. They have been the target of numerous incidents of deplorable violence and oppression, hatred and aggression. As apparently didn't start the present war.
The Arabs, however, are fighting to regain territory illegally occupied by Israel in the name of self-defense. The Arabs view Israel as an obstacle to Arab unity. Some Arabs—the Palestinians—are credited with eliminating their homeland which was taken from them 25 years ago.
Neither side is wrong, yet neither is right.
The war appears eminently justifiable. The positions and rights in conflict virtually reject any peaceful solution. And the war—their war—has been raging on and off for a quarter of a century.
Most of the people in the United States look favorably on Israel. In the Israelis they see a progressive
people who have turned unproductive desert land into a highly industrialized nation.
America was built by progress. Its economy depends on it. Its people depend on it.
The Arabs, on the other hand, are a declining society. They, like the American Indians, were forced into land to make way for progress.
The Israelis are a brilliant people. Many of the world's most brilliant people have been Jewish. Perhaps there is some truth to the notion of a superior, "chosen" race. At least some Americans think
The United States also has several million Jewish citizens. Although they don't constitute a large minority, they easily outnumber Americans of Arab background.
America has three reasons for helping Israel, either directly or by arms shipments. First, Americans are prejudiced in favor of the Israeli;s; we like them. Second, there are Jews in the United States to support the Israeli cause. Third, America tries to help all nations in the world when aggression threatens them.
The last reason—the international police force idea—has been dead since the Vietnam War came to an end. The other two remain and they have undoubtedly prompted U.S. involvement to build a military base like Israelis is a flimsy reason for supplying the means to kill Arabs.
Certainly, Israel is being threatened. Facing a Soviet-armed Arab bloc without American arms, Israel could collapse.
So far, the United States government has stood firm and demanded that the Soviets not give unfair advantages to the Arabs. And America has been taken to the brink of war.
Are the Arabs so unlikeable that America should risk war with the Soviet Union in order to aid Israel? Why not push the north into the destruction of America?
These are extreme statements. But the point is clear: American involvement could mean international war and, in a war in which both sides are right, why should America risk war to aid one?
—Eric Meyer
U.S.-Russian Rift Worries Arabs
By JIM HOAGLAND The Washington Post
BEIRUAT—Arab hopes that the United States and the Soviet Union had reached an understanding that would lead to fast and fruitful discussions on the return of Arab land lost to Israel in war were profoundly important. The U.S. has discord between the superpowers this week.
Arab, East Europe and some Western analysts here and in Damascus firmly link the Arab revolution to the frontline stance toward the United States to the military success that Israel achieved in the fighting along the Suez front after the breakdown of the first cease-fire on Monterrey.
Russia saw the assurances it had given Syria and Egypt on the cease-fire crumbling in front of the Israeli encirclement of Egypt's Third Army, according to this view, to move to test U.S. intentions and ability to keep the agreement reached in Moscow.
THE MAIN underpinned for this view is the Egyptian contention that it was the Israelis, who had already gained the upperhand on the west bank of the Suez Canal, who sought to exploit the cease-fire by continuing the fighting.
Despite Israeli denials, Arabs strongly think that this was the case. They repeatedly point to the 1967 Israel successful storming of Syria's Golan Heights in the two days after both countries had formally accepted a cease-fire.
"The Suez fighters prove that Israel didn't change," Abdul Razzak Kaddoura, president of Damascus University, said bitterly last week.
Significantly, some qualified Western analysts here tend to reach the same general conclusion about Russian actions. They shy away from discussing whether the war had been fought in the Israelis did prosecute the war after the cease-fire was due to go into effect.
THEY DO SAY that they are at a loss to
explain logically the sudden about-face in Russian-American relations after what had presupposed as a successful visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Moscow except in terms of a strong Russian reaction to Israeli military moves against Israel, what seemed to be American acquiescence.
The Israelis clearly wanted a wholesale surrender of Egypt's troops on the east, and some of them have been a major tactical and psychological victory for Israel, but it also would have taken away the Egyptian's only military bargaining chip in the negotiations with Egypt.
BREZHNEV, it is argued by Arab analysts with good Russian contacts, could not afford to allow this to happen. Moreover, he apparently thought that American acceptance of the continuing Israeli encirclement violated the unintended intent of the Kissinger on the purposes and form of the cease-fire and subsequent negotiations.
The arrival of United Nations emergency forces in the area last Saturday may lead to the opening of supply routes to the encircled Egyptians and leave them siting on the canal's east bank when negotiations begin from a tactical standpoint. It is in the interest to get the observers in place quickly and to have the cease-fire observed.
THE FIRST big test of the hopes for peace talks will come almost as soon as the U.N. forces are in place. Under the terms of the second cease-fire, the Israelis are obliged to withdraw to the lines they held at the time of the original cease-fire Oct. 22.
"If we cannot get them to withdraw to the Oct. 22 lines, what hope is there of getting them to withdraw to the 1967 lines peacefully?" asked Kaddoura. "We know
" IT'S HEADQUARTERS. THEY SAY WANT —"
once again that the Israelis only mean to cheat us, and that there will be no mess."
His remark, representative of the mood in Damascus at the end of the week, was made during an impromptu discussion between the two leaders leading Syrian academics in Kaddourira.
THESE intellectuals, and Syrian bureaucrats and shoepleers, report that while much of the elation at the limited Arab successes at the beginning of the war is being determined from determination to fight on if the lands are not give up occupied Arab territory persists.
"Each Israeli victory brings more and more Arabs into the struggle," Kaddoura replied quietly, "the Israelis move deeper into the Arab heartland.
How can this be, they were asked, in view of the bloody nose that Arab armies have taken over?
"in 1948, the war was very remote. Few people in Damascus knew what was going on in Palestine. In 1956, it was a little closer and they knew it was very close and they came to Golan.
"NOW THEY bomb the center of Damascus and say they are on the road to Damascus. Now everyone in Damascus is saying that there are the 100 million Arabs get involved."
"Israel overextension," he said in essence, will eventually turn Arab defeat into victory.
Added Husain Khateeb, head of the university's Arabic Studies department:
"This war proves that any serious war will be a factor of unity in the Arab world."
They seem to generally recognize that this does not seem likely to occur. Thus, they are banking now on American-Russian cooperation with the Israelis on significant withdrawal.
Arab leaders are clearly hoping that this sort of reasoning will produce a change in Israeli attitudes about achieving security by continuing to occupy the territories in 1967 and, they now fear, those taken in this war.
Lincoln County: Present and Past
Final of Three Parts
By DAN MORGAN
The Washington Post.
Lincoln County, Ore., on the Pacific Coast, belongs very much to the present. In 1955, a friend and I used to drive down there on weekends, after our work in a cannery in Salem. We would travel down through dark forests, past remote logging camps, and finally come to the windy, raw Pacific coast where we parked at stations and a restaurant or two doing a desultory business. It was the kind of place where you might go to avoid hassles.
Since then the county has exploded with population growth. The Chamber of Commerce now boasts of "20 Miracle Hotels" and condominiums, motels and trail courts.
The influx of people has put a heavy burden on community facilities. Some communities
It was a bad night for poker. Everyone involved was short of cash, hung over and nervous about half-remembered remarks made at the party the previous night. But poker is a game that attracts its fans under the most adverse of circumstances.
Ed arrived first. He's a stringy, nervous type who chain-smokes, chain-drinks and bites his fingers. But the hale fellow who makes friends easily and will sell his wedding ring if he needs money to stay in the game. Andy the amateur's friend, Joe dragging a few bit players with him.
Third Down and Time to Punt
The game spun out easily for the first two hours. Ed smoked 15 cigarettes, Joe ate almost an entire bag of taco-flavored Dortitos, Andy won $15 on a succession of two-pair hands and the bit players looked pained.
Chuck Potter
Everyone had agreed to end the game at a.m. by 12:30. Andy was ahead about $25, Joe was even, the bit players were wonderful what to tell their wives and Ed was
far, far behind. He had been betting desperately for the last hour or so, hoping for the mystical big pot that would make everything all right.
Ed grumply announced that he wanted to play no-limit poker for the last half hour. The others agreed. Ed decided to deal straight 7-card stud.
The bit players dropped after looking at the three hole cards. Bet ed $1 on his open account.
showing, Joe had folded and Andy showed three skirts and a nine. The three down skirts were all the same.
By the time each player had his seven cards, Had had three Aces and a three
enticed mobile homeowners with offers or reduced sewage and water hookups in order to provide more customers for new businesses and stores. But in some spots widened.
E promptly set $. And called and raised him $$. E then bet $en $. And looked answer.
"Think he's bluffing" Andy asked rhetorically. Ed grinned.
LINCOLN COUNTY IS only a small symbol of a changing American landscape. The trailers, recreational vehicles and homes were present a few years ago, but not in the park. Americans live in "mobile homes." The trailers, the interiors, the Ramada Inns and the other service industry accommodations of a migration that worries many people.
Ed grinned and again took a too-careful sip of his beer. He looked very nervous. His smile hung in the air like a robin with a sprained wing.
Just like Nixon," Andy said. "Punting on third down every time and taking your lumps for it. Well, he's had it, and so have you."
"You've been bluffing all night," Andy said. "And I've been getting you every time. You gotta be bluffed." Ed lit another cigarette.
"Just like Nixon," Andy repeated. He looked down at his three hole cards. They were a four, a five and another Jack. It could be said.
"We know what the Soviets feel about those Chinese hordes," said an Oregonian. "That's just the way we feel about California."
The growth—more people, more technology—lends America its special air of madness. The growth seems disorderly and unplanned. Caught on the San Diego freeway in Los Angeles at the rush hour, one woman scrawls across the road runs out. Distances in the sprawling L.A. suburbs are so vast that it costs 40 cents to call downroom from some of them. Yet you seldom see a bus in the midst of the traffic. L.A. strikes a visitor as surprisingly combative, sunny—and omnious. It gives us a glimpse that city is living as if there is no tomorrow.
In the summer, kids still work in the Salem cannery, where he had worked, where the cooking beans smell the same as they did 18 years ago. I asked to speak to one of the youths when I went back there in 2006, who would be me, I thought, only 18 years later.
I TALKED WITH David Allen, a solemn 19-year Mormon, the son of an electrical contractor and a freshman at Utah State University. We drank coffee in the same cafeteria where I had taken coffee breaks 18 years before and mapped strategy for dating a high school girl employed at the canny.
gets to the point where they don't have to answer anybody, it's about like a dictatorship. This system has never been fair, it isn't fair now, and it will never be fair. All you can do is try to make a deal and hope it turns out."
The Communist threat that provided the political ideology for my generation seems
David, it was quickly apparent, is full of bitterness about this country.
"It's propaganda. People have been brought up to be scared of the world. I don't know if we're much better than the Communists. I don't see any need for the military, if we have enough stuff to blow up the world."
David talked of entering the Peace Corps or becoming a VISTA volunteer or doing anything else.
You almost have to be a crook to go into politics," he said in a low voice. "When it
In any generation, he would be in a small minority, but in 1973 he seems an idealist in an age when idealism is out of style, and he seems to know it.
AFTER TWO MONTHS back in this enormous, wasteful, rich, disorderly, self-centered giant of a country, I can't quite agree with the views of David Allen. Others aren't half so pessimistic about America as Americans are themselves. Compared with Europe, the country does seem raw and unfinished. Its social programs lag wooily across the Europeans, East and West, are ahead in education, participation in management and humanization of factory working conditions.
But the country does seem capable of rational change. It is changing, in many ways, that growth seems to a homecomer to be the most significant and profound change—far more significant in its ideological implications than in the political movements of the 1960s.
Of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same. A homeowner sees all kinds of things that seem unfamiliar: the bicycles, the motorcycle parors, the vending machines, the bookstores, the oil companies asking motorists to drive slowly and use less gas.
Yet there is a bit of sleight of hand, a bit of alchemy, in all this. What is advertised as change and novelty sometimes turns out to be a marketing tactic, and it can be up in new costumes. Europeans often are amused by American objections. They say, for instance, that the "Sexual Revolution" of the last decade merely brought America more affluent. We have seen that we have been standard in Europe for years.
automated my old cannery job out of existence. A machine called a "depalletizer" now dumps the empty cans on the conveyor belt.
But my old landlady remembered me. He gossiped one August day about who had been divorced, who had been married, who had died and who had gone to jail.
In the evening, I wandered down to the state fair. It was a warm summer night. A rock band played and a crowd gathered round. Some high school kids were in the audience. Couples came gigging and clutching out of the "House of Fun," catching a blast of air from the floor that made their hair seem to stand on end. The National Guard recruiting man was in business, and a young boy fourth class smiled in wonderment.
THERE HAVE BEEN changes in Salem since I worked there in 1955. A traffic officer who lives in the real urban rush hour. The city has grown in population from 49,000 to 69,000. They've
Readers Respond...
Student Support Urged for Gym Expansion
"Two years ago we would have had demonstrators," he said.
B
Senior Class President
An old-fashioned barker poured forth a polished sales spiel and sold housewives kitchen knives they didn't need. And open cabinets then an award in the fruit preserves contest.
(The writer returned to the United States in July after $6\frac{1}{2}$ years as the Washington Post's Central European correspondent. He has since traveled across the country, stopping in many places where he had stayed on a similar trip 18 years ago.)
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show your concern. The Board of Class Officers ask you to support your university.
Thank you for your concern.
a long range solution. It is imperative that other students, faculty and administrators express their interests as was done by Showalter.
Letters Policy
I am writing in response to a letter appearing last week that dealt with inadequate sauna facilities at Robinson Gymnasium. I will try to explain what the problem is and do about it. More importantly, I will ensure that others can help us correct the situation.
It c said y
The Daily Kanan welcomes letters to the school that are double-spaced and no longer than 100 words. All subjects are subject to evaluation and the editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students should have their names and position(s) faculty may provide their name and position; others may provide their name and position.
To the Editor:
"I work will they They' to ma their
Mert Buckley Student Body President
The Beesco
Gant,
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The recreational facilities at the University are terribly inadequate. When Robinson Gym was built, plans for Phase II of Robinson were also made. Phase II is to be an almost duplicate to the present project. Robinson Gym will have done to urge completion of Phase II. The problem is complex, but I will try to give a brief explanation.
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working its way up the list. It could possibly be in the University's request to the Regents this June. However, it needs support from the study body. Evidence must be shown of the need for consultation. This is why I was so pleased to see the letter last week from Linda Showalter.
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The University requests funding for buildings from the State Legislature through the Board of Regents. In doing so, we secure well over 80,000 square building. In the past few years these priorities have been Wesco Hall, the new Learning Center and an expansion of Learned Hall, and a new vision center.
News adviser . . . Susanne Shaw
Editor ... Bob Simison
Th
up
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for s
I have discussed this problem several times with representatives from the department of physical education. Wayne Oness, chairman of the department, has recently appointed a committee to study the needs of students in special facilities. With the aid of student members, the committee will research and document the desire for additional facilities. They will then produce their results to the proper University authorities. This process is slow, but it will be done in order to sell Phase II or III units to the Regents and the State Legislature.
PHASE II FOR ROBINSON is slowly
BUSINESS STAFF
In short, have no answer to the immediate problems raised. However, more people must become aware of these problems facing Robinson and work to find
To KU Students:
Business Advisor .. Mel Adams
Business Manager .. Steven Liggett
Member Associated Collegiate Press
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Funding Support
Does it concern you that KU is in the top 10 per cent academically among the major colleges and universities, but has been held to the bottom 20 per cent in funding? Or, does it concern you that if the Regents' center has a cent salary increase for faculty is denied, many of our excellent teachers will seek other jobs? Yes, it does concern you.
You have your chance for effective input into KU's economic crises—if you attend the workshop.
Griff and the Unicorn
by Sokoloff
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