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Thursday, September 27, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Military cuts welcome
Pentagon uses sound reasoning to reduce troops in friendly countries during buildup in Gulf
In a time of military buildup in the Persian Gulf, the decision to cut back U.S. military operations in other parts of the world makes sense.
On Sept. 18, the Pentagon announced that it would close or reduce operations at 150 military sites in 10 countries, including West Germany, Spain, South Korea, Greece, Italy England, Australia and Japan. In West Germany, 94 military sites will be closed and operations reduced in 14 others.
The United States can no longer justify military bases in friendly regions. The Cold War has thawed to a lukewarm watch. The Berlin Wall has fallen and Germany will be a unified nation on Oct. 3. East Germany abandoned the Warsaw Pact on Monday. The Soviet Union is riddled with inner conflict that has shifted its attention from international aggression. Tuesday, the Department of Defense announced that the Soviet Union cut military spending last year.
The recent reductions prove that the Pentagon is responsive to world events. Now it is up to the United States to complete agreements with the Soviet Union to reduce
conventional troops in Europe. Gen. John Galvin, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, predicted a treaty would be signed by November, making possible the withdrawal of U.S. forces as early as Jan. 1. In January, President Bush, in his State of the Union address, proposed stationing 195,000 U.S. and Soviet troops in central Europe, which is a reduction of about 80,000 for U.S. NATO forces and about 370,000 for the Soviet Union. Both countries should work as quickly as possible to enact further troop reductions.
The Persian crisis has forced the United States to pour money into the military. The U.S. military buildup could cost as much as $15 billion. Troop cutbacks in Europe and in other friendly areas would allow the United States to prioritize the spending of its defense dollars.
The troop reductions that the United States has made and proposed indicate confidence in the stability of the democratization of Eastern Europe. The reductions also indicate sound reasoning when it comes to defense dollars.
Kjerstin Gabrielson for the editorial board
Ethics law reform
Legislature's step doesn't resolve 'ethics crisis'
In response to growing concern about the state's ethics laws, the Kansas Legislature created the Kansas Select Commission on Ethical Conduct. This special committee will make recommendations to the Legislature about how Kansas ethics laws could be improved. But what appears on the surface to be a monumental step toward the resolution of the "ethics crisis" is little more than cursory treatment of an important issue
Ethics laws are enforced by the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission. Although authorized to enforce state ethics laws, the ability of the commission to meet this challenge has been severely limited by the Legislature.
One problem facing the commission is the inability to subpoena documents. Currently, the commission cannot examine documents unless probable cause exists to believe that a crime has been committed. When a suspicious campaign contribution is made, for example, the documents that could prove whether the contribution was within the boundaries of ethical conduct may be inaccessible.
The likelihood of prosecution for a violation of ethics laws is small. The commission conducts an average of one public hearing per year as a result of misconduct.
The power to subpoena would be a mighty weapon in the fight to enforce ethics laws. When suspicious campaign contributions are made, documents could be examined in a confidential setting to determine whether there was a violation. The enforcement process could then proceed through a formal court, a public hearing and, if necessary, prosecution.
Dennis Prater, general counsel to the disclosure commission, estimates that granting the power of subpoena to the commission
would result in a "vast increase in the number of complaints filed." He contends that, after two or three years, the number of complaints would drop significantly.
Another problem faced by the commission is a severe lack of funds and resources. In addition to investigating suspicious conduct, the commission distributes public information, issues opinion on the ethics laws and conducts audits. It may take the complete attention of a full-time staff member to monitor the spending of lobbyists in Topeka, for example. Because of the importance of these additional responsibilities, the commission staff is stretched thin.
"Once you know there's a watchdog watching you, you don't enter the premises," he argues.
The Legislature has increased the workload without expanding the resources provided to the commission. The existing commission staff must enforce a newly enacted local election campaign financing law. Valuable staff time is being set aside to monitor local elections at the expense of other responsibilities.
Legislators must approve these recommendations if they are to become law. Elected officials, however, are directly affected by the enforcement of ethics law. Unfortunately, a failure to enforce the statute will continue to appoint select committees and ignore their recommendations.
If the Legislature is really interested in improving ethics laws and their enforcement, the proper place to begin is in the office of the Public Disclosure Commission. Granting the power of subpoena to the commission and providing it with the staff and resources to adequately perform and perform other responsibilities would be an effective way of tightening the reins.
David Harger for the editorial board
Slip of tongue revealing
Other Voices
If President Bush has any sense at all, veterans affairs secretary Ed Dewskiw will soon join Earl Burt and James Watt in political purge-
During a campaign swing through Nebraska, Derminski referred to "wetbacks" as one way of smugglery drugs into the country. Even the
candidate whom Derwinski was stumping for denounced the comment and said it reflected an unhealthy attitude. Derwinski said that everyone was blowing it out of his mouth because no cabinet members had complained.
use or tolerate a word like "wet-back" and not take offense does not belong in a cabinet post, even one as contrived as secretary of veterans affairs. Someone who oversees the war on terror must be aware Americans just cannot indulge in petty racism and expect to stay in office.
Perhaps no cabinets members took offense at the gaff. If so, that silence says a lot about the insensitivity of Bush's appointees. Anyone who can
From the Daily Texan
Military leaders lacking humor
Last week, the U.S. military collectively sighed and recognized that troops were needed in the Middle East rather than Australia, Japan or eight other stable, and, incidentally, non-oil-producing nations. But this revelation cannot cover up a lack of intuition and humor among our military leaders.
simply put, our military boses' thinking is far too rigid to recognize how to thwart Iraq's takeover of Kuwait.
The recent firing of Air Force Chief of Staff Mike Dugan was presented as a standard response to poor judgment by Dugran. True, he shouldn't have discussed details of plans to attack a million-man armies outside the United States in huddle.
And our psyche of supremacy, already bruised from word of falling SAT scores and an embarrassing energy conservation record, has no room for compromise in the Gulf.
That's enough reason for a pink slip and complimentary Burger King application. But Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and his cohorts' reaction also reeked from embarrassment. They aren't ready to admit that the bombing of Saddam Hussein's living quarters is the most original option they can generate to defeat Iraq.
Meanwhile, a French news magazine reported what almost everyone suspected all along — the Stealth bomber isn't invisible. Instead, conventional radar recognizes the plane from 10 miles away. That's not nearly the 100-mile range of visibility for most other planes, but it's enough to allow time to duck.
Unofficial sources, speaking on condition that they not be given fast-food applications for their remarks, said the radar bip that gave away the Stealth resembled the face of former President Ronald Reagan.
Finally last week, the Department of Defense followed conventional wisdom, sending 7,106 reserve troops to join the more than 14,000 reservists already in Saudi Arabia. This extends an escalation on both sides of the conflict, deployment or whatever one wishes to call the war between Iraq and most of the world of thought that has produced uncountable, tragic bloodfests throughout history.
The quick air strike envisioned by Dugan would kill innocent observers of Saddam's power trip. Lengthy ground assaults carried out in part by reserve soldiers were often carried out machine guns and filled with only 18 years of memories.
But there's an easy way out this time. We can keep our pride and our big cars.
And all that's required is a heaping押 of jungosam, which is available in direct proportion to gasoline price.
Already, our experts have shown a sensitivity toward other cultures. Soldiers were ordered early in August to respect the Sandis' culture. And they have, as much as is possible, while sauntering in the sand with really big guns.
Soldiers have avoided the Islamic taboos like alcohol and pornography, and generally have kept their hands and eyes to themselves. Women soldiers have ignored them as a guide in the thickest of shirts with the longest of sleeves.
That kind of consideration requires careful study and discipline. chest beating is more fun. Let's bomb Iraq again.
An air raid of pornographic magazines and water-filled condoms would serve as our first strike.
At the same time, we would invade Iraqi airwaves,
"The Simpsons," "Magnum, P.I." "60 Minutes" — the offensive potential is endless. Radio, too, would serve as our enforcer.
The verbal and visual deluge would surprise the Iraqis far more than would big bombs. In addition, fewer of the bombs would be dropped from planes.
The constitution of started Iraqi soldiers would melt at our blast-it-all attack. There would be’t much fight left as we were going to see.
Let oy women soldiers clothed in conical, Madonnah-style bulletproof vests, troops would leave the slack-jawed Iraqis choking on sand. No shots would be fired, as the team's helicopter had simply would cuff the Iraqis and free the hostages.
Power would be returned to Kuwait's emir, of course, and the Saudis would be left to treat their women as they were.
Finally, our military and government genius-types would negotiate with Saddam — perhaps in dark alley of Iraq.
After all, jingoism can go only so far.
Rich Cornell is an Olathe senior majoring in journalism.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
I must once again take exception to an instance of the University Daily Kansan's usual inaccuracy and insensitivity to the feelings of the historically disenfranchised. In a Page 8 story in the Sept. 20 Kansan, a staff writer reports that the leader of a Sept. 19 workshop on social sensitivity must break up categories that included bald men." That statement, though probably not quite a bald lie, is simply untrue and, if allowed to stand, perpetuates the dangerous misconception that only sex, high intell
Baldness not exclusive
gent viriles are bald.
It may be true that the persons with whom I assembled happened to consist entirely of those of the male persuasion. Still, I must point out that the group I joined was "bold." That single word, lowercase, contains the entire name of the category as written on his writeup board by the leader of the workshop (perhaps a noun determiner, namely "the" was called for, but none was forthcoming). This is not a small point.
In- not, ex- clusion was the rule of the day. My group would have welcomed the participation of, for instance, an amphibian or a fish (many are bad) but, all in attendance chose to join other groups — smokers, Christians, etc. Bald is broad. Is the conqueror of the turkey in the National Bird competition to be denied his or her rightful place
among the handsome hairless" Has not DDT been enough? And what about other sexual persuasions? I have it on good report that female balds have been seen teaching in the elementary school. Have you wear my windings from Lotto America on the existence of androgynous balds.
Assuming you do not want your daily readers to continue in the ranks of the culturally insensitive, I offer you this correction in the same spirit with which last week I joined the group — with empathy for fellow creatures who, though burdened by a physical deformity I do not myself share, need my understanding and support.
Kellev Hayden
KANSAN STAFF
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By Tom Michaud