4A the university daily kansan
opinion
tuesday, april 20, 2004
PERSPECTIVE
EDITORIAL BOARD
Iraqi road marked by danger
Editor's note: Marla Keown is corresponding from a base outside of Kuwait City. She lives in "Truckville," the nickname for her part of the camp because all soldiers in her unit are truck drivers. Keown drives a five-ton
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Marla Keown opinion@kansan.com
truck for the U.S. Army and frequently drives missions into Iraq. Keown and her unit work nine to 14-day missions into Iraq delivering and picking up supplies and equipment. The unit returns to Kuwait for one day then goes out on another mission.
Imagine this, if you can. You are driving down I-70 from Lawrence to Manhattan. Now picture I-70 made of nothing but the rockiest gravel you have ever traveled on. Take that road and multiply it by 27. Add some potholes the size of a European Smart Car. Scatter the potholes every four feet on each side of the road. Now try to imagine the whitest blizzard you have ever seen and mix it with a dense fog at least seven feet deep.
Got a good picture in your head? If so, you might have an idea of what it's like to drive down one of the main roads in Iraq.
drive down on the road.
On March 3, I woke up at 1 a.m. because an officer was telling me that I was going on a nine-day mission in approximately five and a half hours. Where? He did not know. With who? Also no clue. So I set my alarm for 3 a.m. and tried to go back to sleep before I had to get up and pack. This of course didn't happen. I couldn't fall asleep, and instead, I stayed up worrying about the "what ifs" of the mission to come.
It's now March 7, and some of the "what ifs" have turned into realities.
What we have trained them Random sergeants from our platoon were paired up with truck drivers from the company we were replacing. In a sense, we were interns training for the missions we would be doing for the following year. During the internship, I learned a few tricks of the trade and had plenty of twisted tummies.
Remember the "imagine this" game from earlier? That main road was the beginning of my many knotted stomachs. In certain spots, you could ignore the plethora of potholes but to every sweet there is a sour. Off the side of the "road" are smooth paths of sand. But under this sand, instead of potholes, are randomly placed rebars. These steel rods act as spikes like the ones thrown out by cops in the video game Grand Theft Auto. If you hit the jabbing rebar, you're guaranteed to have a few flat tires.
tires.
Along this mess called a road, little children from age two to 16 greet you as you drive by. Some rub their bellies and ask for food thrown from military vehicles. Some dance, jump and wave with smiles on their faces. Others flip you off or merely stand and stare. All of these children are Iraq's version of I-70 green mile markers but with personality.
Even with the road blocks, I would choose this road over other main supply routes if it meant we could be worry free of artillery fire, improvised explosive devices, small-arms fire or rocket propelled grenades. Our mission was lucky enough to only encounter small arms fire and a few bullet holes in some of our trailers. Another mission with other soldiers from my company weren't as lucky. They encountered an improvised explosive device while waiting for a team to clear another explosive up the road. With lots of luck and love on their side, only one soldier was hurt from a shrapnel wound in the arm.
With my first mission completed safely, I can only hope the same luck and love will follow me through the next year's missions.
Specialist Marta Keown is a Topeka junior. She is stationed in Kuwait.
Commission needs to reevaluate act
Tonight the Lawrence City Commission can make Kansas history.
The commission will hear a suggested resolution from the Lawrence Bill of Rights Defense Committee. The resolution lists sections of the USA PATRIOT Act that should be repealed. The act makes it easier for federal agents to investigate possible terrorist threats. This includes access to library records.
The resolution also asks that the Lawrence Public Library post signs notifying patrons that checkout records can be requested by federal agents.
OURVIEW
The commission needs to consider revoking portions of the USA PATRIOT Act.
If passed, Lawrence would become the first city in Kansas to pass such a resolution. Santa Cruz, Calif., posted warning signs in its libraries in May 2003. The library in Paterson, N.J., has shredded user records, including computer sign-up sheets since May 2003. The Lawrence library already destroys its checkout records after the material is
returned and any fines are paid
Commissioners have said that they were interested in this type of resolution since June 2003. Unfortunately, the commission has refused to adopt a resolution that asks city employees to violate federal law. This refusal steals much of the impact from the resolution.
The Bill of Rights committee presented a draft resolution to the commission in February, which the commission rejected. The draft asked that police be ordered to not assist federal authorities in violating Constitutional rights and that Lawrence
officials notify suspects upon use of a secret search warrant. This draft also suggested posting warning signs in the library similar to those in Santa Cruz.
It is time for the commission to officially approve its disapproval of the non-Constitutional parts of the act. The city has the opportunity to protect the rights of its citizens and it should take it.
The commission meets at 6:35 p.m. tonight in City Hall. Go and make your voice heard. For the full text of the resolution go to www.lawrenceks.org and look for tonight's agenda.
PERSPECTIVE
Great leaders, patience can stop war
When I was in Washington, D.C., I visited Arlington National Cemetery, the place where the youngest-elected American president, John F. Kennedy, was buried.
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bured.
I went there, as we say in Kyrgyzstan, to bow to the ground in front of his memory. I looked at his grave and thought about his tragic, but, nevertheless, great life. He did not live long, but he did not die. As famous Russian poet Pushkin wrote, he built a perpetual monument for himself. He is always in the minds of millions.
million. There are two camps of great politicians: those who cause trouble and those who ward off calamity. In my opinion, Kennedy deserves a special place among the politicians of the second sort.
Nur Kadyrbekov opinion@kansan.com
the ponderosa and the energetic. He was hailed and energetic. He was bright, witty and eloquent. As a result, he was extremely popular all over the world. This was true even in the Soviet Union, which was locked in the Cold War with the United States at the time.
But those are not the main reasons for my respect for the man. Most of all, I am
nuclear war.
My mother once told me that when she was a 10-year-old girl, she was working on a farm. Once, she stopped before she was finished planting the seeds she was supposed to plant and threw them away. She did it because she did not believe that she would live to see the crop ripen. My mother was constantly living under the fear of nuclear attack like millions other people in the former Soviet Union. She was sure that nuclear war between two great powers of the time,
thankful to him for his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he averted nuclear war.
the U.S.S.R. and the United States, was impending.
In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, my mother's fears might have become true if Kennedy had not been president of the United States.
Most members of Kennedy's Executive Committee, which consisted of the most influential politicians of the United States at that time, advised him to order an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy's defense secretary argued that a full invasion of Cuba should take place even if the American nuclear weapons in Turkey were removed as the step to make compromise with Soviets.
But if the U.S. had invaded Cuba, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was crazy enough to use the nuclear weapons already located in Cuba. And in response the United States certainly would have retaliated with its own nuclear weapons.
It is hard to imagine what might have happened if the United States had invaded Cuba. Not only would two countries have suffered, but it would likely have been the most dangerous
incident humans had ever seen. Probably, it would be the end of mankind. And no one deserved to be a victim of the dangerous political situation, including my mother.
There is a Kyrgyz proverb: "Keep your angry today until tomorrow." Then you may calm down and change your mind in a good way. Unlike a lot of other politicians, Kennedy was able to do that. The world was lucky to have a person like Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because of his patience, wisdom and foresight our earth was not destroyed.
Today we should do everything we can to keep evil forces from getting nuclear weapons. That is why every year the list of countries that join the alliance that proclaimed a war against terrorism is growing. Thankfully, my home country, Kyrgyzstan, which was a target of international terrorists twice, in 1999 and 2000, is on this list as well.
Kadyrbekov is a visiting scholar from Kyrgyzstan.
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