University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, February 16, 1988
TuesdayForum
5
Patriotism :
Those who refuse to tolerate injustice are expressing their love for America
The national anthem. The pledge of allegiance. Can you deny that it makes your heart race, your chest expand naturally and your eyes cloud over without so much as a fleeting thought toward the jumble of words you have just blindly recited?
What exactly do you suppose causes this phenomenon? Pride? Patriotism? Or possibly the illusion of a safety cushion that is created by blind obedience, to shroud and eventually numb intrinsic feelings of compassion, rationality, justice and most distressingly, our individuality. Fairly dehumanizing stuff that I'm talking about.
The U.S. government caters toward those who ask no questions. Those who meekly and ignorantly accept. However, the intention of our founding fathers in organizing the basis for our society with the U.S. Constitution seems to have been the antithesis of the current trend toward blind obedience.
And what of those who deviate from this desensitizing mindset? They're "Commies," right? What is the propaganda-induced tightness in your throat screaming? Love your
Marla Rose
Guest Columnist
country or leave it, correct?
These scare tactics usually come from the self-proclaimed patriots. All I can say is that if it is unpatriotic to want to have some voice in governmental affairs, then I am not a patriot. If it is unpatriotic to try to monitor the covert actions of our government and to point out the injustices that inevitably follow, then I am not a patriot. If it is unpatriotic to have such faith in the intention of our forefathers that any contradiction or hypocrisy in current U.S. policy makes us cringe, then, damn it, I'm not a patriot.
However, isn't a patriot one who loves his country? What greater love is there if one feels such pride in his country that he will not tolerate injustice impacted by a few corrupt
individuals who ungo chucked because of the "patriotism" of his countrymen?
Oliver North articulated during the Trancontra hearings "If the Commander in Chief tells this lieutenant colonel to go stand in the corner and sit on his head, I will do so. . . I'd salute smartly and charge up the hill." This is from a self-proclaimed patriot with a large degree of power in our country's affairs. If a person that makes a statement like that is a realistic representative of the people in power than we are compassionate citizens have it of problems ahead of us. The matter enclosed in our cranium for what it was intended — to analyze and criticize, not blindly recrypte the propaganda created by the elite.
A man like Oliver Nur, a zealot who proudly bent and thus perverted the U.S. Constitution to his will, belies the very essence of patriotism. This blind propaganda-spewing lunatic does not love his country, for he cannot think. If he loved his country, he would challenge. He would look at Nicaragua and see what those "freedom-fighting"
contras represent. If his eyes were clear, he would see that the contrasts do not represent the masses of Nicaraguans but rather the twisted hallucinations of the mass of protoplasm sitting in the Oval Office who has no respect or compassion toward the citizens of Nicaragua.
The autonomy of the Nicaraguans is undermined daily by U.S. citizens who feel it is their duty to judge the Nicaraguans and who say condescendingly, "Oh, those poor little Nicaraguans. Well, we must show them the light, whether or not they agree with it." And those of us who cannot bear to witness such gross hypocrisy will do everything in our power to stop this. Because of hatred toward our country? No. Because of a love for our country and humankind in general.
I speculate that if Henry David Thoreau lived today, he would probably have his phone tapped, have a weighty file with the FBI and be under scrutiny and surveillance. But he was a true patriot. He loved his country so much that he refused to passively pay his poll taxes when his conscience
couldn't allow him to condone the Mexican-American War, which those taxes would help support. He was not obedient, but he was a patriot in the true sense of the word.
The early colonists who suffered under the tyranny of the King of England didn't blindly accept and thus set the example for future generations. As a representative of one of many U.S. citizens who are labeled as "because of their beliefs in and memberships in" groups that challenge corrupt policies, I count myself as a believer in my country.
So much a believer that I realize change is sometimes necessary for a higher good and a higher awareness. And I also realize that love for one's country, in its true form, is not black and white. Nor should love for one's country helpers and limitations, but rather expand them. And ultimately, love for one's country should encompass the whole world.
'Low-intensity warfare' deceives the U.S. public
Marla Rose is a member of Latin American Solidarity and a Wilmette, Ill., junior majoring in illustration.
Since World War II, the role of the U.S. military has been primarily the defense of Europe and the Far East within collective security agreements against Soviet expansionism. However, in the present framework of better relations with the Soviet Union and the beginning of real strategic disarmament, a new doctrine has emerged known as "low-intensity conflict."
This new doctrine has become controversial because it implies certain concepts that are traditionally alien to popular U.S. notions about the purpose of our military.
Paul Longabach Guest Columnist
The idea of low-intensity warfare got its start in the Kennedy administration with the formulation of elite military units designed to fight against insurgencies. The Green Berets were one of these groups, but also there were military personnel assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency.
The idea to fight the enemy using
tactics similar to theirs appealed to the "best and the brightest" in the Kennedy White House. The result of the Green Berets in Vietnam and the CIA in Laos proved that the U.S. covert activity had the potential to militarize the combat area to a point that escalation or capitulation became the end result.
The government also found out in Vietnam that domestic opposition to a military effort could remove the political support needed to wage war. In World War II, the home-front support was vital to the war effort. The Vietnam War was waged on the television sets of the United States as much as it was in Southeast Asia.
It's funny how the (National) Guard sometimes loses some of its equipment and the contras get ahold of it.'
Thus, another name for low-intensity warfare could be low-consciousness warfare. What the U.S. people are unaware of is not likely to bother them much. The role of the media in deciding what we know has become a battleground of words. So now we are constantly hearing words like "terrorist," "freedom fighter," and "humanitarian aid" to describe what is going on in Central America, Angola and the Middle East. The United States is presently putting the policy of low-intensity warfare to the test in all three areas.
In the Middle East, the United States has been funding various groups fighting the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan since the Soviets invaded in December 1979. Certainly, the Soviets felt the sting of U.S. aid and even low-level advising.
However, everything isn't as clear as President Reagan might want to believe. It is known that Iran has acquired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that were supplied to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
Our government says the Iranians must have stolen the weapons somehow, but others are inclined to believe that they were given over freely or sold by our proxies in the region. Thus, U.S. weapons have been transferred to a nation that is reported to be a supporter of terrorism.
Angola gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. A resulting civil war brought a Marxist group, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, to power. The losing side's leader, Jonas Savimbi, continued to fight a guerrilla war against
the MPLA with military aid from South Africa and, later, from the United States.
Last year, Savimiab received $15 million in lethal aid including, you guessed it, Stinger missiles. Saudi Arabia also aided Savimiab's Unita forces with the understanding that the United States would in turn supply Saudi Arabia with AWAC radar aircraft.
The struggle in Central America and U.S. involvement has been the Reagan administration's obsession. It has been the low-intensity war that has gotten the most press attention. This has forced the government to combat the Sandistas in Nicaragua with a mercenary organization it likes to call the democratic resistance.
Behind the contras, as they are also known, is a steady supply of national guardsmen in Honduras and a growing U.S. airbase in Pamerola, Honduras. It's funny how the
(National) Guard sometimes loses some of its equipment and the contra get abold of it. The other tricks used to "keep them together body and soul" have been found by many Americans to be close to criminal.
Low-intensity warfare is itself a trick. It is designed to pursue U.S. political and economic interests through diplomacy by other means, to paraphrase Clausewitz. Little wars that don't make the front page allow the United States to carry on business as usual.
Groups like Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the FBI has spied upon, and Latin American Solidarity think it is vital that a public discussion of U.S. foreign policy exists. Let us as citizens decide the merits, not the National Security Council, CIA, FBI or anybody's off-the-shelf, self-sustaining organization.
Paul Longabach is a Lawrence resident and a coordinator for Latin American Solidarity.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!