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Monday, February 1, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Feud stalls nominees
7 embassies left without ambassadors
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A long-running feud between conservative Sen. Jesse Helms and the State Department has left several important U.S. embassies without ambassadors for as long as 14 months, their nominations stalled in the Senate.
Because of snarls in the Senate, the United States has no ambassador in Poland, Cyprus, Yemen, Nepal, Nicaragua and Portugal. In Iraq, U.S. ambassador David Newton packed his bags several months ago, but it might be awhile before his designated successor, April Glaspie,
is confirmed and Newton leaves Baghdad.
Although each case has its own peculiarities, Helms, R-N.C., is a major player in several of the battles.
Critics say that confirmation delays can hurt the conduct of affairs with other countries, plant doubts in the minds of other governments and unfairly penalize career diplomats.
Helms, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has delayed confirmations by using the process to demand information from the department and to interrogate career diplomats. Democrats occasionally use the same tactic but not as often as Helms has.
But Helms and his aides say that the Senate has an obligation to probe a potential ambassador's views, not simply rubber-stamp the nominee. He accuses the State Department of secretiveness and a "certain arrogance down in Foggy Bottom."
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not vote on six of seven appointments in the waning days of the 1987 congressional session. As a result, they must be reconsidered by the panel before going to the floor.
"The failure to act hampers the conduct of American diplomacy." the State Department said after Congress adjourned.
The panel approved a nominee to Portugal last year, but Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., did not bring the issue to a vote.
Helms said that he wanted to question more closely three career people — Glaspie, nominated Nov. 4; John Davis, the charge d'affaires in Warsaw, nominated as ambassador to Poland Oct. 6, and Charles Dunbar, nominated as ambassador to Yemen Sept. 18.
Detroit raid on crack house nets 11-year-old drug dealer
The Associated Press
DETROIT — Detroit's two-month war on crack is reaching into elementary schools with the arrest of an 11-year-old. His mother, who admits smoking the drug in front of the boy, says she hopes he'll turn his life around.
The boy was arrested Dec. 29 in a raid on a crack house, where the powerful cocaine derivative was sold. Police said he was the youngest person arrested in the campaign against crack, which also has netted two 12-year-old girls.
"People think I'm crazy, but I believe the boy is going to be somebody important, like a preacher," the mother said in an interview published in yesterday's Detroit Free Press. She spoke on condition that their names not be used.
"He's already been around every
thing — guns, dope and the police," said the woman, 27.
The boy has been held at the Wayne County Youth Home since his arrest.
County Youth Home since his arrest. His mother said she had smoked crack, sometimes in front of the boy and his brothers, ages 1 and 9 years. But she said she had quit and was in a drug rehabilitation program.
The boy was arrested for selling crack to two undercover officers at the order of a 33-year-old man, police said.
"It it seems to me that an 11-year-old is primarily a kid, and a kid can be very easily influenced by older people, particularly with money," said Thomas Harp, head of the county Juvenile Defender's Office.
Harp, who is representing the boy and his brothers in a neglect case that was brought against their mother before the boy's arrest, said.
"It's probably a situation where we have . . an older person preying on susceptible minds."
The state's Department of Social Services had removed the younger boys from their home before the oldest son's arrest because of their mother's cocaine use, authorities said.
Mayor Coleman Young began a campaign against crack houses on Nov. 30, ordering daily raids throughout the city. He also has proposed converting a vacant city-owned hospital into a temporary jail because of overcrowding in other jails.
The mother said she visited her son at the youth home and that he said he hated being away from her.
During one three-week stretch in the crackdown period, 274 felony drug charges were filed in Detroit District Court.
A mercy killing?
CHICAGO — A young physician who wrote an essay describing a decision to inject a deadly dose of morphine into a terminally ill patient has been condemned by colleagues who called the action unethical and illegal.
The Associated Press
A gynecology resident told how he ended the life of a 20-year-old cancer patient in an article titled, "It's Over, Debbie," in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"It was a gallows scene, a cruel mockery of her youth and unfulfilled potential. Her only words to me were 'Let's get this over with,'" wrote the physician, who said he had never seen the patient before the night he ended her life.
The magazine's editors believe, but have not confirmed, that the essay is based on an actual event. The doctor's name and hospital were withheld at his request.
The Chicago-based journal has received a flood of letters protesting the essay, said George Lundberg, the magazine's editor. None of the letters have been published yet.
"I would say the mail is running 80 to 20 against publishing the piece at all, and the vast majority is running against the physician's action," Lundberg said.
Some experts say the actions described were both unethical and illegal, but Lundberg said a growing acceptance of physician-assisted euthanasia prompted him to publish the essay Jan. 8 over objections by members of his staff.
The Netherlands has legalized euthanasia. Lawmakers in New York debated and rejected legalizing mercy killing, and the issue is being argued by legislators in California.
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Living with AIDS.
For students who care about people, this program will help you understand what it is like to cope with AIDS.
Several persons with AIDS and their loved ones will share their stories.
Virginia Allen, coordinator of the Good Samaritan Project, will introduce the speakers.
Woodruff Auditorium
February 1
7:30 p.m.
KU Student Senate
PAID ADVERTISEMENT
IN THE NAME OF GOD THE MOST BENEFICENT THE MERCIFUL A COMMENTARY ON JENERETTE'S WRONG ANALOGY
Often a parallel is drawn between the actions against Palestinianis by Israel and the treatment of the American Indian in order to demonstrate that Palestinian demands for freedom, however justified, are no longer realistic. This seems to be the point of NanJenereyt's commentary in the January 21, 1988 issue of the Kansan. But the analogy breaks down in several places. For the native American, at least by U.S. law, has full citizenship in his own land. Also the will of the Palestinian people, as jenerette mentions, to fight foreign occupation has not yet been broken, and Europeans first began to occupy American Indian territory more than four centuries ago, not in the last 40 years. But the answer to the question of when a people should surrender to foreign domination and oppression is not one of years but one of will to resist.
We, the Muslim community of Lawrence, support the Palestinian brothers and sisters in their cause, as their struggle is ours as well. And we object to Jennerite's distortion of the facts and his racist tone. It's true that the PLO and Palestinians have never signed on treaty with Israel, but "they do not deny Jews the right to exist," but equate Zionism with racism. Jennerite claims that the Palestinians have left the struggle to "their women and children." He states that he is not sure "where all the men are," but feels that many have decided to kill "unarmed tourists at airports and old men in wheelchairs on cruise ships."
These remarks betray ignorance and blind prejudice. Any objective viewer of recent news from Palestine knows that the majority of combatants are young men. And those women who have decided to join the struggle are emulating the example of courageous Muslim women who for centuries have fought side by side with Muslim men in defense of right. We proclaim their bravery with pride.
But to slander all Palestinian men by the unlawful acts of a few is intolerable. The question as to where are all the Palestinian men is easy to answer. Two and a half million Palestinians have been forced into exile, several thousand have been imprisoned without trial, hundreds of others have been beaten and hospitalized, more than forty have been killed in recent weeks, a few have been deported, and most of those that remain fight on.
We of the Muslim community of Lawrence refuse to allow one writer's racist remarks to destroy our high regards for the American people. Because we believe that the vast majority of Americans are committed to freedom and equality, not just for U.S. citizens, but for all people worldwide. And we believe that they understand the essential need for freedom and the need to sometimes fight and even die for it.
Islamic Center of Lawrence.
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