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Tuesday, January 29, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Prisoners of war
Establishment of international court, legal code needed to ensure proper trials for war criminals
"O biviously they have been brutalized."
Perhaps these words, spoken by President Bush about allied prisoners of war who were shown recently on Baghdad television, were inevitable.
But are they meaningless?
One U.S. Navy lieutenant, who looked bruised and shocked, slowly and staunchly spoke these lines into a television camera: "I think our leaders and our people have wrongly attacked the peaceful people of Iraq."
Do these sound like the words of U.S. military officers who the Iraqis say are not being tortured or subjected to cruel or degrading treatment, which is in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions?
Another captive, a U.S. marine officer, said, "I think this war is crazy and should never have happened."
The United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and the International Committee of the Red Cross don't think so. They all agree that Iraq has violated the Geneva accords, which it signed, by using more than 20 captives as human shields and displaying them on television in a humiliating manner.
The U.S. State Department has said evidence about the mistreatment of prisoners of war is being gathered for possible presentation to a war crimes tribunal after the war is over.
But even if the United States and its allies
get enough evidence to bring war criminals to trial, they will first have to win the war against Iraq, occupy its territory and capture their suspects. Then a special war tribunal would have to be created, in which the winners of the war would try the losers of the war, ensuring that bias and unfairness would run rampant.
All nations that mistreat prisoners of war should be punished, whether they win the conflict or not.
But there is no provision for war crimes trials under the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations or any other international organization, and that is wrong.
The United States has said it would prefer to conduct war crimes trials in an international court to prevent embarrassment to its Arab allies and to forestall anti-American hostility among Arab nations, but there is no international institution set up to do so. Past attempts by international lawyers to create a permanent United Nations court and code of laws for war crimes were to no avail.
But in the face of violence against prisoners of war, such a permanent international court must be established. If the United States doesn't win the war, does that mean that allied prisoners of war will be executed by Iraq, or worse yet, condemned to a life of torture? If so, the Geneva Conventions and other attempts to create a world in which nations cooperate are a farce.
Debbie Myers for the editorial board
Drugs and athletics
Athletes should be penalized more for drug use
The recent arrest of Southern California quarterback Todd Marinovich for possession of cocaine and marijuana just goes to show that athletics, both on the professional and amateur level, are not doing enough to deter athletes from using illegal substances.
It is time that they took a hard-line approach to this issue because the current policies don't seem to be working.
We have all seen Pete Rose's saga and how major league baseball stood behind its word by banning him from both baseball and the Hall of Fame. Why can't a similar approach be taken for offenders of the league's drug policy? Certainly gambling is wrong, but is it really as serious an offense as using cocaine?
The sentence for a person convicted of possession of cocaine carries a minimum penalty of three to five years and a maximum of 10 to 20 years. However, when an athlete is caught in possession of cocaine, the sentence is usually much lighter and sometimes even is
suspended.
The same can be said for other sports. Two years ago, Dexter Manley was banned from the NFL for his third offense of the league's substance policy. However, all it took was an appeal, and he was back on the field again this season. Ben Johnson sat out two years for testing positive for steroids at the 1983 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, yet at the 1982 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, he will be able to try to regain the gold medal he was stripped of in Seoul.
Surely the examples do not end here. By not taking a tough stance on drug and substance abusers, athletics are sending a message to youth, who view these athletes as their idols. The message is that if you are an athlete, you can get away with using drugs. There is already a big enough drug problem in society, why let athletes reinforce it?
Bush's 'New World Order' says violence is the answer
I found it profoundly ironic that President Bush claimed, in announcing his decision to order our troops into battle in the gulf, that our actions there would establish a new world order.
Whether for the "Pax Romana" or to "Make the World Safe for Democracy," the people of the world have been asked to support one last war that would establish a new world, a world in which order, peace and prosperity would reign. And each time, the people have seen their visions of hope turn into nightmare images of their fathers, brothers and sons dying to win some cratered, desolate piece of land. And each time, after the fighting, the dying and the suffering had ended, the way the world ordered its affairs remained the same.
Surely if Truman, Hitler, Napoleon and the caesars of ancient Rome had been able to hear Bush's use of that phrase, they would have laughed at such纤厉. For thousands of years, leaders have been using essentially similar phrases to send men and boys to die on the fields of battle. And for thousands of years, the world has remained unchanged.
Granted, the world often found itself changed somewhat, with a new leader or new nation at the top. I am not suggesting that all those who fought and died did so in vain. Many fought bravely to protect their loved ones or to preserve or extend the freedoms of their brothers and sisters. Nations have won freedom or changed their governments. But no new worldwide order ever has emerged.
Dave Wakefield
Staff columnist
During the months preceding Bush's decision to throw U.S. forces into war, the nations of the world, in an almost unbelievable display of unity, had agreed to and supported sanctions against Iraq. Many of us believed that, given enough time, we would see demonstrated a new method for solving disputes. We believed that the world had finally grown so interdependent economically and socially that nations could unite to solve disputes without resorting to killing. Alas for those dreams, for they never were given a proper chance.
Instead of taking action toward a new world order, Bush has turned his back on a world that was carefully nurturing a slender hope of peace. And he spurned the best chance we had for a new world order. He made a case for war, others had that finally, after years of cold wars and nuclear terrorism, the world would begin a new order, a new way of solving problems.
I believe it would have been worth months or even years of economic sanctions and embargo if we could have demonstrated that there are indeed other ways to solve problems than by killing one another, and to demonstrate that there are indeed other forces besides guns and explosives.
there is more than one kind of power. Isaac Asimov stated this most clearly in one of his books, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent," he wrote. It has taken some of us a long time to learn that. In fact, people some and some nations still do not know that simple fact. We had a whole school of nations and those people the economic and diplomatic power of a united world. But Bush threw that chance away.
Researchers looking for solutions to the problem of violence between children soon discovered that hitting or spanking was not an effective way to teach children not to hit their playmates. In fact, they discovered that by using force, adults who spanked actually taught their children that violence was the way to be stopped and that it allowed the children stopped stealing another at home. they learned that when they got big enough and strong enough, they could use force with impunity to solve their problems.
I believe we are sending a clear message by using arms to try to teach Saddam not to use force against his neighbors. We are teaching the people of the world that armed might is the way to settle disputes. And I cannot help but wonder if he has the highest when someday these nations get big enough and strong enough or build nuclear weapons, as they will someday. I wonder if we will not regret the lessons we have taught.
Dave Wakefield is a senior majoring in journalism.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Activists hypocritical
I see the peace activist's signs and hear their slogan: "No Blood for Oil." I am not for war. I am not for death and suffering, and neither are most of those who want Kuwait's sovereignty restored. But when I see
Let's assume for a moment that a Kuwaiti citizen trapped in Iraq's "10th Province" was wrong when he said on ABC's "Nightline" Thursday, "Do not be misinformed . . . that this war is about oil. It is not. It is about the blood of human beings." Let's assume that this war is not about the starvation they are beginning to face, not about the women who are raped on the street for all to see. Let us assume that the war is about oil.
I will look at their signs painted with sticks and berry dye that they made in clay bowls and have an ounce of them. Until then, they are just hysterical.
their signs, I don't think of how we disagree. Instead, I think about how hypocritical they are. How did they write those words on their signs? With plastic pins and markers? How do they commute from home, to work, to bicycle, to stores? By car? By bicycle? Do they use plastic plates and faux trays when they eat lunch at Union Square? Do they wear make-up? Do they use Vaseline? Do they buy record albums?
I am tired of the activists' *hierarch-thou attitude* and their attempts to paint the rest of the United States as war-crazed, greedy and frivolous. The activists enjoy all of the benefits of a modern society based on oil but not of industrialized living standards, then define it. When they revert to pre-industrialized living standards, then
What do markers, cars, bicycle tires, plastic forks and records have in common? They are all petroleum products. They are a part of the U.S. way of living. It is and that way of life that Saddam Hussein threatens.
Lori Sparkman Midwest City, Okla., graduate student
The stance is taken that there is a disproportionate amount of African-
'It's easy to sit in a safe place and say you're all for someone else when it's them taking the risks.'
Decision contradictory
- David Caruso Goddard freshman
In response to the position taken by Black Men of Today on Jan. 24, I am forced to wonder just what their contradictions are abundant.
Americans in the gulf because it is the only way for these Americans to pay for college; then they say, "They won't educate us," which is even more ridiculous because they themseconds are enjoying a college education
I suggest that the executive board of Black Men of Today stop, open their eyes, release the foot from their mouths and decide on a stance that
They say they support our African-American troops in the gulf and that they are not against war, yet they officially refuse to be drafted. It's easy to sit in a safe place and say you're all for someone else when it's them taking the risks "African-Americans are not the rights of the American society, but also recognition of the obligations that come with citizenship.
The last straw was their statement that the Jan. 15 deadline was a slap in the face because it was Martin and he had done so if that had anything to do with it!
has some meaning.
David Caruso
Goddard freshman
BMT position wrong
The organization Black Men of Today passed a resolution refusing to fight in the war if Congress implemented the draft. They declared support for "the many Black troops fighting in the Persian Gulf." Nevertheless, they refuse to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in war.
A concern they express is that there is a disproportionate number of African-American troops fighting the war. I have been in the Army for 18 years. During Vietnam, I saw firsthand how an unjust draft can affect the demographic makeup of the Army. Any future draft would not repeat such an injustice. No person should be able to avoid his commitment simply because he has money to go to college.
However, volunteers make up
today's Army, Blacks occupy positions at all levels and in better proportion than the equivalent levels in civilian corporations. This is the result of many complex factors. Nevertheless, the success of the Army's Equal Opportunity Program is, in my belief, the primary reason for this achievement. When we were at peace, I did not hear Black Men of Today complain that there were too many Black generals, colonels or commissioners on our war, Black Men of Today view this as discrimination. This is not to say that the Army has eliminated racism, but that it does not tolerate it.
Throughout history, Black men and women have contributed to the shaping of this nation. In fact, men and women of all color have died so the Black Men of Today could be where they are today. It is a shame that they would not do the same for Blacks of the future.
W.R. Lucas
Liberal graduate student
KANSAN STAFF
By David Rosenfield
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