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Wednesday, January 16, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Give sanctions time
Sacrificing lives is not necessary to force Iraq out of Kuwait; patience and time are needed
The United States today stands at the brink of war. Almost 500,000 troops patrol the desert of Saudi Arabia ready to invade Kuwait.
But it is not necessary to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers to force Iraq out of Kuwait — yet. Sanctions must be given time to be effective
During the past five months, Iraq has been forced to enact rations on food and gasoline. Saddam Hussein's air force suspended training missions to conserve fuel. Replacement parts for tanks are in short supply, leaving machines stranded in the desert.
The sanctions have begun to take effect. Given time, the sanctions levied by the United States and the Arab Coalition will weaken Iraq's resolve.
Iraq is under seige. A war of attrition, of patience, is being waged. The people of Iraq have begun to suffer. The Iraqi military is being weakened.
If war begins, innocent Iraqi men, women and children will be killed during the massive initial air strike. More will die in ensuing battles.
American soldiers face death, either by bullet, bomb or gas.
War, at this late hour, may be inevitable, but war still can be delayed. The longer war can be delayed, the fewer casualties will be suffered — on both sides.
Sanctions still can be enforced. Pressure still can be applied to the Iraqi people and in turn, to Saddam Hussein.
The United Nations Security Council resolution authorizes the use of force by the United States; it does not require the use of force.
But enforcing the embargo requires time, patience and resolve on the part of the United States and the coalition of Arab nations demanding the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait.
Exercising that resolve will require sacrifices from all nations involved. The governments levying the sanctions will incur tremendous monetary losses. But no monetary value can be placed on the loss of even a single life.
Allowing more time for the embargo to be effective may, or may not, avert war. But it will, at least, reduce the number of casualties that will be suffered when war does break out.
Rod Griffin for the editorial board
The war with Iraq
Students should support troops in Middle East
Since the Aug. 2, invasion of Kuwait,
hundreds of thousands of military
troops and reservists have been called to serve in the Persian Gulf. They left their families, their friends, their homes, their jobs and their country to do so.
Many of them have been or will be asked to leave their lives as students and faculty here at the University of Kansas. Last semester, Tamara Worth, a resident assistant at Gertrude Sellards Pearson-Corbin Hall, was called to the gulf. Charles Yockey, chief of staff at Watkins Memorial Health Center, has been put on 24-hour notice and expects to be called by Jan. 31. James "Pat" Walker, a doctor at Watkins, was not a U.S. reservist or a member of the armed forces when Iraq invaded Kuwait, but in an effort to join the forces in the gulf, he joined the Army in December and was sent to Saudi Arabia this month.
called increases as well.
If Congress decides to increase the number of reservists in the gulf to 1 million, the chances that more KU students and faculty, including Chancellor Gene A. Budig, will be
For those of us who experience the gulf crisis only through what we see in the media, it is difficult to know what the troops are going through. If war does break out, it will become even more difficult for us to understand their circumstance.
What we can do as colleagues of these men and women is offer them our support, putting aside our own opinions of war and the gulf crisis. We should understand that these troops have given up a great deal to travel to a world thousands of miles away and fulfill their duties to their country. In doing so, they too may have forced themselves to put aside their opinions of this war and the ramifications of it.
Whether we believe that sending troops to the gulf was our right or responsibility is, at this point, insignificant. Like it or not, our troops are there. We should admire their efforts and respect them for fulfilling their duties. And, most importantly, we should offer them our support.
Melanie Matthes for the editorial board
Bush emphasizes goal for freedom
And that is why we cannot hesitate about what must be done halfway around the world, in Kuwait.
If armed men invaded a home in this country, killed those in their way, stole the they wanted and then announced the house was now theirs, no one would hesitate about what must be done.
There is much in the modern world that is subject to doubts or questions
-- washed in shades of gray. But not the brutal aggression of Saddam Hussein against a peaceful, sovereign nation and its people. It's black and white. The facts are clear. The choice unambiguous.
"Widespread abuses of human rights have been perpetrated by Iraqi forces . . . arbitrary arrest and detention within the country widespread torture . . . imposition of the death penalty and the extrajudicial execution of hundreds of
The terror Saddam Hussein has imposed upon Kuwait violates every principle of human decency. Listen to theONYIIJI lnnestry International has documented
President
George Bush
Guest columnist
This brutality has reverberated throughout the entire world. If we do not follow the dictates of our inner moral compass and stand up for human life, then his lawlessness will threaten the peace and democracy of our planet. We now see: this long-dreamed of vision we've all worked toward for so long
A year after the joyous dawn of freedom's light in Eastern Europe, a dark evil has descended in another part of the world. But we have the chance — and we have the obligation — to stop rubbish aggression
unarmed civilians, including children."
I have been in war. I have known the terror of combat. And I tell you this with all my heart: I don't want
But while we search for that answer, in the gulf young men and women are putting their own lives on hold in order to stand for peace in our world and for the essential value of human life itself. And children. Your age, most of them. Do tough duty for something they believe in.
there to be war ever again. I am determined to do absolutely everything possible in the search for a peaceful resolution to this crisis — but only if the peace is genuine, if it rests on principle, not appeasement.
We desperately want peace. But we know that to reward aggression would be to end the promise of our New World Order. To reward aggression would be to destroy the United Nation's promise as international peacekeeper. To reward aggression would be to condone the acts of those who would desecrate the promise of human life itself.
And we will do none of this. There are times in life when we confront values worth fighting for. This is one such time.
Editorial page encourages debate, voicing of opinions
On an MTV "rockumentary" (OK, so I was bored!) the bleached-blood singer said he thought the music network's decision to ban one of his videos was harmful to the principle that they were trying to promote.
Billy Idol, ex-punk, now rock star,
who is the subject on the topic of freedom, expresses:
He said (to paraphrase him loosely) that when we ban an idea because we wish to protect "society" from its potential harm, we actually add more interest and fire to the issue.
Tiffany Harness
Editorial
Editor
It's not often that I quote Idol; in fact, this is a first. But his idea made me think more about this page and freedom of the press.
This page is the opinion page. It will always be on page four. On the left side of the page are editorials, representing the majority opinion of the editorial board. The editorial board is a group of students who write opinion pieces, but views don't necessarily represent the view of the Kansan.
political cartoons represent the individual artist's ideas.
Both the cartoon strips and the
Staff columnists are hired by the Kansan, but these pieces also represent the idea of the individual, not the editorial staff or the newspaper.
Your chance to voice your opinion unfolds on this page in three ways. You can write a guest column, which generally will include a small photo of your face. Or you can write a letter to the person at the point and to the point. Or you can call me at the Kansan, to voice your concerns to me about the page.
Contrary to popular opinion, when we receive guest columns, we do not throw them away without reading them. We should send the sentence and say, "Ecwe. We hate
this and there's no way we would run it," or "We really don't think we need to open this can of worms."
This is not the way this page will come together.
My job is to somehow try to encourage fair and open debate that is free from libel, obscenity and personal interest. IMMmmm. Should be interesting.
The goal of this page is not that we all read the articles on it and sigh with a smile on our faces and say, "Abhbh that's nice."
I will not always agree with what appears on this page. Neither will you. But that isn't the goal.
Professionally, I hope that you read this page vigorously and regularly.
Personally, I hope we will all learn more about the world and how we can live in it together in peace. I'll keep my fingers crossed on that one.
So with a Rebel Yell, let's get busy.
- Tiffany Harness is a Hutchinson senior majoring in journalism and African-American studies.
New Year's resolution: no resolutions
So what do you people think?
It was a strange question.
"So what do you propose?"
"You know . . . New Year's resolutions. Plan to, uh, give anything UP?"
My Dad was trying to be subtle. I was lost on me. I was recovering from the ill effects of self-injury in the warfare here in the Midwest.
But my Dad had asked me a question. I thought for a quick second. More Nurpin and a nap would be in order if I had any chance of catching the Orange Bowl. Or even that fantastic 'gala' event, "Orange Bowl halftime." Better get it over with.
Erik Nelson
Staff columnist
"No." I replied. "I resolve never to make another New Year's resolution."
"Are you sticking to it?"
He had a smirk on his face, OK. I'll grant you it was a contradictory point. But a point is a point, much like a tax plan is a tax plan.
So today I would like briefly to cover the implications of making a New Year's resolution, with the single addition that it's in one's best interest to avoid making such promises. I promise you that the football player's best interest to avoid the police. Oops! I diress . . .
Do not think that I have not considered the merits of making promises on New Year's Eve. At first, it seems like the natural thing to
So someone speaks up and says something like, "I'd like to take up a new hobby. I'm getting tired of watching T.V."
Friends add that it might be fun to pick up something that was overlooked in their childhoods. "Do you blurt out, 'Pet rocks!'"
do. Everyone is feeling very hopeful and let's see . . . courageous. You know that feeling.
Your friends look at you, each with one brow raised. They give you a quick once-over, as if it were the first time they had laid eyes on you. Their friend, whom they thought you saw very well, even told that cross-dressing incident freshman year when you were POSITIVE it was Hallowen), obviously has a twisted, sordid past.
"Pet rocks?" they ask.
They begin to wonder if you haven't gotten a little ahead of the instructions on that "Home Lobotomy Kit" your parents gave you for Christmas.
"Yes!" you shriek excitedly. In your altered state, you have
I also understand the temptation to begin anw e . . . turn over the proverbial leaf, as it were. Well, I have some bad news. It's about that proverbial leaf. Yes, you can do it. But the leaf is a proverbial heap of wholly censorable matter! How's the New Year look NOW?！
become inexplicably nostalgic for something your older sister caught on to, and though you always held a deep, sincere interest, you never had the opportunity to develop a pet rock collection of your own.
I am being crudely only to exaggerate a point. If you make a resolution that is impossible to do good on, then you are setting yourself up for a most unpleasant confrontation. Not dissimilar to the proverbial heap under the proverbial leaf.
Seriously, I have found that living day-by-day is the best guide as to what I should and should not do, instead of picking the one day I am likely to be the most nebrated out of any 365 days on the calendar to make decisions about my future actions.
I'd hate to hit my sister up for her pet rock collection.
This is my first point: alcohol, well-known for its climatic effect when operating heavy machinery, is not to be underestimated when it comes to impairing one's ability to make rational decisions, either.
Erik Nelson is a senior majoring in journalism.
CHRIS SIRON
Editor
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Home Remedies
YEAH! HE'S ONLY 14. BUT HE'S STARTING COLLEGE...HE EVER GOT ME THIS TRIP,THROUGH HIS CONNECTIONS. HE'S REALLY PEAUT, BUT A LITTLE
By Tom Michaud