r
opinion^
Battalion/Page 2
September 21,131
Lebanon situation
Plans to stop central
government surface
Editor:
In the wake of the past events in Leba
non, devious intentions which were sub
merged until a month ago started rising
to the surface of reality. It is not the idea
of creating a strong Lebanese Central
Government supported by a capable
Lebanese army that is being sought, but
the use of all means to preclude such a
goaL
The assassination of Lebanese Presi
dent-Elect Bashir Gemayel is the
strongest evidence. The new govern
ment of Gemayal was viewed by most
Lebanese as the salvation of the nation.
This nation is trying to rebuild itself after
eight years of anarchy by reconnecting
the ties among all Lebanese - Christians
and Muslims - and building up a compe
tent Lebanese army capable of assuming
its normal responsibilities.
His untimely death has plunged his
country into deep despair at the most
critical time of its history. Although his
death was designed to rekindle fear and
distrust among the Lebanese factions,
the Voice of Free Lebanon radio, oper
ated by Gemayel’s party, ordered the
Phalangist Lebanese Forces to show no
retaliation. Not satisfied by the peaceful
reaction of the Lebanese after this cruel
assassination, the plotters behind the fat
al bomb decided to try a more drastic
strategy.
As a result, a few days after Gemayel’s
death, armed men were allowed by
Israeli troops into the Palestinian refugee
camps of Sabra and Chatila, where they
massacred over a thousand Palestinian
women, children and elderly men. Im
mediately, Israeli occupation forces de
nied responsibility and blamed these hor
rible actions on the Phalangist Lebanese
forces.
This is nonsense.
First, since the Israeli army controlled
the camp region, it was impossible for
any other armed forces to enter the
camps without Israeli consent.
Second, the Lebanese army had no in
volvement in the genocide committed by
the renegade troops of Major Saad Had
dad. Had the Lebanese army been
allowed in the region, this atrocity would
never have occurred. Proof of Haddad’s
involvement was aired internationally by
surviving Palestinian women who cried:
“Why did they send Saad Haddad here?
Why?”
With Haddad’s headquarters located
in Marjaoun, 40 miles south of Beruit, on
the Israeli border, how could his troops
have travelled all this distance through
Israeli-controlled territory, enter the
camps, and murder innocent people
without the assent of Israel?
Finally, the Palestinian ambassador to
the United Nations, whose people were
slaughtered in the incident, charged the
renegade Haddad forces, in collabora
tion with the Israeli army, as amenable to
the genocide.
In allowing this atrocious act, Israel
has violated President Reagan’s peace
plan for Beirut. Israeli troops opened the
doors, shut their eyes, and played deaf to
the sound of the machine guns being
fired on innocent, defenseless people
and their death cries.
The forces responsible for this car
nage — along with the distorted media
coverage — should have the decency not
to reverse the truth by blaming the ma
jority of Lebanese citizens for this act.
The Lebanese, who are fed up with war,
have been striving for the last five years
to bring unity and peace back to
Lebanon.
Roger Zard
Box 949, College Station
Arab student: What would
American reaction be?
Editor:
Imagine if you will the massacre of
1,800 American men, women and chil
dren — what would be your reaction?
Would you be able to control your
rage, knowing full well that the safety
and well-being of these people had been
guaranteed in writing by five so-called
soveriegn nations. I say so-called because
the chief signatory on the document,
guaranteeing the safety of the women
and children of Beirut in return for the
evacuation of the fighters, has proven to
be, (and I paraphrase Senator Charles
Percy), nothing but, “a tail on the Israeli
dog“.
. The argument that the United States
did not sanction the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon and the subsequent occupation
of Beirut is a lie. The very fact that there
has been no cut-off of the $2.5 billion
annual subsidy to Israel is more than
enough to prove America’s complicity in
the Israeli invasion.
Apart from these 1,800 non-
combatants murdered in cold-blood,
19,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, main
ly civilians, have been killed by the Amer
ican armed and subsidized Israeli army.
If the same death-to- population ratio
was applied to the United States, it would
mean the death of 1,100,000 people.
How would Americans feel?
Nothing about the massacre surprised
us; this is why the Palestinian freedom-
fighters took so long to withdraw from
Beirut. We knew this could happen be
cause the rightist militia did this before in .
1977 in Tal-Azater refugee camp. What
is shocking though is the lack of tangible
American response to this atrocity. Israel
broke a cease-fire which all parties in
cluding the United States had signed
when it entered Beirut. American honor
is at stake, and no amount of verbal critic
ism from Washington can excuse the
breach of document that has occurred.
Isn’t it about time the American peo
ple took an interest in their country’s
foreign policy instead of standing on the
sidelines and taking the blame for the
Israeli lobby’s decisions on their govern
ment’s every action? We, the Arab peo
ple, know exactly what to do. Our first
goal is to tear down the reactionary re
gimes which rule much of the Arab
world, who rattle their sabers in the air
and then sit complacently by while our
brothers and sisters are murdered.
There will be a new order in the Arab
world and what the American people do
today, not just say, will decide Arab-
American relations for a long time to
come.
Nabil Al-Khowaiter
Issue is now security
of Palestinian people
Editor:
Last week, a carnage of the style of
Dier Yassin was recreated on a much lar
ger scale in the Chatilla and Sabra camps
outside West Beirut. Once again the vic
tims were unarmed innocent Palestinian
men, women and children. It is hard to
believe that Israelis were caught by sur
prise when they discovered that hun
dreds of Palestinians were killed in cold
blood. The massacre continued for over
24 hours while Israeli forces were on
guard in West Beirut.
Most fingers point toward the group
of Saad Haddad, an accessory of Israeli
army in southern Lebanon. It is unim
aginable that Haddad’s men would travel
over 70 kilometers past various check
points in occupied Lebanon without any
plans blessed by Israel. How can one be
lieve that Israeli forces were unaware of
the groups of killers and thousands of
rounds fired when they were not willing
to spare a marine on duty on the roof of
the American Embassy and fired at him?
Israel is directly responsible for letting
the killers in the refugee camps and indi
rectly for the slaughter.
The fear of reprisals against the Pales
tinian civilians after PLO’s departure
from Beirut has become a reality. Israel’s
latest venture in Lebanon in the name of
security for her citizens has resulted in
the loss of thousands of lives of Palesti
nian and Lebanese civilians. The issue
now is the security of the people of Pales
tine, at least those in exile.
W.E.K. Warsi
Department of Oceanography
Any life after Doonesbury?
by Maxwell Glen
and Cody Shearer
WASHINGTON — It’s like losing
your favorite teacher. Come next year,
millions of faithful Doonesbury readers
will have to look somewhere else for wis
dom each morning. At 34, cartoonist
Garry Trudeau is taking a much-
deserved sabbatical.
Yet as much as we’ll miss Trudeau’s
work, 20 months of freedom may pro
duce something more remarkable than
Doonesbury itself. Besides, even sages
need an opportunity to put thirigs . in
perspective.
Trudeau has undoubtedly been the
leading chronicler of the Baby Boom
generation. He’s shepherded us from the
early confrontations at home and school
in the 1960s into the whplly different
world of the Reagan era, noting and illu
minating our every move.
It all began 15 years ago, when, with
the encouragement of a sports editor, the
lanky sophomore from Saranac Lake,
N.Y., walked into the Yale Daily News
office in New Haven, Conn., with a prop
osal to draw a strip called “Bull Tales.”
Before long, Trudeau was winning
peers’ accolades for his caricatures of
such stereotypes as football players,
radicals and social dilettantes, following
them later in Doonesbury through work,
Vietnam and, of course, love.
“He really had our number.” re
minisced Mark Zanger, the Yale student
leader who was the prototype for
Megaphone Mark, “particularly when he
wrote that ‘even revolutionaries enjoyed
chocolate-chip cookies.’”
While he soon began to tackle bigger
targets — Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford
and Jimmy Carter, among others —
Trudeau never lost sight of the rest of us
and how we managed the ebb and flow of
each year.
Perhaps no character better personi
fies this universal ordeal than Jonie
Caucus, the unhappy wife of an inveter
ate bowler. Initially, “Ms. Caucus” leaves
her husband, goes to Walden Puddle and
takes a job at a local day-care center
where she converts many of the girls, in
cluding star pupil Ellie, to feminism. Sub
sequently, Joanie goes on to law school
and falls in love with a Washington Post
reporter named Redfern. Today, both
pregnant and a full-time campaign man-
ager, Joanie is worried about her age and
the need for amniocentesis.
If the strip adds up to anything, it’s
probably that “the personal is political.”
That is, concern about our own lives
should foster a similar concern about
those of others. The presence — or abs
ence — of this homespun philosophy
permeates every character in the strip,
from Michael Doonesbury on down. In
an apolitical age, Trudeau’s is a badly-
needed contribution to the conscience of
group to some of the world’s h;
realities.”
Moreover, Trudeau has soughtto
vide explanations of a much-divided
group and to broach issues that,
even recently, were considered tal
Only two weeks ago, for example,
gracefully confronted the emergencfl
gays as a political force in the Unr
States.
That Trudeau will step aside injai
ary hasn’t surprised his friends
had known that his 12-year contractu
the Universal Press Syndicate wouldi
pire in three months, allowing his chat
ters, as Trudeau explained it, thechai
to adapt to a new era.
Indeed, to a large degree, catching
is what.Trudeau has planned for hints
Unfettered by a daily deadline,"
able to free his energies for thesubsti
tial demands of screenwriting, whiclt
adores. Trudeau has already finisln
one film comedy about the national pit
corps and is now considering a collate
tion with friends on a musical version
Doonesbury. The theater might
potential that Trudeau has posses
since, as a teenager, he first put: on
at home.
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a generation.
“Garry has been a spokesman for the
children of the ’60s and done a great deal
to politicize kids in the 1970s,” said Joe
Wheelwright, the cartoonist’s roommate
at Yale. “He’s also introduced the latter
Most of all, the husband of NBC’s Ji
Pauley wants a child. His closest friec
are crossing their fingers that his saH
deal will turn into a paternity leave,
become a parent, more than anythii
else, could guarantee Trudeau that
long role as a generation’s chronicler
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“It’s just a nightmare you’re having! You won — now get
some rest, Jackie!”
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