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Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, June 27, 1986 Opinion Aid for hypocrisy By voting to send $100 million in aid to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, the House of Representatives has assured the imple mentation of President Reagan’s greatest foreign policy hypoc risy. The Contras are a group of rebel insurgents attempting to overthrow the sovereign government of Nicaragua. The CIA covertly supported the rebels from 1981 to 1984. The new aid package, which certainly will clear the Republi can-dominated Senate, would mean the United States is sup porting openly and financially an attack against a government with which we are technically at peace and with which we still maintain diplomatic relations. The president’s present would violate directly the 1984 rul ing of the World Court forbidding the United States to engage in any action which might cause increased aggravation with the Sandinista government. The ruling came after the CIA mined Nicaraguan harbors. Reagan, however, is undaunted by the court’s ruling. Last year, the administration withdrew from the precedings, saying it would ignore any decision made by the court. When, in 1980, Iran treated the court’s demands to release American hostages with similar disregard, it was chastised severely by the United States for not respecting the court’s authority. The premise for the World Court’s power comes from the mutual respect of its rulings by all nations. Like Iran’s actions in 1980, Reagan’s defiance is not only a blatant inconsistency with regard to the court’s power, it makes a mockery of the concept of international justice — a concept that Reagan endorsed dur ing the recent acts of terrorism against the United States. Reagan, oblivious to his hypocrisy, is delighted the House decided to overturn its previous decision to block the aid pack age. The rest of the world is not fooled by the president’s for eign policy two-facedness. America should not allow itself to be deceived so easily, either. The Battalion Editorial Board of Ktt ca&> ah i a-up ppuAhoc) 1 AccofzpiNq ib... IVK OUK -*=r When picking court justices, the president plays for keeps Mad dog’s threats lack teeth since raids There is a joke about flipping coins that goes like this: Heads I win, tails you lose. In Washing ton, the rules of that joke are about to be ap plied to President Reagan’s Su- __ preme Court nominations The charge against liberals and their fellow travelers in the legal community — judicial activists — is that in pursuit of a particular principle they trample the press to publish controversial imti tigative articles. Richard Cohen Officials in the Reagan admirirs- tration say that in the weeks since the U.S. reprisal raids against Li bya, Col. Moammar Gadhafi Michael Putzel News Analysis has been disoriented and unable to secure control of his government and people. They say he’s had to sidetrack planning for ter rorist acts. That report comes from U.S. ana lysts, speaking on condition they not be identified and pleased, of course, to leave the impression that the April 15 bombing raid has hurt the Libyan leader politically and left him psycholo- gicially crippled. Reports along those lines keep ap pearing, attributed to unidentified U.S. officials. The Washington Post said on its front page that Gadhafi was not the same man he had been before the raid, and the New York Post put it more sim ply in a headline: “Gadhafi Goes Daffy.” Administration figures here aren’t going that far, but they portray Gadhafi as a man exhibiting manic-depressive characteristics — and given to smoking hashish and maybe opium, drugs often used by Bedouins. “He’s fighting for his survival inter nally, and he doesn’t have a whole lot of time for thinking about terrorist opera tions abroad,” says one administration official, who has access to intelligence reports. Reporters who saw Gadhafi recently described him as apparently badly sha ken. More than 30 Western journalists were invited to Tripoli to cover what was billed as a major speech at a rally ob serving the anniversary of the depar ture in 1970 of American servicemen from an air base in Libya. Gadhafi didn’t make the promised personal appearance, instead showing up on television for a rambling, one hour and 50 minute speech. Broadcast over loudspeakers, it gen erated little enthusiasm. Fewer than 2,000 people gathered, according to re ports from the scene, and those that came seemed bored. “This is a man who built his prestige on his ability to get out the Libyan masses and use his charisma to bring 50,000 or 100,000 people into the street and whip them into a frenzy,” the ad ministration source said. Gadhafi succeeded, apparently with the support of Syrian mercenaries, in putting down at least two rebellions within the army in the immediate af termath of the U.S. bombing, according to the U.S. source. The administration analyst termed the situation in Libya “tumultuous,” say ing the economy has been disrupted, food supplies are scarce in many areas and “It’s hard to get consumer goods in general.” Michael Putzel is a White House corre spondent for The Associated Press. He has picked them for their ideology, but the Senate cannot reject them for the same reason. more worthy ones. For instance, in se curing the rights of criminal defendants (the unconvicted), they are accused of ignoring the rights of the community. And there have been cases, especially when it comes to rules of evidence (the so-called exclusionary rule), where guilty people were given a walk because the police failed to dot and evidenciary “i”. In nominating Antonin Scalia to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court and William Rehnquist to be the chief justice, Reagan chose men who share — even exceed — his conservative ideology and who, the actuarial tables inform us, will be around to implement it. Both were chosen by the president right off the bat. They met, they chatted and Reagan popped the question. He in terviewed no one else. Almost immediately, the adjective- du-jour in newspapers was “brilliant” and, for sure, Scalia’s and Rehnquist’s credentials demand respect. But so do their ideologies. It is that — not just their brilliance — that led the president to nominate them. Theirs is a conserva tism without a smile and a shoe shine — a brittle ideology that shimmers with in tellectual energy but whose conse quences will not be ameliorated by polit ical considerations. They are both the ultimate Reagan — the one, despite his daunting popularity, that the country has never quite accepted. If Reagan can not be Reagan, then he has chosen sur rogates who can. But Rehnquist and, from the evi dence, Scalia, too, are the mirror image of the judicial activists they so energeti cally oppose. In the name of judicial re straint or its kissing cousin, states’ rights, they would deny a woman — maybe even one who has been raped or whose child, as with Tay Sachs disease, is doomed to an agonizing death — the right to an abortion. The same holds in other areas. In a bizarre application of his brilliance, Rehnquist once wrote a memo to Justice Robert Jackson urging him to vote against desgregation of the schools in the South. Whatever the legal theory cited, the results would have been plain: a loss of individual rights. Rehnquist also has voted to limit the rights of crim inal defendants, homosexuals, blacks and women — and even to limit their ability to argue their case in court. Scalia is in the Rehnquist mold. In speeches, he has championed a stingy interpretation of the First Amendment. And in a libel case involving the Wash ington Post, he joined one other appeals court judge in a tortured opinion that would, if sustained, hobble the ability of Supreme Gourt appointments where the president gets to play keeps — where the momentary cerns of the present come to haunt til future. Yet some senators act as if would be dirty pool to consider theidt ology of the men involved and wta their effect would be on the peopletlit are elected to represent. Theytalkas ideology exists in a vacuum —as president’s presumed right tochoostit ideological soul mate takes precedent) over the consequences of that ideolog Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wisc.),goii for his own Golden Fleece award, put this way: “What the hell, everybody's^ to be something.” But that “something” has elementsi it that the country, and the Congress have time after time rejected. As Hat vard constitutional scholar Laurei Tribe pointed out that, in choosinj judges, the president can succeed when he has failed either by amendniffi (school prayer, abortion) or by lation. Previous Senates appreciate that their obligation concerning a conn nominee was no different than the oik concerning legislation: even Georjji Washington had a nominee (John Rm ledge) rejected because his views wen unacceptable to the Senate. The brilliance of Reagan’s nominee is not in dispute. But their ideologyis different matter entirely. A Senate th cannot judge them the same way it president did is playing by absurd rules Heads Reagan wins. Tails we all lose. Copyright 1986, Washington Post WritersGroif The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Michelle Powe, Editor Loren Stef fy. Opinion Page Editor Scott Sutherland, City Editor Kay Mallett, News Editor Ken Sury, Sports Editor Editorial Policy l lie Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspa per operated as a connnunitv service to 1'exas A&M and Brvan-CoUegc Station. Opinions expiessed in The Battalion are those of the Editorial Board or the author, and do not necessarily rep resent the opinions of 1'exus A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also sel ves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Department of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during 7 ex as A&M tegular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are SI6.75 per semester. SBo.25 per school year and $35 per full \ eai . Advertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion. 216 Reed McDonald Building. Texas A&M L'niversitv. College Station. TX 77843. Second da* POS1MAS1 ss postage paid at College Station. TX 77843. >7 ER: Send address changes to The Battal ion. 216 Reed Mc Donald. Texas A&M l'niversitv. College Station TX 77843. Mail Call Ude outdoes himself EDITOR: Mark Ude has outdone himself in the area of contradiction and ridiculous assumptions in his column Wednesday about the petition to boycott funds used for research of the Star Wars project, called “Strategic Defense Initiative” by extremists. missiles, and cannot stop jet bombers or low flying cruise missiles. This leaves Europe especially vulnerable, and might lead them to feel as if they have been abandoned by the United States if Star Wars were implemented. conclusive, evidence that viewing pornography leads to anti-social behavior. It is exceedingly unlikely that purging all the materials that Cunningham refers to would have any effect on the occurence of child molestation and other such abominations. He refers to claims that the project has no reasonable likelihood of success as “ludicrous and irrelevent to the issue.” How can the success or failure of a project be “irrelevent” when the estimated cost will be $1 trillion (former Defense Secretaries Harold Brown and James Schlesinger), and when the world’s top research scientists will neglect other research dedicated toward economically productive projects? Also, the idea that space lasers could prevent small nuclear exchange between countries such as Iran and Iraq is incredibly naive in the age of nuclear bombs that can fit inside of a suitcase. If the United States does implement Star Wars, and it doesn’t work, the Soviet Union could hold a real military advantage because of all our wasted research. If it does work, we have merely put an enormous effort into prompting the Soviets to build their own space defense system, and this will create an arms race of an unprecedented intensity. Alan Sembera One must wonder then, where these anti- pornographers are coming from. What is it that makes them morally outraged at magazines with pictures of naked women, or even cartoons of “Chester the Molester?” The latter is, admittedly, in poor taste, but is it worth all that self-righteous indignation? What is the rea/basis for their objections? Ude also asserts that critics who say Star Wars “won’t work and is uneconomical” do not have substantial facts to back them up. Clearly he has not done any research at all on the subject. Fifty-six percent of the faculty in the top 20 physics departments in the nation have signed petitions to refuse Star Wars funds on exactly those grounds, as have more than half of the faculty in 107 research departments nationwide. Misdirected zeal C’mon, Cunningham. There are lots of worthwhile causes to get excited about. The Texas prison system is a disgrace. There’s a pressing need for public education about AIDS, a problem that’s going to get worse before it gets better. Can’t we do something, somehow, to reduce the number of handgun murders? EDITOR: Ude goes on and declares that Star Wars will protect the entire world from nuclear attack, a claim which is simply ludicrous. Star Wars only stops (most of the time — maybe) intercontinental ballistic Roger K. Cunningham, your guest columnist on Tuesday, offers a spirited polemic in defense of the anti-pornography stand of the Dallas Association for Decency. Why would anyone with obvious talents for expression, organization and leadership be so consumed with something as innocuous as pornography? Burn some of that zeal of yours for a good cause. We’ll all be better for it. Prof. Dennis M. Driscoll Meteoroloy Department There simply is no reputable, even reasonably Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. Hit editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the address and telephone number of the writer. pk A SI come at plemeni Council to hear and sin: endow n The 1 dan lit Awarem the worl Reynold sal in Ot Jorda A&M st been wt velopmt the MSi theendt The original would b to inten vide tin skills an expene tures; ai in inten Pi By Whilt nates wi starting were en Texas l fresh nu Gale admissii mately rolled it The nu years w average dents, li jf