Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, October 14, 1986 Opinion Unintelligent use of intelligence plagues superpowers “Intelligence,” when used in the governmental sense, means secret information, usually about another gov ernment or operation. But intelligence also means the ability to learn, reason, un derstand and direct one’s thought effectively. A gov ernment is expected to pos sess the second befor e it en gages in the first. But in the aftermath of the destruction of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983, both the U.S. and Soviet governments displayed unintelligent use of their intelligence. In his new book, “The Target Is Destroyed,” Seymour Hersh maintains that what U.S. intelli gence knew about the downing of the airliner wasn’t reflected in the accusations flung at Mos cow. Hersh claims that U.S. intelligence had indica- Loren Steffy tions that the Soviets were conf used by the jet’s presence and erroneously identified it as a U.S. re connaissance plane. Despite this, the Reagan ad ministration publicly denounced the Soviets, claiming it had hard evidence that the Soviets knew KAL 007 was a civilian jetliner prior to shooting it down. Hersh says if the administration had waited an other 10 hours until the intelligence reports from posts in the North Pacific were analyzed thor oughly, it would have had a better picture of what actually occurred. Instead, it launched an anti-So viet campaign to sway world opinion. The Soviets, however, were equally uninformed. Hersh interviewed the Soviet high command and found it didn’t truly understand what was going on until two days after the plane was shot down. Rather than admit that they made serious errors in judgment, the Soviets allowed world opinion to portray them as criminally evil., Obvious questions still remain unanswered. Why did pilots familiar with transoceanic flights stray so far off course, let alone into Soviet airspace? But the KAL 007 incident raises even greater questions about intelligence capabilities and how govern ments deal with intelligence reports. Ignorance does not justify the loss of the 269 who were aboard KAL 007. But before the inci dent is filed with other Soviet atrocities, a closer look is in order. The Soviets had been on edge about U.S. opera tions in tfie area where the plane was shot down. The United States had sent battle groups into the Kurile Islands area — a region the Soviets consider vital to strategic interests. Although U.S. forces re mained in international waters, they made the So viets uneasy. The events surrounding the KAL 007 disaster reveal a sloppy flow of information that is espe cially unsettling in this nuclear age. The entire pre tense of the nuclear deterrent, the reason neither superpower will instigate a nuclear offensive, is that top-ranking officials are making supposed informed decisions. Clearly, in the caseoftheli rean jetliner, this did not happen. But the intelligence problems that plaguedi) KAL 007 incident are still with us. The rects handling of the Nicholas Daniloff case shons similar chain-reaction of decisions based on “uni telligence.” Both sides backed themselves into corner, hurling accusations and perpetuating® understanding. Once superpower nations gei lump of pride in their throats, it’s difficult! them to swallow it. The games played in the international,intti gence arena are little dif ferent from those of school yard. Neither nation is willing to admit did anything wrong; neither is willing to let! other forget that it did. When viewed in this context, the dictionarydt| initions of “intelligence” don’t apply. Itisa mer at best, an oxymoron at worst. Loren Steffy is a senior journalism majormit. Opinion Page editor for The Battalion. OK-Af, ASS, LETS PRACTICE ouR YELL— PRACTICE YELIS! OWb MY HEAD*" . PLEASE t>Wf Hfr ME? Silver Taps becoming tarnished with apathi Sfrll . .. ^ 'f. ' ’ How old is too old to drink? Lewis Grizzard If the federal government really wants to fool around with the drinking age, it should start at the other end. What I mean is the government should first do something about older drinkers before it starts meddling with the younger ones. There are several reasons I think this; 1. Older people can drink a lot more than younger people because they’ve had more practice. . 2. Also, they can afford more to drink. It’s tough to get all that drunk when you’re on a six-pack-a-week bud get. 3. Older people have a lot more rea son to drink than younger people. I drink more now than I did when I was 20. That’s because when I was 20 I hadn’t been through three divorces and the Nixon presidency. 4. Older people are sloppier drunks than younger people. When older peo ple get drunk, they do things like cry, call their ex-wives in Montana and sit around piano bars making fools of themselves trying to sing “Melancholy Baby.” Young people, on the other hand, get sick when they drink too much. A few beers later they throw up and go to bed while their elders are still out crying, calling their ex-wives in Montana and sitting around piano bars making fools of themselves trying to sing “Melan choly Baby.” As we all know by now, the govern ment has blackmailed the states into raising their drinking age to 21. Other wise, the states would face a loss of fed eral highway funds. Fine, but how old should a person be before the government mandates he or she must QUIT drinking and no longer be an embarrassment in public or be a threat to do something stupid like driv ing while plastered? Thirty? No. Most 30-year-olds still have no idea what they are going to do with their lives and need a drink every Mail Call now and then to, convince themselves that one day, they, too, will own a Porsche. Thirty-five? That’s still too young. By the time a person is 35, he or she has the Porsche and needs to drink to escape the anxiety of wondering from whence the next payment will come. Forty? Heavens, no, and there’s a good reason for that. I’ll be 40 in a cou ple of weeks. I hate to think of having to face that occurrence without the benefit of a few cocktails. So, how about 45? Or 50? Or 55? Stop me anytime here. Sixty? Seventy? Why don’t we simply pick a number at ran dom and say: OK, you’re 61 (a number at random) and no more booze for you. Unfair? We did that to young people, didn’t we? We picked what sounded like a good number, 21, and we said: We don’t care if you’re married, a parent, a soldier, whatever. Be 21 or be gone. You know what practically every kid says at least a million times? “It’s not fair,” that’s what they say. And, sometimes, they’re right. Copyright 1986, Cowles Syndicate Difficult to condemn Corps EDITOR: It would be difficult to condone the actions of the Corps of Cadets at yell practice on Oct. 3. However, it becomes difficult to condemn them entirely, either, after reading the remark attributed to Jeff Newberry, a sophomore English major: “We knew what we were getting into, and we knew senseless violence was going to be the reaction” (Wednesday’s Battalion). Sophomoric: “especially immature and over confident” (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1969). Jerri Sosvile Old Ag upset with Corps EDITOR: Whoop to Karl Pallmeyer’s opinion Thursday. Hiss to the conduct of the Corps of Cadets at yell practice. I am not condoning the actions of the individuals who walked across the field, but to actually beat your fellow Aggies? Whatever happened to the Aggie brotherhood and friendship? Do Aggies do this to other Aggies? No way. They should be ashamed of themselves. I do not want to be considered part of or allied with their horrible conduct. Escorting the offenders off of the field is Marxist conduct! My father, who was in the Corps years ago, said they never would have done anything like that! He was shocked when I told him what had happened. You’ve got an old Ag asking you “What have you done to yourself, Corps? Have you forgotten what you stand for?” Remember your code of honor and act accordingly. You are disgracing the rest of us! Carol Czyz ’87 Good bull! EDITOR: In reference to Karl Pallmeyer’s article Thursday, “Corps turns yell practice into tradition of violence,” we have one thing to say: WHOOP! GOOD BULL! RED-ASS! Kirk Rice ’87 Clay Baker ’87 Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The 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 classification, address and telephone number of the writer. JeffL. Brady (•itc.st Columnist Being an active Ag is demanding. Time manage ment is crucial, RHA meets regu larly. Intramurals are thick this time of year. Dorm councils, Saddle and Sirloin, Tiddley-Winkers Anonymous, OPAS, Student Government, Campus Crusade, Monday Night Football and the Hall of Fame take their toll. And on and on. Priorities. We can’t let tedious, time-consuming non-essentials crowd out the necessities in our day. Listen up, cadets, this includes you. Yes, dear-hearts, even some of our beloved, time-honored institutions may have to be bent or rearranged if our campus is to be world-class, right? I mean, there are still only seven days per week. And so many of us are so in volved in so many campus groups. What can- we do? > Some- -things just - have to slide. Right? Horsehockey. Two people attended Silver Taps last week. Me and some guy named Mel. The families were there, of course, in a group around Sully after having driven two or three hundred miles to attend this special, highly-acclaimed ceremony. Mel is a transfer student from Ste phen F. Austin. He didn’t realize until Tuesday night that these crusty, out- dated rituals whereby Texas A&M is set apart are just too time-con suming for us active Ags to take seriously. It was a solemn af fair, as usual, but the awe-inspiring hush of a silent, reverent student body — the kind my upperclass men introduced me to four years ago — was somehow absent. Mel and I stood there, surrounded by darkness, as the Ross Volunteers clomped by and the blackbirds fluttered from tree to tree. Mopeds sputtered through campus behind us and the screams of flag football players floated over from the Olsen intramural fields just within earshot. Music blared from a jam box near Rudder Fountain. Head lights swung through the trees ’from time to time. And soon the buglers’ final notes drifted away, and we were left to ourselves. Tarnished Taps seemed more appro priate. Twenty minutes once a month is an awful lot to ask. I mean, what a waste of I? I time, right? Consider: Putting away booksu notes, throwing on somethingdecrnL wear, walking all the way to thel