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Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, March 9, 1988 Opinion The U.S. needs to devise a new Israeli peace plan The images of violence that have crossed our tele vision screens ev ery night provide the world with a vivid reminder of the plight of a homeless people. Israeli soldiers are seen dragging young Palestinians from their homes John MacDougall and hospital beds while their mothers shriek in horror. Most recently, soldiers forced four Palestinian youths to lie in the dirt while a bulldozer buried them alive. Though our government has ex pressed condemnation for Israel’s vio lent treatment of Palestinians in the riot- plagued West Bank and Gaza Strip, it is evident that the Israeli government is neither committed to adopting a peace ful solution to the Palestinians’ demands for autonomy nor concerned with re specting the civil rights of their neigh bors. It is time for the United States to adopt a tougher stance to promote peace in the Middle East. Ever since the British gained control of Palestine after World War I, Palestin ians have been trying to gain indepen dence. In the 1967 six-day war that pitted Israel against Syria, both Jordan and Egypt unified Palestinians in their quest for independence. After the war the Israelis kept strict military control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip areas, where more than a million Pales tinians resided. The Israelis, consolidat ing their control in the territories, fur ther alienated Palestinians by populating the territories with make shift “settlement communities.” By 1984, Israel had seized about a third of the land in the West Bank, forc ing thousands of Palestinians to flee into refugee camps in the territories or across the border in Jordan. Palestinians now account for 60 percent of the Jor- Mail Call You say you want a revelation EDITOR: I was studying in the library the other day when, from across the table, came a shocking statement, “Brian Frederick is a fascist.” I was stunned. Brian is God, and from his mouth come the pearls of wis dom with which I live my life. I threw my verbal gauntlet at the man. “But he’s opposed to welfare and other government programs that would weaken our economy.” He deflected my attack and returned with a wicked swing. “Yes, but he condones the oppression of women so that men can continue their natural role in society. Is that not fascism?” I was reeling from this verbal onslaught. My hero, the columnist I have read since the early fifties, was being challenged. For God and Country I had to continue the fight. “That’s not true! He was merely criticizing the overzea lousness of the women’s movement.” “Ah, and what of his hard line against communism? Fascists are famous for hating communists.” I was down, felled by his battery of neurons. “But, you’re twisting his words ...” I was feeling faint. I couldn’t survive this attack on my common sense. He had me outgunned. And he didn’t stop. “He’s paranoid about letting the Soviets sap our precious bodily fluids. He wants the education system turned over to the private companies. The poor will be denied an education.” He was towering over me, ready to deal the final blow. But just as he had me beaten, crawling in the dust from his barrage of lies, he changed tactics. “Look at it this way,” he reasoned. ’’Studies show that one-sixth of Battal ion columnists are fascists. Another survey shows that eighty percent of all people who believe that humans don’t have natural rights call themselves fas cists. Pretty telling figures, would you not say?” I couldn’t respond. My world was shattered. I slowly dragged myself out of the dirt. Through my hyperventilating I wheezed, “You’re right. He is a fascist.” It was an like evil revelation. It can’t be true. But it is. Oh, sick new world, that has such people in it! Robert Dowdy, ’88 Peeking at the mysterious secret EDITOR: Brian Frederick’s Tuesday article on human rights, or rather the lack thereof, contains an unsupported and perhaps unsupportable tenet in its log ical framework and a very serious inconsistency which makes one wonder if either he or his mysterious “visitor” has thought out this viewpoint. The one elucidating point that he did make is that from a naturalistic point of view (i.e. one without a belief in the supernatural which Mr. Freder ick refers to as “religious mythology”) moral absolutes are indefensible. This is the price one must pay in order to hold to a naturalist’s view of the world. Now the problems. Brian’s “visitor” states that none of the professors or intellectuals in good standing believe in this “religious mythology.” This is simply not true. I know of several professors and intelletuals who do believe. The visitor goes on to say that belief in the supernatural has been displaced by science. Has it? I’ve met many people who claim that it has, but none of them were actually able to produce this definite proof. Could it be that the existence of such a proof is the real “myth?” A “myth” that people throw into discussions as a given, hoping that no one will call their bluff? Summing up life as a power struggle where “the only human imperative is survival” and only the strong survive, the nameless visitor claims to have confronted Mr. Frederick because he “wanted to free (Mr. Frederick) from the pious nonsense” taught by the professors and society. Mr. Frederick, pre sumably, passes this same information on to us for the same reasons. But why would either of them want to do that? Do they feel they “ought” to enlighten the masses or that it would be a “good” thing to do? “Ought” implies respon- sibity and “good” implies a value judgement, i.e. a moral. But these are both destroyed by the same reasoning which they used to destroy the concept of human rights! If Mr. Frederick and his visitor truly lived by the ideology they espouse, they would see that enlightning the masses is the last thing they would want to do. If they are the only ones who “really” know how the world works, they would have a distinct advantage in the fight for survival. By let ting us in on their secret they only make the competition tougher and hence their own chances of survival less certain. Maybe they just told us these things out of a sense of fair play — a sense that maybe, just maybe, we might all have an inalienable human right to a fair chance! Myles Rippenhagen ’86 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 incliule the classification, address and telephone number of the writer. The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Sue Krenek, Editor Daniel A. LaBry, Managing Editor Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor Amy Couvillon, City Editor Robbyn L. Lister and Becky Weisenfels, News Editors Loyd Brumfield, Sports Editor Sam B. Myers, Photo Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspa per operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily rep resent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, fac- ultyor the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves 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 Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 230 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col lege Station TX 77843-4 111. danian population. The West Bank has become an im portant strategic element to Israel. With a border less than 20 miles from Tel Aviv, the West Bank serves as a buffer from possible Jordanian or Syrian at tacks. The West Bank is a training ground for Israel’s armed forces. Thus, the Israelis are reluctant to give the Pal estinians complete autonomy. For years, Israel has tried to keep the issue of Palestinian autonomy on the back burner. However, they have on oc- cassion paid lip service to the United States. The Camp David Agreements signed by Israel and Egypt in 1978 that were designed to provide limited auton omy for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank turned out to be a failure. Most of the Palestinian politicians and leaders who were supposed to run the local gov ernment in the occupied territories in accordance with the treaty refused to cooperate with the Israelis and were re placed by Israeli officers. In recent months, Israel has systema tically jailed or silenced most Palestinian leaders, making it difficult for any sort of negotiation process. Last week. Secre tary of State George Shultz was in the Middle East to rally support for a peace plan but received a negative response from Israel’s Prime Minister Shamir. If the United States is really con cerned about promoting a peace agreement between the Israelis and Pal estinians, then we should use more con crete measures to encourage the Israeli government to work on a peace plan. The United States should consider with holding some of the billions of dollars in foreign aid we give to the Israelis an nually until they make a decent effort to formulate a working peace plan. Also, any foreign aid should be granted con tingent upon Israel’s human rights re cord. Such an idea is not new. In the Carter Administration, a bill was signed into law that makes U.S. foreign aid revoka- ble if the receiving nation is a major vio lator of human rights. Since December, Israeli soldiers have killed nearly 6' estinians and wounded hundreds! Their human rights record is beginiJ to look a little bit likeEl Salvador’s How ironic it is that the Israeli] pie, some of whom had fled persecute from Nazi Germany, have becomen pressors. A recent poll published bi Tel Aviv newspaper indicates thaii percent of the Israeli public favors ther the current polo \ "I dealings out of the Palestinians or a more stringentor- ,* n H Choya i If Israel truly desires peace in their ritories, it first must respect the hunii rights of Palestinians. A peace plan ita has any hope of Palestinian approu will require Israel to extend itself strait gically. If a plan isn’t adopted soon,l rael may be exposed to an even greai risk from its hostile Arab neighbors. John MacDougall is a graduate stuk in the MBA program and a column:, for The Battalion. Ron the Re] County on Tue No D the No\ With Milk power duty s books open tf Milk term ii mum s< officer Milk force m has wo] ics offk Wall is a serj relatioi He 1 H ment e: Wall said hi about | filed to “Dot I! incurnf leaders can be< platfon ing.” Walli more si munity, | Aggies. Chri; College try to g< lican pa Walli route” i “I ar It’s time to escalate the war on drugs Nancy Reagan spoke an obvious but valuable truth the other day. Ad dressing the White House Confer ence for a Drug Free America, she said: “We must be ab solutely unyield ing and inflexible in our oppostion Donald Kaul to drug use. There is no middle ground. We must be as adamant about the casual user as we are about the addict. ... I’m saying that if you ’re a casual drug user, you are an accomplice to murder.” She went on to list some of the more notorious instances of drug-related vio lence here and in Central and South America where entire countries are run by drug cartels. “And . . . the people who casually use cocaine are responsible because their money bought those bullets,” she said. “They provided the stakes that mur dered those men plus hundreds of oth ers in Colombia, including supreme court justices, 21 judges handling drug cases and scores of policemen and sol diers.” True, true, true; I agree with all of it. If nice people stopped using drugs the crime and violence in this country would fall to a whisper, more or less. One of the best things about the Rea gan administration has been Mrs. Rea gan’s anti-drug campaign. She has thrown herself into it wholeheartedly and has helped raises the public’s aware ness of the evils of drugs. Surveys show that the use of cocaine by high school students dropped for the first time last year. I think she had something to do with that. Mrs. Reagan’s husband is something else again. At the same conference at which his wife took out after drug users, the president declared that the war on drugs was “an untold success story. The tide of battle has turned and we re be ginning to win the crusade for a drug- free America.” Wrong, wrong, wrong; another ex ample of the president’s invincible igno rance. Fact: In 1982 an estimated 31 metric tons of cocaine was brought here from Mexico. In 1985, it was 72 metric tons. Those are White House figures. Fact: Last year coca production for cocaine went up 10 percent in the top producting countries — Bolivia, Colom bia and Peru — while the worldwide marijuana crop jumped 26 percent and the opium crop 18 percent. Those are State Department figures. Fact: The number of teen-aged and adult cocaine users in this country in creased 38 percent between 1982 and 1985, from 4.2 million to 5.8 million. During roughly that same period, co caine-related deaths rose 124 percent. Those are congressional figures. That’s winning the war? God help us if we ever lose it. We’ve seen some gains in slowing the rising epidemic of drug use among the young of the middle class, almost none in stopping drugs from coming into the country. We’ve spent $16.5 billion on drug interdiction during the Reagan years and use is up, prices are down and the drugs are of purer quality. Why? Be cause the money has been spent, like most expenditures in the Reagan ad ministration, without a coherent policy. More than half of the U.S. Coast Guard’s drug fleet is now idled because it lacks $60 million tied up in a budget squabble between the administration anti Congress. Eight Navy frigateshea' ily involved in drug interdiction a| scheduled for budget-related moth-bl ling. Promised partol planes have nl been delivered. Is this what Mr. Read means when he says he’s for smallfl government? More drugs? In a sense, it is. There is no way« fight the drug war on the cheap. II amazing thing is that we’ve managed# do as well as we have with kids, consi(||| ering our piddling effort. You wall television and the soft drink ads cor*! on and people are smiling and dancing and having a good time and it mala you want a soft drink. A car ad comesoi and this beautiful car is hurtling over mountain road and everybody is gw geous and you want to buy a car. The' an anti-drug ad comes on with anal’: lete telling you to “Just say No” andy® | want to go to the bathroom. We have to turn Madison AveniT loose on drugs and let it come up will 1 ads as remarkable as those they use# convince us that soft drinks are thest cret of eternal youth. Then we have# | ram those ads down the throat off 1 | public, endlessly. That’s the Americaf way. We also have to get serious, reallys#! rious, about waging war on countri® who produce our drugs. The real told story of the Reagan administrate is that we’re losing Central America,® to communism but to drugs. We have win it back. As Congressman Charles Ranglf New York said: “It’s tragic for anyone to believe^ we are winning this battle against drf when we haven’t fired the first shot. If we didn’t have Nancy Reagan? 1 wouldn’t have anything.” Why doesn’t the president knowtha# Copyright 1987, Tribune Media Services, fo c BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Breathe* Tfre mou uoly affair ffoan -me may mess mme alwayj PO-IM/TH OPlSd (N me VICINITY... 90 you eeueve 5PACB AUFNO eVBK KtPNAF people with FOWeRFUL TRACTVF BBACAS T ", & te> afh SEC