The Battalion
•OPINION
Tuesday, Novembers, 1990
Opinion Page Editor Ellen Hobbs
845-3314
Tuesds
How many people will die for cheaper gasoline?
It has been more than three months
since President Bush deployed troops to
the Saudi Arabian desert in response to
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and with no
diplomatic solution in sight, people who
once scoffed at the idea of war are
beginning to get nervous.
Any military action in Kuwait would
not be the usual “police action” the
American public has occasionally seen
during the past ten years — Iraq is no
Grenada and Saddam Hussein is no
Manuel Noriega. Military analysts have
estimated that Iraqi military forces are
the fifth largest in the world.
But in the event that things do take a
turn for the worst, there is no question
that the United States can emerge
victorious; but what is uncertain is what
the costs will be in American casualties.
Even more so, what are these costs
buying?
President Bush contends that the
Patrick
Nolan
Columnist
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait has nothing to
do with the American dependence on
foreign oil. He insists that what is at
issue is the “naked aggression” of one
country onto another. On recent
campaign stops for his fellow
Republicans, Bush has been tireless in
his painting of a picture where the
United States is the only nation on Earth
equipped to stop Hussein. His speeches
seem to convey the theme of “If not us,
who? If not now, when?” Bush even
went as far as to compare Saddam
Hussein to Adolf Hitler, a comparison
not well taken by the Jewish community.
Now Bush, and his right hand man
Secretary of State James Baker, are
using the example of the German
invasion of Poland in 1939. Saying that
history shows that an aggressor’s
hunger for more territory is never
sated, Bush justifies his large buildup in
the Persian Gulf.
A noble argument indeed, and one at
first glance seems to makes quite a bit of
sense. But are the American people
supposed to believe that 230,000
American troops are in the Saudi desert
merely to defend Kuwait’s monarchy?
We deserve more credit than that.
Every American who drives a car,
rides a bus, mows their lawn, shops at a
grocery store or heats their home,
knows that the sole purpose of the
American deployment in the Persian
Gulf is based entirely on the realization
Mail
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letters were written in
response to a column by Steven K. Medvic, president of
Aggie Democrats, printed on the Opinion Page Monday.
Column misrepresented Smith
EDITOR:
In yesterday’s Batt you published a half-page reader’s
opinion column from Steven K. Medvic, president of Aggie
Democrats, in which he attacked the Republican party, its
candidates and the voting traditions at Texas A&M.
Mr. Medvic misrepresented my stand on issues of im
portance to students. Let’s set the record straight. I have
been A&M’s champion in the Texas House, but don’t take
my word for it. Texas Monthly (which is not exactly conser
vative) named me one of the Ten Best Legislators, largely
due to my work for higher education. In 1987, I fought in
the Texas House to restore funding to A&M that had been
cut drastically by Mark White and the Democrats.
And let’s make it perfectly clear that I am and always
have been in support of student representation on the
Texas A&M Board of Regents.
As a result of my commitment to higher education fund
ing, I have been recognized an commended by such prom
inent members of the education community as the chairmen
of the A&M and University of Texas Boards of Regents,
former A&M presidents Frank Vandiver and Jarvis Miller
and numerous other members of the faculty and staff at
A&M.
I was also honored in 1984 to have M.T. Harrington,
Chancellor Emeritus, say, “Richard Smith is dedicated to
making Texas A&M a world-class institution. He is the can-
Call I
didate who can go to Austin and fight for our share of fund
ing. Our University isn’t just a constituency for Richard, it’s
a commitment.”
Rep. Richard Smith
Comments on Ogden inaccurate
EDITOR:
I was disgusted to see Mr. Steven Medvic’s inaccurate
and misinformed opinions given undeserved prominence in
a column on the second page of yesterday’s Battalion. Not
only did Mr. Medvic’s commentary insult the conservative
and wonderfully Republican sentiments of the majority of
Aggie students, but his column showed a clear disregard for
the facts in a race I have been closely following: the state
representative race between conservative businessman Steve
Ogden and liberal trial lawyer Jim James.
In his column Mr. Medvic asserted that Steve Ogden
does not support a student representative to the A&M
Board of Regents, which shows me that Mr. Medvic either
wasn’t listening or chose not to listen when Mr. Ogden an
nounced his support for a student representative to the
Board of Regents. Mr. Medvic, like many Democrats, tends
to only hear what he wants to hear. I can assure all Aggies
that Mr. Ogden is deeply concerned with the views and
opinions of A&M students, and his voice will echo theirs if
they send him to Austin as their state representative.
Amy Webb
Steve Ogden campaign worker
that oil is a necessity in Twentieth
century America. By taking the moral
high ground with the argument that we
are merely containing the aggressive
nature of Saddam Hussein, Bush makes
it easier to justify the potential sacrifice
of American troops.
Yet at the same time the denial of the
fact that it is the oil fields of Saudi
Arabia and not the people of Kuwait
that the United States is interested in.
Bush clouds the debate of public
opinion on whether U.S. troops should
be in jeopardy for lack of a U.S. energy
policy. If the citizens of the United
States are willing to support the
presence of U.S. troops in the Persian
Gulf based solely on the fact that they
are there to protect America’s oil
interest, then so be it. And if the United
States goes to war with Iraq let it be clear
that it is to defend the comfortable
American way of life, not the people of
Kuwait and the sovereignty of their
nation as George Bush suggests.
So the question for the president, and
the American people for that matter, is
not how many men and women we are
willing to sacrifice for the people of
Kuwait, but how many men and women
we are willing to sacrifice for the
comfort of reasonable gasoline prices.
In other words, when does a gallon of
gas cost too much for the American
people to bear? If Americans are willing
to buy the argument that an armed
conflict with Iraq is necessary to ensure
that their lifestyles aren’t cramped, fine.
But the President needs to level with the
American people so we can decide for
ourselves.
Patrick Nolan is a senior political
science major.
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Heard any good jokes lately? Here is
an idiom I enjoy: If you aren’t liberal
when you are young, you don’t have a
heart. If you aren’t conservative when
you are old, you don’t have a brain.
Though it is only a joke, I’m amazed
by the truth within it. I have always
heard that once we leave the idyllic
college life and establish careers we tend
to drop our utopian views of how the
world should function.
College students have always been
reknowned for embracing liberal
beliefs. In this respect, Texas A&M is no
different. The majority of Aggies are
liberals. Compared to t.u or the
Northeastern schools we stand farther
to the right, but in absolute terms this
student body is still liberal. The problem
is they don’t realize it.
Most Aggies are what I like to call
“latent liberals.” A latent liberal is
somebody who, due to a lack of
disciplined study of economic theory,
tends to view the world with the
idealistic and erroneous set of liberal
beliefs. In other words, ignorance is
liberal.
Ever since we were little children, we
have always wanted the world to be a
better place. As elementary school
children, we draw crayon pictures of
purple and yellow and black stick-
people all holding hands and smiling.
And we wonder why there has to be
wars. We later learn about the evils of
political power and opppresion and
rebels who fight against it.
Little children ask, why does there
have to be poverty and famine? Why
can’t we just send them food? How do
you explain to a child the adverse effects
of income support programs that
destroy families and discourage legal
work income? Or how Asian and
African despots subjugate their own
people all under the intellectual disguise
of socialism?
Until they receive formal training in
economics, most people will not
understand markets, prices, firm
behavior and macroeconomic theory.
But that doesn’t stop them from
expressing inane views on how
economics works.
This realization hit me in one of my
intro-political science classes when my
professor administered a survey to
gauge the classes political leaning. Most
of the questions dealt with markets and
the role of governments in a market
economy, not religion, sexuality,
abortion, or freedom of speech
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When the results came in, I turned
out to be the most right-wing person in
the class. Most of the other students
were nowhere near me.
That’s the problem with this campus
Everybody thinks it is conservative,
when most students are running around
with the same old hodge-podge
collection of misleading, ignorant
political views that can be found at any
campus in the United States.
What this campus needs is more
diverse and emotional political debate.
We need more extreme left-wingers
who are louder and more obnoxious.
Though I think the Students Against
Apartheid are a bunch of self-righteous
morons who promote policies that only
succeed in hurting blacks in South
Africa, we still need them on campus to
wake people up to the events in South
Africa. It makes the campus more
exciting. I mean, a campus without
protests is like an auto race without
wrecks — It’s too dull.
A more diverse student body like t.u.
would create an electric atmosphere of
heated social discourse that would wake
up all those “moderates” and force them
to actually think about the issues. And
the more they learn, the more they will
abandon their simplistic leftist opinions.
This competition from the left also
would push us right wingers to
strengthen our arguments. We would
not want to get too complacent with our
views. If anything, having more
“alternative people” would save this
campus from looking like a clone
machine that went haywire.
As it is now, our subdued campus
wallows in a perpetual state of mind-
numbing political boredom. Let’s have
some marches and sit-ins and more
poorly-built shanties with groovy peace
signs. My liberal colleagues on the
opinion page are pulling their weight,
but columns can only go so far.
So I would like to praise all those wild
and crazy left-wingers on campus. Even
if they are absiard and usually wrong, at
least they make us think.
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Andrew Matthews is a senior
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The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
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Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Cindy McMillian,
Editor
Timm Doolen, Managing Editor
Ellen Hobbs, Opinion Page Editor
Holly Becka, City Editor
Katby Cox,
Kristin North,
News Editors
Nadja Sabawala,
Sports Editor
Eric Roalson, Art Director
Lisa Ann Robertson,
Lifestyles Editor
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thor, and do not necessarily represent the
opinions of Texas A&M administrators,
faculty or the Board of Regents.
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