2
Opinion
Wednesday, February 20, 1991
The Battalion
Opinion Page Editor
Jennifer Jeffus
(5WI THE RECCpP
MEW
War coverage |
Press shows public
reality, horrors of war
LIGHT at the END of the TUNNEL
Mail Call
The Battalion is interested in hearing from its readers and welcomes all letters to the editor. Mease Include name, classification, address and phone num
ber on all letters. The editor reserves the right to edit letters for style and length. Because of limited space, shorter letters have a better chance of appearing.
There is, however, no guarantee letters will appear. Letters may be brought to 216 Reed McDonald or sent to Campus Mall Stop 1111.
Fight racism where it exists
EDITOR:
This is in answer to all who feel that it is unjust that
there are a disproportionate number of blacks serving in
the Persian Gulf.
Our military currently is all volunteer; no one was
forced to join the U.S. armed services.
To those claiming they were forced to join because of
economic reasons, I say this: Our military is not a social
program.
The charges of racism against the U.S. government are
ludicrous. Instead of falsely accusing the government of
racism, fight racism where it does exist.
Otherwise, you may lose your credibility.
Although there have been very few casualties as a re
sult of these bombings, that still does not excuse Hussein's
actions.
Apparently Worsham is buying into the Iraqi propa
ganda that the baby food plant was really a baby food plant
and so on. Maybe he should consider the facts instead of
the propaganda before making such a statement.
I'm not saying that turn about is fair play, or that the
ends justifies the means.
But maybe we all should look at the facts before con
demning the United States' actions.
Adam Richards '94
Larry Odom '88
Consider facts, not propaganda
Bail out on country?
EDITOR:
This letter is in regard to a statement made in Michael
Worsham's letter in the Feb. 13 issue of The Battalion.
Worsham makes the statement that the United States
should stop its "... cruel, unprovoked and expensive
bombing of innocent citizens of Iraq."
What Worsham has neglected to consider is that Iraq
has been bombing civilians in both Israel and Saudi Arabia
almost non-stop since the beginning of the war.
EDITOR:
In response to the foresighted comments of B. Jon Tray
lor in the Feb. 4 issue of The Battalion, I would like to re-
ply:
If the American people were to sit idly by and leave the
country every time they opposed the actions of our great
yet ever confusing government, as B. Jon Traylor would
have us do, there would be only three people left.
And before long Barbara would take leave of President
Bush and Mr. Sununu.
Patrick Gendron '94
In recent weeks, we have seen a
ferocious debate concerning the role of
the media in covering the war.
For a while, CNN's Peter Arnett was
the only American journalist in
Baghdad. The fact that he continued to
film and graphically describe the
civilian damage done by allied air raids
in Baghdad provoked a strong reaction
from many quarters.
In a controversial speech. Sen. Alan
Simpson of Wyoming all but labeled
Arnett a traitor emphasizing that"... in
our times, we would have called such a
person a sympathizer." The senator
suggested that only if Arnett were
smuggling uncensored stories out of
Baghdad would he be considered a
hero. Referring to the fact that Arnett's
wife is Vietnamese, Simpson implied
that Arnett had been a Vietcong
sympathizer during the Vietnam War.
Such biting criticism of the media is
nothing new. It reflects a commonly
held belief that the press should not
report what may constitute a
propaganda victory for the enemy,
even if it directly contradicts
government claims. To these critics,
reports filed by American journalists in
Baghdad are indistinguishable from
official Iraqi communiques, and
therefore serve no useful purpose. On
the contrary, they claim, journalists are
playing right into Saddam's hands by
only selectively reporting allied
setbacks.
It is well known that Iraq censors all
reports emanating from Baghdad.
Indeed, the United States does the
same. In fact, several journalists were
recently detained for up to 12 hours
against their will by the U.S. military
for attempting to interview troops on
their own, outside the tightly
controlled press pools.
The hue and cry raised over
reporters such as Arnett is precisely
because there is indeed a large
difference between reports filed by
Western journalists and Saddam
Hussein's propaganda.
The bunker bombing is a case in
point. Imagine if not a single journalist
had been in Baghdad during the
bombing. The administration could
then doubtlessly have dismissed films
of the damage as Iraqi propaganda.
After all, Iraqi TV has shown old film
Sarang
Shidore
Columnist
clips of Basra devastated during the
Iran-Iraq war, claiming that the
damage was inflicted by allied
bombing. The fact that journalists were
there in person, and saw the chaned
bodies of women and children being
pulled out with their own eyes, made
the denial of the occurence of the
incident impossible. The presence of
journalists like Arnett, veterans of
many a conflict, lends credibility to
actual events which would otherwise
have been easy to dismiss as Saddam's
propaganda. Scenes of the bunker
bombing were not those the
administration wanted Americans to
see; far from the impersonal, aerial
bombing shots, these were close-ups oi
the horrors of war — images of people
just like you and me; images of what
war really is like.
It cannot be denied that there is a
case for the argument that reportingof
allied failures can only help Saddamm
exploiting them to his advantage. But
that is not the point. Our society
derives its real strength not fromoui
marvelous hi-tech weaponry or our
giant economic prowess. The reason
why America is one of the greatest
countries in the world is because it
allows the Peter Arnetts and the Alan
Simpsons to coexist.
It is true that the press often takes a
adversarial role with regards to the
government. However, it is equally
true that Americans have been lied to,
time and again, by practically every
administration. Vietnam, Watergate
and Iran-contra are too recent to forget
Under these circumstances, who can
blame the press for exhibiting the
skepticism it often does?
And if in its relentless search for
truth (or a story), the press does play
into the enemy's hands, then it is a
price we must pay for keeping our
society truly free — and far more
livable than Saddam's Iraq.
Sarang Shidore is a graduate student it
aerospace engineering.
Let's do something besides robbing the poor
S
ixty-six percent of Texas
citizens favor a state lottery to raise
revenues, according to a survey
conducted by The Eppstein Group in
Fort Worth. I, too, support a state
lottery ... I think.
You see, I — like a lot of others — am
concerned that the people who will buy
lottery tickets will be the poor who are
optimistic enough to believe they
might actually win a lottery, and
money they should be spending on
food and shelter will end up going
toward lottery tickets.
Yep, even though I think a state
lottery would help the economy, I
wouldn't buy a ticket myself. The odds
are so bad against me winning, I would
think it was just plain silly to spend
money on such a thing.
However, some people might really
start to believe they have more than a
snowball's chance in hell of winning
the lottery. Not everybody will realize
they're being duped into making a silly
purchase.
So, instead of trying to make money
by enticing people to buy lottery
tickets, which some people aren't
going to realize is silly. I've designed a
plan of making people who buy really
silly stuff help us take care of our
money problems.
Here's the plan: We should just tax
the hell out of things we think are
really silly, like scented erasers, dolls
that pull their pants down, fruit roll
ups, New Kids On The Block remix
albums, decorative wind socks, that
kind of thing.
It would work like this: Each voting
district would select two people to be
part of the Silly Tariff Proposal Board.
They could do this by election, by
asking for volunteers or whatever. The
only stipulation is that nobody could
do it twice (that'll keep it more
interesting).
E
ach proposal board
member will have to come up with one
thing that people buy that they think is
silly. They then submit their idea to the
board chairman, whose name was
selected out of a hat.
If two members submit the same silly
thing, the one who brought it in second
has to come up with a new idea.
A list of all the ideas would be
compiled and presented to the general
public for a vote during regular
elections. Voters then can pick up to 50
things that they think are really silly
and ought to be taxed.
The top 50 items selected would then
have an attached 25 percent state sales
tax for one year.
The taxed items, like the members of
the Silly Tariff Proposal Board, would
naturally rotate. That way, no one
industry — say, the scented eraser
industry — would feel the bite of the
taxation for more than one year.
And I dare say that the companies
producing scented erasers would
realize they deserved to be taxed.
The members of the board would
switch quickly (there would be so
many of them), and they would never
actually meet, just mail in their ideas.
This would make it quite difficult for
the scented eraser lobby from bribing
members not to propose that their
product be taxed.
To me, this plan seems to me to hit
the most deserving consumers with thf
extra financial burden to keep this state
on its feet.
I suppose it's got its flaws, but what
revenue raising plan doesn't?
The best thing about it is that it will
eliminate the guilt we're gonna feelif
we implement a lottery and get our
revenue from the poor and destitute.
And with this war going on, who
needs more guilt?
Ellen Hobbs is a senior journalism
major.
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Lisa Ann Robertson,
Editor
Kathy Cox, Managing Editor
Jennifer Jeffus,
Opinion Page Editor
Chris Vaughn, City Editor
Keith Sartin,
Richard Tijerina,
News Editors
Alan Lehmann, Sports Editor
Fredrick D. Joe, Art Director
Kristin North,
Life Style Editor
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