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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 1995)
man incur ^ere lib, c , tlcu Ub 'rfgetwhii, he bill, i,,. wh ° con,. m en ougk ] - 5 billion "ore than ’struction Pen lagon, Atlanta re before me dead- gh s Thursday September 7, 1995 ^The Battalion Opinion History in danger of repeating itself in Bosnia L ast Wednesday’s NATO airstrikes against the Bosnian Serb positions surround ing Sarajevo were long over due. The air strikes were in retaliation for the deaths of 37 civilians in an artillery strike on the city last week. It’s about time we sank our teeth into the Serbs. They are disgusting. Real “sol diers” don’t shell innocent civilians the way the Serbs do? Real soldiers don’t use artillery on civilians. In the military, artillery is known as the “King of Battle.” It’s one of the most destructive forces of war. It rips people in two and turns children into a red mist. And that’s what the Serbs are doing whenever the media reports that Saraje vo “received more shelling today.” I don’t understand their ruthlessness. But I guess that’s what they must do when they’re in the middle of “ethnic cleansing,” huh? Oh sure, I understand now. They have to take that big artillery broom and sweep those lower life forms, like the Bosnian Muslims and Croats, out of the house. It doesn’t matter if the Muslims and Croats make up over 80 percent of the population. Forget about ‘em. If the goal is a “Greater Serbia” (that’s what the Serbs call it) then hey, they got ta do a little exterminating. And exterminating is exactly what the Serbs are trying to do. The shelling of Sarajevo is only one atrocity of their “ethnic cleansing.” A 1993 United Nations human rights report stated “the Serbs have unleashed* a campaign of cruelty, brutality, and killing unrivaled since the Nazi atrocities of World War II.” The report also states the Serbs have raped scores of Muslim women in an ef fort to further their ethnic goals. And now, CNN has reported satellite photos showing the locations of what could be mass graves similar to those in World War II. Unbelievable. It seems that whenever we think we’ve learned from history and that eth nic cleansing and mass genocide are all part of the past, history turns right around and bites us in the ass. Now, once again, we are faced with un speakable crimes against humanity. Some people be lieve that we should look the other way — but I think we should do something. The 100 NATO warplanes that bombed the Serbs were a good start. It got the Serbs’ at tention, and the word is, airstrikes like this one might bring the Serbs to the peace table. If it doesn’t, then maybe the United Nations should lift the 1991 arms embar go imposed on the former republic of Yu goslavia when hostilities broke out. This would give the Croats and Mus lims better weapons and a decent chance to defend themselves. But even in the face of airstrikes and the possible lifting of the embargo, Ser bian Gen. Ratko Mladic has remained de fiant and apathetic to peace talks. Regardless of what Mladic does, the world is aware of the atrocities being committed and will not just sit back and do nothing. That hap pened once. And now we have an image of a little girl, fully con scious, strapped to a table so a Nazi doc tor could break her legs to study the ef fects of patient trauma. The screams of that little girl and all the holocaust victims of World War II will haunt generations forever. Let’s not add to that thunder by let ting these atrocities continue in Bosnia. When the wars are over, we don’t want to discover another scream like the one I imagine from that young girl. But it may be too late. That’s why we have to act. If the Serbs don’t get the message with the airstrikes then we should take further action. We need to send a message that is powerful enough to prevent these atrocities from occurring ever again. It can be done. It has to be done. If the Serbs insist on killing inno cent people in the name of ethnic cleansing, then they must be prepared for the consequences. Forget about airstrikes and UN peacekeepers, I know a couple of Ma rine artillery regiments that could show the Serbs the true meaning of the “King of Battle.” Don’t believe me? Just ask the Iraqi’s. Adam Hill is a junior history major d mes- ild you Clinton slides once more y each al bad, lot get nd be- espon- leeds? g the ip. It over move nship o. It re- ■ents and ffect your dent e to can call T he British have a way with English -Iguess it has something to do with the fact that the language origi nated from them. The latest offering of new vocabulary comes from The Economist, a pop ular British newsmagazine. “Clindecision: A political deci sion or appointment, not neces sarily the right one, which is put off until, and often beyond, the fi nal moment it can be made, the delaying of which can cause dam age to the decider, the appointee and the country.” Yep, our president has a real ray with policy decisions. I like to call the evolution of a Resident Clinton policy “the poli tics of mudsliding.” Mudslides, in the immortal words of ESPN’s Dan Patrick, can’t be stopped, they can only be contained.” In other words, events carry the Clin- 1 ton team down the side of the mountain, and | when he finally gets to | the bottom, President Clinton’s spin doctors all cry out, “See, we told you the president knew the way down I the hill.” * Bosnia is only the latest example of mud slide leadership. After experiencing about 42 different American policy shifts, the Serbs weren’t totally con vinced the United States meant business when President Clinton declared, “Stop, or else.” For some reason, American policy declarations held no credi bility for the Bosnian Serbs. It’s similar to my professor who said in all solemnity, “The test material will come only from your text,” has complete credibili ty in my eyes. (For you freshman: if your pro- essor said this last week, look in ’ n i:r student handbook under “Q- L >s” for instructions on what to do ..ext.) Now NATO fliers are blast ing Serb-held positions throughout Bosnia in an at tempt to prove that, gosh, we really mean it this time. Finally, a clue seems to be on the horizon for the Bosnian Serbs ... and it’s being piloted by some of America’s finest men. Soon, the Bosnian Serbs will meet the American and NATO demands, and the bombings will stop. Then the chorus from the White House press room will begin, “Didn’t the President do a wonderful job on this one?” My answer: “No, mudslides are pretty much an issue of gravity.” First, a little i esponsible leadership a couple of vears back may have circun mted the need to put Amerb ser vicemen’s lives on the mi*. an area where we have no strategic interest. Second, the wrong les son is inevitably going to be learned from Bosnia. Politicians with no proper understanding of the military’s role — read: the present occu pants of 1600 Pennsyl vania Ave. — will prob ably decide that this “limited warfare” thing is pretty neat. Send in a few planes. Knock out a few tanks. Quick and painless ... and watch the opinion polls soar. However, “limited warfare” is a contradiction in terms. The way to conduct warfare should be more like Gen. Colin Powell’s Gulf War strategy of overwhelming force, i.e. “How many do we need?” President Clinton’s Bosnia (and Somalia) strategy of “How few can we get away with?” is a sure-fire way to ride the mud slide into unnecessary involve ments — and losses. This mess reminds me of the 1992 presidential campaign when candidate Clinton de clared his unwavering support Clinton Debate over Priest continues As a Catholic and former stu dent of A&M, I find the decision to show the film Priest to be one ] not of maliciousness, but one of ignorance. To show any film that offends ] any group recognized on campus is clearly not consistent with Uni- I versity policy. In University Reg- j ulations it states, “submitting a I student or other person to indig nity or humiliation (including derogatory references to subgroup 1 classification or stereotype) re- { gardless of the intent is prohibit ed conduct.” This film was created to be anti-Catholic. It’s maker is openly anti-Catholic and admits the films purpose was to promote anti-Catholicism. The movie por trays Catholics, especially priests, as hypocrites and directly attacks our faith. The Battalion’s Editorial Board argues that the film is a le gitimate debate. This is untrue. A debate has two sides and two arguments. No person with an open mind to fair ness and religion can say this film has merit. It’s purpose was to offend Catholics. It has accomplished it’s goal and for that reason, it for Haitian refugees and his contempt for the present policy. A few months later, FYesi- dent-elect Clinton was shocked to learn that Haiti’s beaches were filled with boats under construction. So when he took office, Clinton ordered all Hait ian boat people detained and then sent to processing centers. And finally, Clinton reverted to the very policy he blasted in the first place. Clindecision: A political decision which is put off until the final mo ment it can be made. Then the press secretary point ed and said, “Look. We fixed the Haitian refugee problem.” No, you mean gravity once again brought us to the bottom of the mountain. Unfortunately, half the moun tain came down with the mud slide, and, once again, American lives were put on the line because of the irresponsible leadership of the Clinton administration. Domestic mudslides can hap pen too. Back when Clinton was in augurated in 1992, the presi dent tried to ram through a “stimulus” package to “jump start” the American economy. For some unknown reason, the Republican leadership didn’t feel like expanding the federal deficit by $16-odd billion to fix some thing that really wasn’t broken. So, the Republicans filibus tered in the Senate and the package went down. ' Next thing you know, the economy takes a turn for the better for some strange reason. Sure enough, the president’s press people saturated the me dia, bragging, “Hey, look what we did.” Yep, you landed at the bot tom of the mountain in a big pile of mud. I wonder if the British have a word for mudslides? David Taylor is a senior management major should not be shown at a Univer sity such as A&M, that prides it self on being sensitive to diversi ty and pluralism. Marcel LeJeune Former Student • Though I have yet to see Priest, I plan to do so Friday night at the MSC. A Catholic student said, “It (Priest) directly and viciously at tacks the faith that I hold.” Faith should be something that comes from within. If a belief is truly held, “attacks” from the outside should only make one’s faith stronger. In the past few years, the Catholic Church has been its own worst enemy with numerous cas es of sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests. The Catholic Church should put more effort in helping its con gregation and building faith rather than boycotting movies with fictional depictions of Catholic clergymen. Angie Perryman Class of ’95 Caring for our tired, poor Excuses for not getting involved in Bosnia hypocritical T he haunting images won’t go away. Bosnia won’t go away. War won’t go away. We read about NATO air strikes, about negotiations. We see photographs of inno cent people who are victims. We see the bloodshed and the mayhem, and we don’t know what to do. How much responsibility does our country have in this war-torn area of the world? What should we commit to send? How much burden should we bear? We ask ourselves these questions about many conflicts around the globe: Somalia, Haiti, Kuwait and Panama, to name a few. The decision on whether or not to get involved is one that Americans feel strongly about, with good reason. But we see the gross violation of hu man rights taking place and it makes us wonder. No easy answers, that’s for sure, but many of us manage to find one answer to hide behind. We tell ourselves that our focus should be on citizens of our own country, not of Bosnia, Serbia or Croatia. Yeah, that’s right — we need to take care of America first! Unfurl the flags, start up the band. We tell ourselves that we can’t possibly be ex pected to take care of the rest of the world because our country has a lot of problems to solve first. We say that we’re too busy with our own peo ple to police the world. We have to pay attention to the gross viola tions of human rights with the home field advan tage. (Read: in our own country). We remind ourselves that our resources are lim ited. We can only help X number of human beings so we probably ought to focus on Americans. Being busy solving our own country’s prob lems is a good reason not to get involved in for eign entanglements. There’s no guilt when we think of it this way. It’s really the only excuse and it’s a good one. So, on to the next question. Just how well are we doing in our own country? That’s where we run into just a couple of prob lems. All of that talk about helping our own peo ple first and putting America back on her feet seems to be just another bit of what we could call the rhetoric of hypocrisy. We say one thing but intend to do another When you hear people babbling about “helping America first!” before getting involved in places like Bosnia, you can be pretty sure that nothing will come of it once push comes to shove. Things will just go back to the way they usu ally are, and we are left with that doggone ques tion: Are human beings really our top priority? For example, after the bombing in Oklahoma City, a bill was put together in order to provide federal relief to the victims of that tragedy. It made it through the House and the Sen ate with nary a problem. After all, who doesn’t want to help the victims in Oklahoma? No one, that’s who. The little stinger was that they decided to finance the relief by cutting the heating sub sidies to people in cold-weather states, such as Minnesota and Illinois. What they must have forgotten is that people on welfare are barely able to pay their heating bills as it is. Cutting subsidies means that heat will be turned off. Cutting heat in cold places means that people could die. People dying means we are not All that talk about helping our own people first seems to be just anoth er bit of what we could call the rhetoric of hypocrisy. We say one thing but intend to do another. really taking care of our own. Senators Paul Wellstone, D-MN, and Carol Mosely-Braun, D-IL, being from cold states and in the know, voted against the bill. This move, if you can believe it, made them very unpopular. Some even called them unpatri otic and worse, just because they couldn’t, in good faith, allow people to freeze to death. Why should their votes make them the Capitol Hill pariahs? In a country that really cared about its citizens, those votes would gamer more respect. Of course, no one should have to vote against aid to the victims in Oklahoma City. There’s the problem, in a proverbial nutshell — the lawmak ers, and the constituents they represent, are pit ting humans against humans. The better question is, why should relief mon ey have to come out of welfare funding, instead of, say defense funds? Or federal aid to the Uni versity of Texas? We shouldn’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Both Peter and Paul are entitled to a roof over their heads and heat during the wintertime. We ought to rob Mr. Military-Industrial Complex to pay for both Peter and Paul, and Mary too. Do we mean it when we say it’s better to take care of our own? If we’re going to hide behind those words we oughta mean them. And if we mean them then we better get serious about such problems ■as homelessness, poverty, education, to name a few. Otherwise we must admit to ourselves the truth: human life and dignity are not our top pri orities. We aren’t really concerned about people after all, we’re just kidding ourselves. Erin Hill is a graduate pursuing a teaching certificate Kyle Field policy angers parents My husband and I have experi enced frustration with A&M be fore, but what we experienced this weekend at the LSU vs. A&M football game takes the cake. We really wanted to attend the game, so when we were unsuc cessful in finding a baby sitter for our 12-month-old son, we decided to take him with us to the game. When we arrived at the gate, we found out that we had to pay S25 for a ticket for our 1-year-old son to go into the game. The 12th Man Foundation feels that they need to get money for every single head that enters the stadium, whether they take up a seat or not. It is bad enough that the stu dent price for a season pass is more than it costs for tickets to all the home games, but it’s ridicu lous that they also feel that a baby must purchase a S25 guest ticket because, of course, he does n’t have a student ID. $25 for a 12-month-old is ludi crous. We had no problem taking our son to A&M baseball games in the spring. They never charged us a single penny to bring our son into the game. Isn’t it ironic that students with young children who want to be a part of the 12th Man are not able to do it because of the 12th Man Foundation? Misti and Scot Mathews Class of ’95 NBA cuts will help shrink government After reading H.L. Baxter’s column last Thursday, I felt his case required thorough analysis. Baxter espouses the cultural collectivist political line that all of us (especially my “white,” “male,” “heterosexual,” “Christ ian” brethren are rather mis guided and incapable of treating others with respect, so the state must intervene with its faultless wisdom (usually tax dollars) and stop our tyranny. However, Baxter does actual ly express some individualistic libertarian ideas by asserting that “We are all individuals first, Americans second.” It seems as though Baxter should embrace more of the rel atively new concept of individu alism which holds that individ uals and groups of a country can voluntarily interact and do what they please to preserve a certain culture. There is no doubt that the less government there is, cou pled with fair laws, the safer that all people are in our society. Nothing is more tyrannical than the expansion of the state. Instead of denouncing the closing of the National Endow ments for the Arts, and also for the humanities, Baxter should be leading the cheers, since his goals will be out of the reach of politicians with different agen das than his own. Matt M. Murphy Class of’96 •* ;<* pi. A'" Jjr > *