# 0 OPINION Page 4 Friday, March 13, 1981 The Michigan Daly u r fTu ort or ur e importan tfor . S. el The Reagan administration's proposal to in- crease military and economic assistance to Turkey from $450 million to $800 million could not have been made at a more appropriate time. As General Kenan Evren and his progressive military government strive to unite a country stricken in the last decade by political terrorism and economic ruin, Turkey turns to its strongest ally to rescue it from the throes of what some analysts call imminent disaster. Before the military assumed control of the government from the Justice Party last Sep- tember and abolished all political organizations, Turkey was teetering toward anarchy. Unemployment had reached 22 per- cent, even though more than one million Turks were working in foreign countries. Inflation stood at 70 percent. Urban areas, particularly Istanbul and Ankara, were growing at a rapid rate, and social programs proved inadequate in meeting the new demands. ECONOMIC FRUSTRATION, in turn. resulted in turmoil. During a four-year period beginning in 1976, some 5,500 persons were vic- tims of political violence - more fatalities than in the 1923 Turkish civil war. No one could curb the terrorism. Civilian government was ac- curately perceived as inept. It was a textbook case of economic develop- ment failing to keep pace with political development. The threat of outright civil war - an occurrence almost unthinkable in a NATO country - was real. The situation was made to order for the Soviet Union or its surrogates, who would have filled the Turkish power vacuum by mobilizing and strengthening leftist elements. The leftists would have found a temporary. partner in the Salvation Party, a loosely-knit group of religious zealots who demand an im- mediate withdrawal from NATO and severan- ce of Western ties. If the military had not grab- bed control, chaos would have continued to prevail and the West might have lost one of its most important allies. PRESIDENT REAGAN is not likely to pressure the military leaders to restore civilian rule. What is most needed, from an American defense position, is a strong Turkey; strength and stability go hand in hand. The Reagan ad- ministration believes the United States can en- courage the political stability of Turkey through increased economic and military aid. One can only hope that the president is correct. It is encouraging that the new president has given high priority to the strengthening of Turkey. What American congressmen often failed to consider in the mid-1970's is that disaster for that sprawling Middle Eastern nation of 44 million spells trouble for the United States in the region. Turkey's exposed position on NATO's southeastern flank has always been a cause of concern to political and military strategists in the West - never more than when the Middle East is in its current state of ferment.' Turkey provides the United States with four By Scott Lewis military bases and several monitoring posts. One base, Incirlik, is located on the Mediterranean Sea just 60 miles from the Syrian border and could conceivably be of great value in the event of a major Middle East war. Turkey, for its part, realizes its vulnerability to external threats, particularly from the Soviet Union, and has historically sought protection from the West. IN AN ERA of perpetual political change, Turkey has retained a function it was expected to serve under the Truman Doctrine: a deterrent to Soviet ambition and aggression. Its standing a'rmy of 460,000 ranks second in size (to the United States) among the 15 mem- bers of NATO. Its very location - south of the Black Sea, between the U.S.S.R. and Syria - precludes the Soviets from sending huge num- bers of troops to join their Arab allies in a joint ground attack against Israel or moderate Arab states. Unfortunately, the United States has not always given Ankara the support it needs so desperately. In 1975, five months after the Turkish-Greek battle over Cyprus had ended, Congress voted to suspend arms and equip- ment to Turkey. While the three-year embargo did not come close to rupturing bilateral realtions (as some Turks would lead us to believe), it did put serious .strains on a very special friendship, a relationship that has been mutually rewarding to both countries and of inestimable value to the NATO alliance. TURKS HASTEN TO point out that the em- bargo was not the first time Americans had betrayed their staunch supporter. In 1964, during another confrontation with the Greeks over Cyprus, President Johnson ordered the removal of U.S.-made Jupiter missiles pointed at the Soviet Union. Johnson underestimated the magnitude with which Turks perceive the Soviet threat, just as some members of Congress did not take into account Turkey's vital role in America's Mid- dle East security scheme when they supported the embargo. The shabby treatment strikes one as per- plexing and contrary to U.S. interests. Turkey, devoted to Western ideals and, until fairly recently, an unquestioning ally of Washington, has been treated with suspicion and distrust. A Moslem country that has long followed a secular path, Turkey has gone against its natural xenophobic inclinations to welcome a large Western presence. One Turkish scholar has remarked that "We (Turks) have wanted to be part of the West more than you wanted to accept us. "WE FOUGHT alongside you in Korea. We didn't question your foreign policy - not in Israel, not even in Southeast Asia. For 58 years we have wanted to show you that an Islamic state can become a model of modern democracy, that we belong with you." An aide to the Turkish ambassador in Washington recently described his country's relationship with the United States as being a "hostage of detente. Whenever your relations with the Soviet Union are relatively good, you're not as concerned about us," he said with more than a trace of bitterness. "Take the embargo, for instance. At that time detente was moving along very well. Now, when detente is not progressing as smoothly, the United States is saying how valued a friend we are. Turkey is very appreciative of the assistance the United States gives us, but we .don't want to be valued the same way as a piece of real estate." TURKEY'S VALUE IN Washington is very high these days. So long as the military gover- nment succeeds , in its attempt to restore economic and civil order - and hopefully lays the groundwork for an efficient, stable political system - Turkey will remain one of America's most important and dependable allies. If the new Turkish government fails, however, the consequences for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East could be enormous. Scott Lewis, a Daily sports writer, is an - LSA senior majoring in communication and political science. He recently visited the State Department and the Turkish Er'- bassy in Washington. ---------- Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCI, No. 131 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board 0 Reagan's step backward N HIS first month and a half in office, President Reagan has redirected American foreign policy - ;ke many domestic policies - back in tme- For all a administration's rhetoric about new directions"' in foreign policy, most of the real changes have taken the form of a reversal of recent progress. This reversal can be. seen perhaps most clearly in the new State Depar- tment's abandonment of human rights as a serious consideration in foreign policy-making. For all the failures of the Carter ad- ministration, under its leadership the United States took the first significant steps toward a truly workable foreign policy that is both comparable with our national interests and our democratic ideology. Instead of building on this new foundation of human rights, Reagan has abandoned this concern for basic human rights. Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander Haig will approach world affairs much as did Theodore Roosevelt. The America Reagan en- visions is one of 70 years ago, when the Great White Fleet sailed the Pacific and the U.S. Marines "stabilized" Latin American insurgencies. Reagan's foreign policy, as promulgated by Haig, is all too reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy and "Manifest Destiny." One of the basic tenets of the Reagan policy is that violations of human rights should not stand in the way of military alliances. That is, if a regime, however unpopular or repressive, is anti-Communist, it deserves the sup- port of the United States. In the short term, this approach might work ,- if the promotion of American influence in other countries is the only goal of U.S. foreign policy. But, this approach cannot work in the long run, and the goals of our foreign policy must be much broader. The United States has experimented with Reagan's short-sighted approach in the past and it has not worked. The United States succeeded only in alienating most of its neighbors and much of the world. In Cuba, U.S. support of the repressive and unpopular regime culminated in violent revolution in 1959, that ousted American influence entirely from the island. In Iran, U.S. support of the hated Shah had even more devastating results for American interests. The Carter State -Department, although it never promoted human rights consistently, did at least begin to make inroads in traditionally anti- American areas through its insistence on human rights. The United States pressured the release of more than 1000 political prisoners in Paraguay, thus helping to stabilize that country. It also began to dismantle America's negative image in Chile, Nicaragua, and among black South Africans. But, in addition to the pragmatic reasons for defending human rights, there are clear idealistic reasons. The United States should use its influence abroad to promote human rights, not merely because it protects America's long term interests, but also because it is right. The United States was founded on this principle, and it has the respon- sibility to defend it not only at home but around the world. Higgins AF6[ANISTAN WILL BE RUSSIA'S VIETNAM. ---- A7 r 1,) ~4 ''\- I,' rr' - P),/ EiL SALVADOR ANMRICA's WILL~ 2E A'GHAI 1mill-, f1 - I .% ..r ' ! -, ' " Cif r+ 'I tNts1AN. . M k .. I ' 'I ' rti ., -:>: : . -.,, .. V / V ' l Z A 'Mora it A couple of years ago a friend of mine visited a local sex therapist for treatment of a malady - clinicians delicately diagnose as "coital dysfunction." The therapist, a disciple of the Masters-Johnson methodology and a practitioner of some national repute himself, informed my friend that if he would bring his girl friend in with him, the doctor would be glad to initiate his program of curative techniques. When my freind replied that he had no current girl friend - that indeed his state of y' blocks therapy Coming Apart By Christopher Potter far beyond medicine into the realm of religious and moral transgressions; if God doesn't license indiscriminate sex, they say, then our nation shouldn't license "medical whorehouses." IT SEEMS THAT some things are simply not done. No matter that surrogate therapy, if strictly applied and monitored, can be enormously beneficial in its healing effects, that the person with sexual hangups usually requires above all a safe, controlled environ- ment where he or she can relax secure from ridicule or moral condemnation; that as human beings, each of us has the right - in- deed, the moral imperative - to elevate one's own suffering, to learn to enjoy what pleasures exist within our brains and physiologies. Sadly, the professional sermonizers and self-flagellators will never see things that way. Man was born to suffer, they intone, and we must bear our agonies gratefully and un- complainingly. It seems unlikely the surrogate concept, however clinically and theraputically applied, will ever lose its im- plied traint of liscentiousness, of sex-for-sale. Surrogates remain as damned as the ritual bleeding of patients was. once blessed; the likelihood of liberalization never seemed bleaker - not in 1981 with Moral Majority drooling for new victims. Our new puritan autocrats would be delighted if all sex therapy was outlawed - hell, they'd abolish sex itself if they could figure out a method. SEX SHOULD NEVER - ever - grow into a life and death matter for anyone. Yet we get innumerable cases of human beings driven into a suicidal corner of guilt and self-loathing by a society which has lost all perspective of magazines to TV, every level of our mass media pounds home the same tyrannical message: If you're not out there ballin' chicks, there's something wrong with you, fella. The stud mythology carries over to our fic- tion writing. When an author conjures a character who is impotent, frigid or other- wise 'hung up, he paints the poor soul's malady in the most horrific tones of deep, dark secrecy - more hideous than leprosy, worse than original sin. To dream of cure is a foolish fancy; better to take a gun and end things swiftly. Lurking behind all the requisite infamy is the subliminal, quasi-moralistic intimatior that the tortured sufferer is getting exactly the punishment he or she deserves. MILLIONS ACCEPT this cruel, loonev premise. The victim isn't sick, he's merely damned. Such are the. romantic perils of ob- session. Viewed objectively (is this possible anymore?), sex is simply one element out of the infintisimal network which comprises the human mind and body - a wondrous, uniquely pleasurable element, yet still just one among millions. Perhaps it's an element which behooves us to become Skinnerians, to level down sex's psychic disproportions to a universally rational common denominator. Life might-be less beautiful without sex's highs - yet can we continue to live with its canonical laws? Christoper Potter is a Daily staff mem- ber. His column appears every Friday. Ii impotence was itself the prime barrier to his becoming involved with anyone-the therapist shrugged, replied that he could only work with couples, and under the circum- stances could offer no assistance whatsoever. Thus the would-be patient was caught in his own interlocking Catch-22: If he wanted help in combating his malady, he first had to eradicate its resultant social offshoot-which could be eradicated only if he could first ob- tain the help. THIS DEAD-END paradox wasn't the fault of the doctor. The formidable obstacles to the practice of surrogate sex therapy - which en- tails having a professional assume the sex role in lieu of regular partner - are not so mn.,medical r nsvphiatrie a they are - v T -1 //%S% /%% /%/%/, % % /%/U% % %/ T ATf A1oC1 n1&4 .a .,/'1179 IAOS VAA