4 Page 4 OPINION Thursday, January 5, 1984 The evil empire:Rea- image of the Soviet b, to, ig an 743a' t6 Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCIV-No. 78 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board A -4. Mixed succes! Y OU DON'T quarrel with suc- cess," commented Ronald Reagan concerning Jesse Jackson's recent successful attempt to negotiate the release of Lieut. Robert Goodman from the Syrians. But something which should be quarrelled with is whether any great success was in fact achieved. Goodman was released but the situation in Lebanon does not ap- pear to have been improved and none of the diplomatic parties involved are any more credible. The good guys are still few and far between. Jesse Jackson has not proven him- self to be the master diplomat or single-minded champion of freedom. His motive lies no closer or farther than next November and his campaign has certainly benefitted from this publicity stunt. In saying that "ours was a moral appeal not so much based on justice but on mercy," Jackson is ignoring the more obvious ulterior motives of the Syrians and glossing over the appeal that his partisan politicking has for them. Syrian President Assad, in allowing Good- man's release, is not responding to moral callings but instead to potential diplomatic advantage. Goodman's presence in Lebanon af- fords Reagan a pretext for continued involvement - something the Syrians desperately want to end. With Good- man gone it is Assad's hope that domestic pressure on Reagan will be increased for an American with- dr a1. The dealings with Jackson do not attest to Jesse's skill and influence as much as they attest to a Syrian desire to display the impotence of Cold h TWO LOCAL murders and a slightly sluggish city council added up to a cold Christmas for many of Ann Arbor's homeless. City council has been planning since September to create a shelter for the city's population of "street people." Lit- tle snags developed in an already slow moving bureacracy, and the council has continued to delay final approval for the shelter. Meanwhile, an anyone who vacationed north ofethe Florida keys knows, the temperature dropped. And dropped. And Ann Arbor's homeless had one less place to go for shelter. To further complicate things, two recent murders put the city's street people on the receiving end of some rather harsh criticism from Chief of Police William Corbett. Two street people, Robert Lee Williams and Lester Joiner Jr., were charged just before Christmas with intentionally drowning 19 year-old Brian Canter. Another in- vestigation culminated in the arrest of Machelle Yvonne Pearson for allegedly shooting Nancy Faber early in Decem- ber. Faber was shot while in her car in a Kroger parking lot, and, according to Corbett, police traced the murder weapon through a series of exchanges s for Jackson Reagan's current policies. All of this maneuvering by Assad and Jackson second-guesses Reagan and undermines his authority in the region. Mercy and morality unfor- tunately don't carry as much weight as diplomatic and political concerns. Reagan's partial political diplomatic injury does not render him worthy of much sympathy, however. He still holds most of the cards and is playing them unproductively. Following Goodman's release, Reagan called for increased efforts on both sides to try to insure stability in the region. He has done nothing to follow up this desire: no new proposals, no new efforts. He has assured the Syrians that a with- drawal is not being considered and that aerial reconnaissance missions would continue to be flown over Syrian- backed territory. It's business as usual. Reagan's tenuous policies aren't adapting to the volatile, complex conditions in the region, Assad is jockeying under the guise of humanitarianism to exacer- bate those conditions, and Jesse is working on votes. The only good guy is Goodman and he has disturbingly little to do with the whole situation - much like his Marine counterparts. Unlike the Marines, however, Goodman is no longer in Lebanon. And amid all the double-talk and diplomatic machinations, that is a notable, if in- significant success indeed. Goodman's return prompted one White House official to comment, "Everybody gets something out of this, and it doesn't cost anybody anything." Nothing except credibility. oidays among "street people" before and after the shooting. The two incidents prompted Corbett to call the street peoples' lives "a shadowy world." He appeared to connect all of Ann Arbor's homeless with the two murders. "Birds of a feather flock together," as he so eloquently put it. Whether it was intentional or other- wise, Corbett's linking of all the city's homeless with the three murder suspec- ts was unfair and irresponsible. The city's homeless are as diverse a group as any other in town. Many are just out of jobs, lacking basic skills, and uneducated. They are victims for the most part, not criminals. To imply that because of their poverty they are criminals or even associate with criminals is innacurate. The two crimes are heinous, those responsible should be punished. But we hope a public backlash to the killings doesn't punish those who are not respon- sible. But aside from the killings, council has been sputtering on the homeless shelter project. The decisions need to be made; the shelter needs to be opened. It must have been a long, cold month for many of the city's homeless. They deserve some warmer treatment. By Richard Barnet Under the Reagan ad- ministration the Soviet Union has acquired a new image. In Truman's time, Russia was seen as a dangerous, enigmatic force to be contained; in Kennedy's, a cunning adversary in a global chess game; in Kissinger's, an uneasy partner in an antagonistic collaboration called "detente." But in the Reagan era the Soviet Union is viewed as "the focus of evil in the world," a corrupt, decaying system headed for the "ash can of history." At his first press conference as president, Ronald Reagan made a point of painting his opposite members in the Kremlin as men prepared to "lie, cheat, commit any crime." The same theme has been struck again and again. The clear implication is that the Soviet Union is not an ap- propriate diplomatic partner. To deal with the Kremlin is like dealing with the Mafia. The only language they understand is the threat of force. Around the world, national leaders and professional diplomats have expressed con- cern about the Reagan rhetoric, which has given the United States the image of a nation spoiling for a fight. Reagan's pronouncements about the feasibility of fighting nuclear wars in other people's countries, and the musings of White House aides such as Richard Pipes that we just might have to go to war with the Soviets if they don't change their system, helped bring millions of protestors into the streets of Europe. The Democrats surely will make an issue of the Reagan rhetoric. The critical issue is whether President Reagan believes his own rhetoric. There is strong evidence that he does. The last American leader who talked about U.S.-Soviet relations as a holy war was John Foster Dulles. Dulles made bloodcur- dling speeches, but he was a pragmatist. He did not hesitate to sign an important agreement with Stalin's successors that permitted the mutual withdrawal of U.S. and Soviet forces from Austria. But close observers of Ronald Reagan doubt that he could bring The Michigan Daily., gans Jnion military actions against tiny countries like Grenada and Nicaragua which are presented not as independent nations but as Kremlin outposts. The evil of the Soviet system justifies acts of war in our hemisphere, in defian ce of both legal obligation and the, overwhelming sentiments of the Latin nations. In the Reagan world view, like. the old-fashioned Hollywood, r movies in which he appeared,' evil is punished and virtue rewarded. The Soviet system is on the skids because it deserves" to be. There is indeed evidence of a significant decline in Soviet.. health and education in recent years, which almost certainly is due to the cumulative effects of siphoning off so many resources to the military. But there is no evidence at all that the Soviets therefore wilt. shrink from appropriating., whatever resources are needed to match the U.S. military buildup-; and to prove that they are not .i paper tigers headed for that ash. . can. There is considerable inter,. nal dissatisfaction with many aspects of the Soviet system, but m spending whatever is needed for Z' defense has strong public sup. , port. In short, it is most unlikely thai threats and insults from the: ": Reagan administration will make the Soviets less evil. The rhetoric war between the superpowers is reaching new.,; heights as military costs - escalate. In times of economie crisis when critical domesti'' needs in both societies are unmet the case for spending scarce'-" resources on the military to carry.4 on the game of crisis, management must be made with special urgency. Roughly, speaking, a trillion-dollar military budget requires an.'- enemy twice as evil as one for which only $500 billion is to be ap- propriated. In both countries, the rhetoric creates a climate of fear aid a sense that war is inevitable. That is dangerous enough. But the greatest danger is that leaders might believe their own rhetoric and act on it. AP Photo The cold war rhetoric of past administrations has been revived by world leaders Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov. The real question, however, is do they believe their own words. And the frightening an- swer is probably, yes. himself to sign any agreement with the Soviet Union. For this president, relations with the Soviet Union can be managed only be confrontation and demon- stration of will. The only agreements possible are tacit understandings that there are lines not to be crossed. Such agreements depend on the threat of nuclear escalation. When he entered the White House, Reagan hoped to avoid negotiations altogether until his military buildup was well under way and he had demonstrated to the evil enemy that the American people, now free of the Vietnam syndrome, were totally behind him. Because of the peace movement in Europe and the freeze campaign here, he was forced to the negotiation table sooner than he wished. Now, to allay what officials call "nuclear anxiety," the Reagan administration claims that the Soviets will soon be back at the table. But there is strong eviden- ce that they will not. The key to Ronald Reagan's political success has been his gift for effective simplification of an increasingly baffling and com- plicated world. The "evil em- pire" is critical to his streamlined world view. He may well believe his own 1980 campaign rhetoric which ascribes all variety of America's troubles abroad - from the Iranian hostage-taking to conflic- ts within the NATO alliance - to the "green light" which the Car- ter administration gave the Soviets by not talking tough enough or building missiles fast enough. He has said there wouldn't be any "hot spots" in the world but for Soviet machinations, meaning that revolutions in such places as Angola, Nicaragua and El Salvador would not happen unless buttons were pushed in Moscow. This view helps build political support in the United States for Barnet wrote this for Pacific News Service. LaBan 1 WHATS THAT A GRUPROTESTING NSOTOUR INVOLVEMENT TH ERE . LEON... . . IT.f .: AT IT AGAIN E? BUN LS.2 WHO DOTHEY REPRESENT THISTIME? THE FREEZE 110VEMENT? SaI DEMOCRAT? the. , k4 19' 11 ...EPENTAGON I l ' TRY 1)p1 US. MARINES TkY 1pLOcr OiP LEUAMN1 R Afl&! - - , yj* 4m At .C eJOo f TE~cIKE~sS iTo TQhkw -W INS o O9. 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