M- trT m I --m
Wednesday, July 8, 1992 - The Michigan Daily Summer Weekly - 5
Viewpoint
Pax n'h cana
1
1
Armenians criticize Daily Ad
To the Daily: of the truth. replicates what happened to the Ar-
I was recently informed of your menians in those years. This was not
decision related to the fullpage ad Edward Flanagan genocide? This was not a massacre?
placed by the Armenian Students' Vista, Cal. Did your business manager under-
Cultural Association of the Univer- take objective research before stat-
sity of Michigan. From my under- To the Daily: ing that the term genocide was "de-
standing,theMichiganDailyrequired Living in Oregon, I do not have batable"?The 1.5million Armenians
the Association to change their ad to immediate access to all of the facts who lost their lives "were not vic-
remove such words as "genocide" regarding the Daily's refusal to run the tims"?
and "murder." Additionally, it ap- Armenian Students' Cultural Associ- Frommy own experience, Iknow
pears the decisionto force the change ation's ad publicizing what happened that Armenians and Turks and all
did not come from the paper itself, in Turkey in 1915-6 unless the group Near-Eastemers, forrthatmatter,share
but from members of the Turkish made certain changes in its wording. many cultural characteristics. We
Students Association. Let me say at the outset that I have tend to be hot-heads, we're excit-
This entire issue angers me been happy to observe Turkey's west- able, we resort to inflammatory lan-
greatly.First,historyhasproven what ernizing influence in the Near East in guage, and, sad to say, as the Arme-
atrocities occurred against the Ar- recentyears,and Iappreciatethestaunch nian/Azerbaijani conflict shows all
menian people at the hands of the support given the US by Turkey's lead- too clearly, prone to violence. That's
Turks from 1896 to 1917. Several ers. Howevernocountry that refuses to why we make fine artists but have
cases of "murder" and "genocide" admititspasthistory willeverbeableto not yet learned how to reach mutu-
have been documented by your own hold its head high in the family of ally agreeable politicalcompromises.
government, as well as the United nations. All the great so-called "civi- The Turkish Students' Associa-
Nations. lized" countries on this earth have had tion is following the Turkish
Second, I question the integrity shameful episodes in their past. government's "politically correct"
of any paper, and its staff, that buck- In 1915, my mother's father, broth- line. The Daily has either been in-
les under the pressure of a special ers and uncles and all the menfolk in her tmidated or brain-washed. I'm sorry,
interest group. If any member of the village were taken away in the night because the Daily in my time was a
Michigan Daily bows to any group, never to be seen again. My mother at fighting student newspaper - and,
what will happen in the future when age 12, her mother, sisters, aunts, and naturally, always in hot water with
they have a controversial subject allthe other women andchildren in that the Board of Regents!
while on the staff of amajornewspa- village were told to pack what they Please tell the Turkish Students
per? could in sheets, pillow cases, etc., and Association that when they and their
I have always had great respect were herded back and forth across the government can face the truth of
for the University ofMichigan, espe- Syrian deserts for four years. their own past, they've truely grown
cially its ability to open the minds of The suffering, the atrocities and the up. And the world will forgive.
by Jesse Walker
The current buzzword to throw at
someoneone dislikesis"isolationist,"a
label I have adopted proudly. I am an
isolationist because of a deep-seeded
desire not to increase the number of
corpses in the world. I suppose that this
is a moral position, though it may be
merely an aesthetic preference.
To the perpetually chic, of course, it
is neither moral nor aesthetic, but irre-
sponsible and naive. Hence the current
spate of isolationist-bashing. America
has a responsibility to assume global
leadership, they say. Otherwise, our
new world will not be orderly.
I have suggested to interventionist
acquaintances that no such responsibil-
ity exists, that we need not take on any
such role. But that does not satisfy
them. If the US doesn't lead, they cry,
someone else will. And who would I
put in our place?
The answer, of course, is no one. No
one else could do it. Japan has no real
military. Europe can't settle its own
internal disputes, let alone the world's.
The USSR has gone the way of the
Holy Roman Empire. And who does
that leave in the global driver's seat?
Iraq? Panama? CNN?
It leaves nobody. The seat is empty.
There is no driver.
And that is what is so fearsome to
the advocates of global collective secu-
rity: the image of a driverless car spin-
ning out of control on a slick nuclear
highway. "In the absence of a world
order imposed by the west," Charles
y. Krauthammer once said, the world
at "would be chaotic, and highly danger-
st- ous. The most salient feature of the
ed international environment in the post-
re Cold War era will be the possession of
n weapons of mass destruction and the
al means to deliver them by a range of
n- countries, some of which will be un-
e- stable,aggressive,andreckless."Hence,
ed he argues, intervention is a necessity.
re Guess what, Mr. Krauthammer: It's
n- probably even worse than you think. If
he you're frightened by the thought of
ld unstable, aggressiverecklesscountries
ild getting the Bomb, just wait 'til it gets
or into private hands. Countries like Iraq
and North Koreaare bad enough, but at
in least they're located on a definite place
f, on the map. A terrorist groupcan move.
ss Theydon'thavecitizenstoworryabout.
nd They can nuke whoever they want and
al not fear retaliation. ("Retaliation" may
li- come, of course, but all the retaliatory
its students. However, I now ques- horrible deaths are too numerous for
tion the University's ability to teach this letter. Television coverage of what
journalism students the importance the Kurds were going through recently
Summer crucial for
*State Rep. elections
To the Daily:
Reporter LauraPotts' first articleon
Ann ArborpoliticsintheJune3rdDaily
("Four democrats to compete for 53rd
district seat") was a very good effort.
SheandtheDailyshouldbecommended
for covering this crucial race early in
the campaign. Unfortunately, either I
misspoke or she misunderstood me, as
*a word was wrong in one of my quotes.
The quote should have read, "Unlike
the other candidates running in the
Democratic primary, I have worked for
13 years in state government." Instead
it read, "... for 13 years in the district."
The quote in the paper was wrong.
Lyon Rivers and Mel Laracey both
have worked for many years in the
district, and Rich Birkette may have but
I do not know.
The Daily's excellent early cover-
age is important because many of your
readers will finish up their studies or
work by the end of June and leave town
for two months. Voters who will be out
of town for the August 4th primary
election should contact the City Clerk
at 994-2725 and request an absentee
ballot application. In all likelihood, the
Democrat who wins the 53rd District
primary on August4th will goon to win
n November. Thus your vote this sum-
mer will be more effective for State
Representative than in November.
Bob Alexander
Democratic candidate,
53rd District
Reader deceived by
Gelman Sciences
To the Daily:
I'd like tocommend DavidJacobson
and Pat Ryan for doing investigative
work on the Gelman Sciences toxin
piece which appeared in the June 10th
issue ("Toxins in the water"). Being
oneofthose gullible persons who signed
such apostcard when given the line that
Citizens for Cleanup wants something
done about local toxic waste, I was
outraged after reading this article. I
think Gelman has stooped to an all time
low in using deceptive tactics to trick
people who really care about the envi-
ronment into signing their postcards.
I didn't expect this sort of thing to
happenonacollegecampussuchasthis
one. But, alas, like probably hundreds
of others, I got taken advantage of be-
cause we want to believe society really
cares about the environment we live in
and birth more children into.
It's not only toxic waste that con-
taminates and makes us sick - it's
being made a foolof.I'm sure Icouldn't
get my name off the postcard if I tried,
so I'm writing this objection in hopes
that others will know they weren't the
only ones.
Debi Bonam
Psychology Department
staff member
On 'Ole Superspook'
To the Daily:
The local paper provided an amus-
ing, anecdote recently proclaiming the
Violet Oulbegian
Portland, Ore.
"Cold War" to be over. Very funn
The only functional organization th
may be left in the Russias of the pos
Sovieterais the one previouslyreferre
to as the "Black Market." Who a
they? This matters little. In our ow
country we are assured by offici
sources that similar organizations cot
trot vast economic empires, labor r
sources and political influence. Indee
ifsomemetaphysical"Godfather"we
to decide in favor of positive enviror
mentalreform and take action todayth
emissionof toxicindustrialwastescol
endin thiscountry overight.This wou
make a difference and be good f
business.
Unfortunately, Ole Superspooki
the White House and government o
by and for the people would seem le
approachable. Military tacticians an
advisers may mumble about nation
security while economists and polit
cians belabor investment profilesa
"for-our-own-good" but the continue
suppression of effective non-nucle
energy resources discovered in spac
weapons research and elsewhere arti
cially limits the options already avai
able to address the problems of energ
production, petro-dependence an
ozone depletion with the attendant ec
nomic chaos and ecological catastm
phe. It is a near-sighted policy of sho
term profits and pilfering econom
strategies that ignores or suppress
fundamental discoveries in the facec
global holocaust.
In every previous age military r
searches have brought tpchnqlogic
advances into civilian life. Steel
strikes against terrorists in my living
memory have bumped off more inno-
cent civilians than the original act of
terror, while harming the guilty, if at all,
only incidentally.)
ButI persistin demanding an empty
driver's seat. My position might be
better understood if I explain that I want
the passengers' seats to be empty, too.
The world being the explosive tinder-
box thatitis,itis sheersuicidalmadness
for everyone to pile into one car.
A conflict between Iraq and Ku-
wait, Bosnia and Serbia, or Israel and
the PLO is containable. A conflict be-
tween any of the above and the entire
world, led by the United States, is not.
I'm not saying that we should ignore
such conflicts. Any American or group
of Americans that wishes to involve
themselves, on their own time and with
their own money and manpower, may
do so. But for the American govern-
ment to involve itself, in the namecof all
Americans -or, worse, for the United
Nations to involve itself, in the name of
the whole world - is to make each one
of us a legitimate target in the eyes of
the enemy.
Would Palestinian terrorists so of-
ten target American citizensifthe United
States were not Israel's biggest sup-
porter? Would Saddam Hussein have
taken hostages and used them as human
shields if the United States had not
already sent troops tothe region? Would
North Korea be so intent onjoining the
nuclear club if Allied troops were not
massed atits border? And are any of
these threats worth the moral cost of
mass slaughter-which is, afterall, the
one predictable result of military inter-
vention?
When hell freezes over.
So Ilam an isolationist, ornonimer-
ventionist,oradvocateof"strategic dis-
engagement," or whatever you want to
call me. If we must have troops, they
should be kept at home. We must not
expand local blood baths into global
ones. And we should beespeciallycare-
ful not to start any blood baths, local or
global, ourselves.
The Cold War was bad enough; ina
multipolar world, the last thing we need
is a would-be global hegemony. Forget
the New World Order. Let Old Local
Disorder reign supreme.
Walker, afornereolumnist and associ-
ate editor of Weekend, is a recent ISA
graduate.
space.
This technology is science fiction
no longer, yet the mortal greed of cer-
tain Captains of Industry, Church and
State pinion the planetary population
upon the precipice of eco-devastation
in their manicassaultonlife,libertyand
the pursuit of happiness for ourselves,
our progeny andallintelligentlife as we
know it on this planet.
If I were the wind I'd bring the
clouds to cleanse this evil reign...
Anthony Petris
Candidate for President
Clarkdale, Ariza.
as
ed
ar
Ce
fi-
.i-
nd
;o-
o5-
xt
ic
;es
of
re-
al
is
harder, cars go faster, airplanes go
higher, etc. Although some projects
like THOR, the so called "Hammer
from the Sky" that has made mass ar-
mor formations obsolete in the space
age, would not be practical as an alter-
native to mundane methods or tying
rebar, other projects such as KIWI, a
solar cannon, have demonstrated a vi-
able solar energy alternative available
forindustrialapplications.Particlewave
technology designed to make use of the
"solar winds" to generate destructive
beams of energetic matter could direct
these beams toantennaeproviding clean
energyresources bothplanetside andin