monday, October 16, 1978
page 4
daily nebraskan
opinioneditorial
Westmoreland dodges issues, blames protesters, press
Retired four-star Gen. William
Westmoreland implied in his
speeches at UNL that American
forces lost the Vietnam War because
of civil disobedience and irrespon
sible media coverage of the war.
Nothing could be further from the
truth.
Westmoreland did not address
why the military conducted search
and destroy missions that destroyed
innocent villages. He did not talk
about the use of napalm or other
such weapons. Or why U.S. sup
plies such as clothing and weapons
were taken to Saigon and sold,
leaving U.S. forces desperately short
of such needed supplies.
Rather the former commander of
U.S. forces in Vietnam chose to
address other issues.
He said success depended on
public support and that in the end
there was no public support. He
lambasted war protesting as being
anarchy. He chastised newscasts for
being slanted and bringing a dis
torted view into American homes.
Obviously the general has neglect
ed to read a rather important docu
ment called The Bill of Rights.
Simple grade school history teaches
us that in the first amendment we
are guaranteed freedom of speech
and to peaceably assemble.
It was not the peace movement
that caused the killing of students
at Kent State. It was not the pro
testers that sent 8,744,000 indivi
duals to serve in an immoral and
undeclared war.
Yet, it was the press that reported
the death and destruction that
caused 210,048 casualties including
wounded from 1961 to 1973.
The general said the news showed,
in a distorted view, such things as
destroyed buildings and he pointed
out that this is the first war the press
didn't have to regurgitate news
releases from the Department of
War. , j
He charged that the media looked
for sensational front page news.
Does the general think that in war
there is time to do such light-hearted
features as how wonderful the Red
Cross is?
The media did show destroyed
buildings and bodies. There will
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Liberals perpetuate forces they deplore
by stressing debate over physical action
By Krishna Madan
Editor's note: The author is a senior
International Affairs major from Guyana,
South America.
This is in response to the young lady
who deplored the booing of Westmore
land's speech in the union on Friday
afternoon. Her objection was based on
hypocritical, effete liberal notions which
ignore tfte realities ol me and tne equality
of man.
She accused the booers of being "ig
norant." If by "igrorant" she meant that
the booers were stooping to dirty tactics,
then I agree with her. However, why does
the booing of a speech seem more repul
sive to her than the genocide of an Asiatic
people and the despoilation of their
country?
Why indeed? One reason is that she is
the one who is ignorant, ignorant of what
is happening in the world. American
liberals enjoy protected lives and have
experienced neither the castrating effects
of repression nor the devastating results of
war.
guest opinion
liberals also love to agonize. They
always seek to place themselves in the
middle thinking that this puts them on
top, in a sort of pyramidical relationship
with the rowdy left and right wings. Thus
liberals, finding themselves against fascist
dictatorships and imperialist wards, feel
that they must now find some people on
the left with whom they disagree.
And whai better candidates are there
than the uncouth radicals who perversely
refuse to read Robert's Rules of Order
while Indochinese hamlets are being
bombed? Or to make the issue current,
while Iranian civilians are slaughtered?
Remember also that Jesus Christ did not
petition the moneyleaders to get out of
the temple. He kicked them out! West
moreland's crimes were even greater than
those of the moneylenders, unless it is
proposed that they were not because his
victims were Asians.
Therein lies the crux of the problem.
Liberals are hypocrites because although
they outlwardly profess race tolerance,
they are subconsciously bigoted. I propose
that that young lady and other liberals
would have vociferously booed if Adolph
Hitler had been the speaker Friday or if
Westmoreland's war had been waged
against Canadians.
But, fortunately, Westmoreland's
victims were not white and thus it is bad
form to get overly excited about the issue.
My point is not to condemn liberals for
not being perfect, but to make them aware
that they indeed are not perfect and in
so doing hopefully impart a bit of humil
ity to them.
always be questions that ask if
that is necessary or tastetul, but it
brought the reality of the horrors of
war home. It did not let Americans
believe everything was fine nor did
it allow them to be swayed by
U.S. propaganda such as was distrib
uted in World War II.
Westmoreland blamed U.S. politi
ca leaders who he said were influenc
ed by the media for the off and on
bombings which were, in his opinion,
an ineffective way to fight. He said
when leaders commit us to war we
should support the military.
But how can citizens support a
military that mutilates, kills and
rapes civilians? We can not deny
Westmoreland his right to speak,
and he can not deny it to us.
ERA ratification
extension wont
justify results
Gen. William Westmoreland never
understood that student opposition to the
Vietnam War did not attack his goal of de
fending freedom, but the methods used to
do so. He did not comprehend that even
for generals and presidents, the ends do not
justify the means.
Nor do they for the Equal Rights
Amendment. Yet Congress last week
extended the ERA ratification deadline for
three years, ignoring legal precedent, the
Constitution and all sense of fair play and
equal treatment.
michael gibson
Constitutional amendments are so
important as to demand overwhelming
support via approval by Congress and
three-fourths of the states. This support
cannot be made meaningless by spreading
it out over decades; the proposal must be
ratified within a "reasonable" time set by
Congress.
Judicial affirmation
The Supreme Court upheld that require
ment in Dillion vs. Glass, ruling the 38th
Amendment would die unless approved
within a seven-year Congressional deadline.
Later. Chief Justice Hughes wrote in
Coleman vs. Miller, that "ratification must
be sufficiently contemporaneous to reflect
the will of the people in all sections at
relatively the same period."
Continued on page 6
Disrespectful audience intent on denying right to speak
By John Ortmann and
L. Kent Wolgamott
William Westmoreland was wrong
Friday when he said he may have come to
a campus at the vanguard of a wave of
activism and unrest.
What he encountered was a rude, dis
respectful crowd intent on denying him the
right to speak in order to express its own
viewpoints.
The purpose of his speech was to
examine the lessons which could be learned
from Vietnam, and many of the points he
made were valid.
But the crowd ignored what he w?s
saying and continued to harass the speaker.
It seems that some members of audience
had no intention of listening to Westmore
land and would not consider what he had
to say.
Rather they were protesting an ended
conflict about which Westmoreland was
attempting to present his point of view; or
demonstrating about a totally unrelated
issue with which Westmoreland is not
connected.
The right to dissent and freedom of
speech are necessary standards in a demo
cratic society. But when the dissenters
impose on an unwilling audience and deny
another's right to speak, this is taking these
freedoms farther than they were intended.
opinion
John Milton told us truth will be recog
nized and accepted when allowed to com
pete in the marketplace of ideas.
Own worst enemy
Westmoreland did not convert anyone
with his speech. He was his own worst
enemy; with each sentence he eroded his
own position.
But the disruption of Westmoreland's
speech made it extremely difficult for him
to present his viewpoint and allow it to be
considered.
The distribution of leaflets before the
speech and the holding of placards in pro
test aided in raising the awareness of the
crowd to Westmoreland's past activities.
The audience's suppression of West
moreland's speech raises a larger, more im
portant question than that of the general's
behavior in Vietnam.
Next victim?
If the mob is allowed to silence a
speaker by the abuse of its first amend
ment rights, who or what will be the next
victim of this syndrome?
In any event, members of the audience
and literature handed out before the
speech accused Westmoreland of helping
wage a barbaric and illegal war.
This is curious because it presupposes a
war that is not barbaric. During World War
II, a war most Americans can look back on
as a "good" one, the Allies, the good guys
bombed, shelled, burned and finally irrad
iated millions of civilians in both Axis and
occupied countries.
Until wars are outlawed, they will be
barbaric.
If the Vietnam War was illegal, it was
not the fault of the soldiers, buck privates
and generals included, fighting it.
No army in the world is a democratic
institution. Armies are handed basic
strategy, along with the often impossible
job of making it work, by politicians back
home.
Soldiers, buck privates and generals
included, follow orders. It could be argued
that if every solider disobeyed any order he
found immoral, there would be no war.
This would be fine if both sides played by
the same rules.
None of which justifies VS. conduct in
Vietnam. The only things that can justify
any nation's conduct in any war are 10,000
blood-soaked years of human history and
all that is small and weak and evil in all
men.