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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1985)
Monday, April 8, 1935 Pcgo4 Daily Nsbraskan t .1 9 fThe United States and Japan are at war again only this jj time, it's economic war and neither side is going to resort to Kamikaze strategy. The U.S. has had a trade deficit in the billions for some time with Japan, Auto imports and electronic equipment are among C.2 largest selling items from Japan. y!?st week'Japan announced that it would continue to enforce erf i'rt quotas cn cars, but boosted tho quota by 25 percent. This raws outraged the Reagan Administration as well as Congress. TU Scnateapprcved 824 a resolution encouraging tho administra tion to do anything it can to have the quota decreased or to have Esean had ofTcred to open U.S. markets for the Japanese in hopes that the Japanese would reciprocate. No such luck. Increasing trade deficits hive Reagin and Congress worried. Imports threaten U.S. jobs ar.d industry. Time reports that the foreign trade deficit was 11.4 percent in February, the biggest in months. Japanese products comprise $4.2 billion of the total. The total trade deficit may reach $140 billion in 1985, which is a 15 percent increase from last year. Japan's small cars are still better than their closest American competitors. The American car makers are importing parts and technology from Japan for their compacts and soma go as far as just importing the cars from Japan and putting new names on them. Opening cur markets would probably cause the automobile industry to redouble its efforts to improve mileage and peror xnance cf small cars. Opening our markets would probably also cost the economy some jobs. However, if Japan would reciprocate, new jobs in ether industries would-be created, and the trade deficit could be trimmed.' ' '. Reagan should lean hard op the Japanese far epen markets. As ' it stands nov .Tokyo enjoys lenient trad policy fci a country hungry for quality compacts -while the U.S. cannot sell its . technology to; Japanese consumers, , Gcciaews fcsrwMeo nd now,, the good news from the Land of the Eising Sun: Nippon has agreed to stop hunting whales. The Associated Press reported Saturday that Japan bowed to U.S. pressure to stop hunting whales in 1888 to support a worldwide moratorium on whalinc . The U.S. had threatened to reduce Japan's fishing quota in U.S. waters by 50 percent if Japan did not agree to end whaling by April 1. Norway and the Soviet Union are the only two countries left opposing the ban. - Whaling has been obsolete for some time. Most materials gleaned torn whales can be obtained from oilier sources for less money. Continued whaling threatens the existence cf many species cf the huge, intelligent ocean mammab. ' Japan "reserved the right to withdraw the withdrawal" pending a U.S. Appeals court-decision, AP reported ;-.-' A U.S. law, the Packwccd-M&gnuson Amendment, calls for sanctions against countries that do net conform to the 1882 International Whaling Commission ban. The appeals court blocked . the sanctions agsinst Japan until violations could be certified. If the ruling goes egsinst the U.S., Japan may decide against the ban, The world can hardly af&rd to lose a crs&ura'as magnificent and mysterious as the whale. People b not r.eed the. whale for survival anywhere but whales depend cn people to guarantee' their survival. ,1i mistas Tutmessness 'ashinfton loathes tha word lie. ikl nnt.eA ' it 'two?? Isw"ifialnis such as ."misspoke," "political rhetoric" or, in congressional testimony, "to the best cf my recollection." In that spirit, let me propose a new word for a statement that is - ahem at variance with the facts: a Nicaragua. by any means a democracy and it miy be heading toward a communist dicta . inescapable esters cf Marxism to be r't v Daily T - ' - v EDITOR GENERAL MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER ADVERTISING MANAGER ASSISTANT ADVERTISING MANAGER CIRCULATION MANAGER NEWS EDITOR . ; CAMPUS EDITOR - . WIRE EDITOR -O COPY DESK CHIEF ' EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR SPORTS EDITOR ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT - , .. EDITOR i NIGHT EDITORS ; Cfcrfa Wt!otM72-17C3 Tern m : Stot'TSsy m tehla!a Ttasnsn PUBLICATIONS BOARD CHAIRPEFSSOM PROFESSIONAL ADVISER 'Cfcfk CfcS3!72-g73 Bm Wattaa, 473-7S31 The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144-C33) Is published by the UNL PubHcatlons Board Monday through Friday In tha fall and spring eemesrs and Tuesdays end" Fridays In tha summer sssslons, except daring vacations. Readers ere enccursgsd ta tutmit stsry Idess and ccm mertts to th$ Daily Nsbnfslt an by phoning 472-1 763 between turn, and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public eo has access to tha Pubilcations Eoard. Fsr Information, caSi Chris Chests 472--S7S3. 34 Nebrcslui Union. 14C0 R St.. Lincoln, Mtb. CSS23-C-443, Second class postage paid at Uncofn. NE CC31& A recent "Nicaragua" was the presi dent's charge that the Sandinistas were "using Stalin's tactic of gulag reloca tion . . ." Stalin? The Gulag? What's this man talking about? The Sandinistas are moving people out of combat areas. Thai may or may not be a nice thing to do, but it is a long way from Josef Stalin and his ' gakg the Soviet prison system idelibly chronicled by Alexander Sobihenitsyn. Similnly, the president stretched things a lot when he called the cor.tras our brothers" and "the moral equivalent cf the Founding Fathsrs." A whopper cf a "Nic aragua" there. Unless WasMngton, Jeffer son and the venerable Franklin did some raping c,i the vay to Valley Forge, the ccmiras are something kss than their moial equh'alent. In fact, they are a mostly pedant army created not by Nicsraguan dissidents, but by the CIA, and whose signSUcsnt leaders Fie former cSlcers cf the brutsl Nations! Guard. sled tssertisn that the Sandinista R regime is ruthless and tyrannical. It is not but it is net there ytt not by a long shot. In fact, cciapared to El Salvador, Nicaragua has an admirable record cn human rights. Use Sandini3te9 do not drag people out cf their homes and decapitate them in gullies. . Yet another "Nicaragua" is the canard . that Nicaragua p:c:3 a miiitary threat to its neighbors. In feet, Nicaragua's army cf 40,CG0 is smaller than El Salvador's and not significantly larger if tha 20,000-raan civilian militia is included. It has no air force worthy cf the name and its tanks, Soviet-built T-543 and 55s, are 25 to S3 years old sitting ducks against modem anti-tsrJs weap;rj or the respectable air forces cf Honduras and El Salvador. More over, the Sandinistas must knowvhat even a feint toward a neighboring sUte would bring the wrath cf Reagan torn on them. Talk about making his day! So what's going on? Why is the president (and his CkiMe . McCarthy of a vice president) so exaggerating the faults and the capabilities cf the Sandinistas and the attributes and vulnerabilities of their enemies? Why is the administration's rhetoric so out cf proportion to the facts? In other words, why so many "Nicar aguas" about Mcgraos? The answer is Cuba. It's the monkey cn the administration's back. The creation cf . a communist state in cur hemisphere is to Eeagan's brand of conservatism what the treaty of Versailles was to a generation cf uenaans a sellout and a humiliation. f ssd by grdns in literacy or health, ons cl peaceful intent, promises of an eventual democracy and the seem ingly limitless ability cf some Americans, particularly liberals, to be taken in by all i V j i m xr' - ' C "'' k V- . I ' : Ms? ' . : ... i Eeagaii will not permit it to happen again, not an allow-what he thinks is the Yea may want to arue with some or all cf thai, but it is a legitimate enough theory. The trouble' is, though, it's not what the Freshest tails the American people. Inste&d, in the manner of a parent talking to a cM'd, he dispenses with ambiguities mi sbtkties arid even with tho fti'r3 tcr.:--. In rhetoric, he has crr:-r-.l a h'lrr:i t-..t is already a II Klcr:"3 :it Ij. Cuba on its own accord, 'ill i:: ' e it c:.3. He makes war t:zr,zi it, fTc il f 3 nilltanze and then ck:s thit v:ry r irl-ibn a3 evidence of crjrc:" ' "3 j j. I!3 5. Lints mines in the haxtr.r, s.'r.::.;z cn IJ and then cries tstaiitarLT.Lxn r.htn the Sandinistas respond with a state cf emergency. Maybe in the end the president will be .able to vindicate his oira exaggerations! j Given Ms adlcxs and the proclivities of the Ssndlxtisto, KcrS2a migt well end ua beku aacthc? Oibx And then we can all wonder wfca's t3 liana the United States for its hesti'lty or the Sandinistas In the mesntfoss, Nicsrjgua is a long way from fcsccsir.j, & Cuba To declare othensise tmdszz$ policy options and hastens fcal when a 11 3 finally becomes the trcth. . - I ft 1, isV. V IB 4 i::3,v 'tFiit Wr:s"s Croup fZ he Sjsvicts have Kiurdsarcd sa Araeri- can o3cc? but have premised not to a grusgs about It, and we have promised to work with thca to prevent :d:a." Dctsr.te is back and :itl. remembers Peter Fechter? He was shot in 18S2 while trying to climb the Berlin Wall and was left, ilk Nicholson,- to bleed, while persons eager to help were kept away at ganpefcit Tods?, the Wall is a s.a.eKsfthe-art killing maeMne with auto mated firing devices. Behind the Wall is a tiBBassy. Ken he Soviet emuira reo!rs iw. Tlw Soviets fesve been tatiinsLtaly i vobed in tiEks scares cf thou.22ds of but gsersllj hs.ve used who wm Kmtastr Amy i,:. Arthur D. McMson, Jr., a racsth from new? Who me alter an oScer led a defection from a coKey Kirucreed by Soviet trccp, the Saiiet a physito with Aide Msdlcale Lite? nonatoid representatives cf SkbinM vatch: "rt.tt j , . . 3 b L ":dcn murder, retell 1 3 v-;!3 : : t ' ;! -: -z. A Fdif h pnesi i3 r-;:::::J ri:l r -'Ice vhclly sub-!"--'- 1 1-5 l - T"" " i rtt-ck on the ptr, i3 t-y r-'-rfan secret r:.::::-A "r -tt-ti. -,KC 3. The Soviets v.r'.i !;;:' r.:j f:r an hour, and !;'.'; r:r :.i ALr.: f,:;..-..i C07 for two h:vr. a-i r, :i do thr p W j r.:::;t F. if I J thi iiuricr m j II: c; f c ? Lr a smit itft j G r : t : i.';:C. :rr :ro's nseral ts iL.- . - : f.:- f .1 like wool Then thqr pcursd 1 1 n I