Thursday, November 14, 1985
Soviet rights abuses
WILL from Page 4
Larry Speakes, reflecting an inanity
loose in the administration, says Rea
gan's first job is to convince the Soviets
that "We don't plan to run over them."
Oh? Does Soviet aggression flow from
insecurity, which U.S. policy has caused
and now must assuage?
Add to that loopy idea the State
Department idea that "frictionless" is
a synonym for "good" in the phrase
"good U.S.-Soviet relations." Then add
Reagan's craving for a "fresh start" in
relations. Stir well and you will get a
communique designed to blur edges,
bleach colors and put both sides on the
same moral footing.
This is a recipe for diplomatic junk
food, for mental cholesterol that clogs
intellectual arteries with absurd pro
positions, jointly affirmed, such as this:
Both sides equally value adherence to
agreements.
That is rubbish, and if Reagan returns
to Washington having endorsed rub
bish, he will have negated his recent
U.N. speech, in which he denounced
"numerous" Soviet violations of "all"
agreements of the 1970s. He also will
have repealed his five-year record of
objections to Soviet violations of arms
agreements and the Helsinki Accords
concerning human rights.
Speaking of arms agreements, how
would a joint communique deal with
Soviet violations of the pact forbidding
use of the sort of chemical weapons the
Soviets are using in Afghanistan the
sort the Soviets' Vietnamese allies are
using in Indochina? The Soviet prefer
ence is for Goebbels-like denials. They
constantly call for a "comprehensive
ban" on the kind of crimes they com
mit. The State Department wants to be
agreeable ("frictionless") and adores
agreements, so it probably is lobbying
for a communique language that treats
both sides as equally committed to
banning such weapons.
Speaking of human rights, the Soviets
may soon perfume the Geneva atmos
phere by settling trivial number of
human-rights cases. So imagine a joint
communique pledging both sides, as
moral equals, to work to resolve
human-rights problems without "inter
fering" in the "internal affairs" of one
another. That would mean the Helsinki
Accords on human rights do not apply
to the internal affairs of any country.
They protect human rights in . . Antarctica?
Finally, a "fresh start" requires toss
ing some murders down the memory
hole. A pledge of mutual efforts for
improved air safety would obliquely
communicate the lie that the massacre
of Korean Airlines Flight 007 was the
result of a procedural flaw, not Soviet
brutality. Another pledge for "both
sides" to adhere to clear rules in Ger
many would intimate that the murder
of U.S. Army Maj. Nicholson, who slowly
bled to death, was the result of another
Daily Nebraskan
misunderstanding.
Were Reagan to leave Geneva en
veloped in a cloud of such verbiage, he
would demoralize those who for 20
years have taken his quite different
words seriously. And he would be dis
dained by those who would have suc
cessfully manipulated him.
Joint communiques generate myths
of moral equivalence. In Geneva, Reag
anism requires reticence.
1985, Washington Post Writers Group
Will Is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist
and a contributing editor for Newsweek
magazine
Page 5
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