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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 8, 1993)
Opinion Neloraskan WadKMday, September 9, 1993 Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jeremy Fitzpatrick.. Kathy Steinauer.... Wendy Mott....... Todd Cooper. Chris Hopfensperger Kim Spurlock. Kiley Timperley.... I m i<>i<i \i ... Editor, 472-1766 Opinion Page Editor .. . Managing Editor .Sports Editor ... .Copy Desk ChieJ .Sower Editor Senior Photographer Waste hazard Warehouse would help bring compliance The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has a big problem with its hazardous waste. UNL stores combined radioactive and hazardous waste on East and City Campuses. The waste is generated by chemistry and biochemistry research, janitorial services, the art department and the UNL Health Center. The Environmental Protection Agency cited and fined UNL last foil for improper disposal of a mixture of radioactive and hazardous waste. University officials are now working to bring UNL into compliance with the federal regulations that have been violated. UNL wants to build a new, larger warehouse that would store the materials for up to a year. Currently, UNL is violating EPA regulations by holding the waste for more than 90 days. However, there is no place in the United States that will take the mixed waste. That poses another problem for UNL. Some say the waste disposal on campus is nothing to worry about. But as an EPA official said, “We don’t bring complaints for minor violations.” Obviously this waste is causing UNL many problems. UNL has to deal with temporary disposal of the waste and find a place to ship it permanently. Some also are trying to make the problem a smaller issue than it appears to be. While many of the details have not been disclosed because they are still under investigation, clearly UNL needs to address the problem and take it seriously. Any hazardous waste problem is something to be concerned about, and it is disturbing to wonder what kind of hazards the students and faculty at UNL may face while at UNL. Battle back U.S. fight for democracy left unfinished As the United States considers deepening its involvement in Bosnia and Somalia, it should consider the example of Panama. On Monday, demonstrators shouted “Democracy is trash!” and “We want justice!” as they protested the acquittal of a general and six soldiers in the 1985 killing of a leading opponent of former dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega. Protestors in Panama City looted shops and set up barricades to protest the decision. Police dispersed protestors in David, Pana ma, with tear gas and bird shot and arrested 22 people. Former Maj. Gen. Luis Cordova, an ally of Noriega, and six collaborators were accused of the torture and decapitation of Dr. Hugo Spadafora, a leading opponent of Noriega. Spadafora was tortured and decapitated not far from David in September 1985 after he secretly entered the country from exile in Costa Rica to raise opposition to Noriega. Nonega was deposed in uecemoer oy a u.a. invasion ana is now serving a 40-year drug sentence in the United States. Despite Noriega’s apprehension and conviction, justice appar ently is not being served in Panama. The citizens are rioting and expressing their discontent that democracy is not working as promised. The United States has an obligation to help Panama because the United States is responsible for the current state of affairs in the Latin American country. It was the U.S. invasion in 1989 that promised democracy, and it is time the United States made a real commitment to help that promise come true. I m i< Hii \i l’< >i i< \ Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 1993 Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents. Editorial columns represent the opinion of the author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan. They establish the UNL Publications Board to supervise the daily production of the paper According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its students. INK l'» il l< \ The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected for publication on the basis of clarity, originality, timelines* and space available. The Daily Nebraskan retai ns the right to edit or reject all material submitted. Readers also are welcome to submit material as guest opinions. The editor decides whether material should run as a guest opinion. Letters and guest opinions sent to the newspaper become the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Letters should included the author’s name, year in school, major and group affiliation, ifany. Requests to withhold names will not be granted. Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68388-0448. , AT USWA _ wspthroKt mmtmm S \M ki n II I D Foreign policy in wrong hand It’s almost enough to make you wish for the days of the Evil Empire. In the post-Cold War world, the United States finds its foreign policy being formulated by CNN and run by the United Nations in such Third World backwaters as Somalia and Bosnia. We are there for no reason other than the United States has been led by its nose into these situations by a media more interested in sensationalism and feel-good journalism. Bosnia, the first such challenge to erupt, is a classic study in disaster being courted by good will When the breakup began over a year ago, the initial reaction of the Bush adminis tration was to do nothing. It wasn’t our problem; let Europe handle the problem if it chose. A year later, the Clinton adminis tration is issuing warning after warn ing to the Serbs that they’d better shape up or else. American fighters circle low over Serbian artillery posi tions while CNN reporters solemnly intone about the meaning of it all. The Serbian gunners laugh, as well they should. The best efforts of the media haven’t drawn the United States into a ground war in the Balkans—yet. At first, it was the politically correct war with tales of Muslim women being raped by Serbian soldiers and forced to bear unwanted children — a clear violation of the vaunted right of choice. Then it was pictures of children need ing medical care who could not be evacuated. The media played a sick lottery, centering on one hapless tot while dozens died all around. Three hundred U.S. troops are in Macedonia, and there is talk of sever al thousand being dispatched to Bosnia as “peacekeepers” under U.N. con trol. Absent is any definition of victo ry, no conditions other than some elusive concept of “peace.” Somalia presents perhaps the clearest example of the New World Order, and America’s role in it, run The only thing U.N. troops have shown themselves good for is target practice. Why the United States should place its men unde ; the military geniuses of Denmark or Portugal is incomprehensible. amok. CNN again led the way,broad casting pictures of Somalis starving to death, picking one country out of a dozen or so where this is a regular occurrence. American troops were dispatched — CNN landed on the beach with them — after public out cry with the oft-heard promise of “home in six months.” Last month the Clinton adminis tration sent 400 Army Rangers in, and the only tangible resul t so far has been the capture of some U.N. employees — not in itself a bad thing, but not their intended mission. The capture of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, is becoming a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. Our initial mission, to feed the people, is over. Now, the United Na tions and State Department talk of “nation-building” in a country that clearly does not want any U.S. pres ence. U.S. troops have died in this hazy exercise of power, do we want civilians building a nation to suffer the same fate? More importantly, is it the duty of the United States to build anything, gratis, overseas, while we let huge tracts of our inner cities re semble these Third World hellholes? There are troubling common threads in both of these engagements, not the least of which is the lack of any definition of victory. Nation-building is fine for graduate seminars, but vic tory in these cases can only be achieved by occupying every square inch of territory, disarming everybody, im posing martial law, nil ing the country as a conquered province and hoping the natives will be ready for self-rule in a decade. This necessitates a cor mitment of several years and hi dreds of flag-draped caskets arrh at Dover Air Force Base. Sure, colonialism, but did this sort of I happen when the sun never set oi British Empire? The second point is along the! lines. If U.S troops are deployed, tl should not be under the command of the United Nations. The only thing U.N. troops have shown themselves good for is target practice. Why the United States should place its men under the military geniuses of Den mark or Portugal is incomprehensi ble. But the most worrisome thing about this affair is that Americans may soon pay for their blindness in choosing a commander-in-chief totally ignorant of, and contemptuous toward, the military. Clinton’s bartering away control over our military, the most precious badge of sovereignty, is in excusable. Ditto for his willingness to bow to the braying of the madia that elected him, ami involve the United Stares in a no-win war. The United States, in tire wake of the Cold War, has tire luxury of being able to pick and choose her engage ments and should do so wisely, with no Soviet Union competing for dom inance in a region, lives must not be wasted in an effort to make a pack of ex-draft dodgers and peace protestors feel good and redeem their patrio tism. KtpOM b a (radaate itadaat la kbtory •ad a Daly Nebrukaa cobaabt I i i 11 us io i ill I m t<>k Gun control Sam Kepfield’s argument against gun control (DN, Sept. 1) was correct in every detail. Gun control will have no affect on reducing violent criminals’ access to guns. Criminals will always have guns. You may scoff at this remark, but the fact that criminals are “lawless” peo ple is what makes them criminals. William Nosal freshman chemical engineering ‘Covert liberal’ I have a sneaking suspicion that Sam Kepfield is a double agent, a covert liberal whose conservative di atribes are designed to discredit the creed they purport to defend. How else to explain the mind benders in his recent column on gun control (DN, Sept. 1)? Kepfield trots out that tired histor ical argument about American free dom deriving from the right to bear arms, but immediately plays it (and his own credibility as a history grad uate student) for laughs by claiming that “the reasons for world War 11, the American Revolution and the War of 1812 were that we didn’t want to be like (England and Japan).” He also dutifully recites the NRA’s 1 ine that the carnage in America would simply continue if guns were out lawed because those inclined to use them would turn to knives or even rocks, then shrewdly subverts his own argument by mentioning the massa ere at a McDonald’s a few years ago, knowing full well his readers will appreciate that a lunatic armed to the teeth with rocks poses rather less dan ger than one armed with assaul t weap ons. Finally, he affirms the need for ua reaffirmation of the principle that human life is precious, then cleverly mocks his high moral tone by con cluding the sentence with a blood thirsty call for “swift and sure punish ment*—meaning let’s execute more people. Sorry to blow your cover, Sam, but the game is up. Dane Kennedy associate professor history department
