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< \
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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.
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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
