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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 1998)
EDITOR Paula Lavigne OPINION EDITOR Joshua Gillin EDITORIAL BOARD Brad Davis Erin Gibson Shannon Heffelfinger Chad Lorenz Jeff Randall Our VIEW Execution decision Proposed death penalty change more humane A bill proposed in the Nebraska Legislature would change the manner in which the state executes citizens it has deemed most dangerous. LB 1308, a bill proposed by Omaha Sen. Kermit Brashear, would allow people on death row to choose to be executed either by lethal injection or by electrocution. ✓/- While the bill is ** certain to spark LB1308 may debate on the very t , necessity of the be a Way to death penalty in make this Nebraska, the sim pie fact remains that practice as a lethal injection is . , much more humane painless as than the electric rtnvvihlo ” chair ever could be. PVSSIUIK. Eyen the National Humane Society has banned electrocution as a method for killing animals. But Nebraska, in the company of such esteemed states as Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, continues this back ward manner of killing. LB 1308 may be a way to make this practice as painless as possible. The option to have a fatal, virtually pain less substance injected into your body certain ly would be more humane than thousands of volts of electric current burning your insides. And because it seems the Legislature will not eliminate state-supported capital punish ment, it should at least carry out the deaths in the most humane way. Still, even though using lethal injections is more “civilized” than electrocution, this option should not make executions more fre quent or acceptable. Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers warned this bill would “sanitize” the execution process, making it easier for the state to kill its own cit izens, however undesirable they may be. The Nebraskans for Peace, Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty and Amnesty International also have denounced the bill, saying it is an attempt to paint a pretty picture of death. Ultimately, many of these groups fear this calmer, quieter method of execution would lead to more executions. For example, Texas, which currently uses the injection method, by June 1997 had executed 127 inmates since 1976. That’s a far cry from the three executed in Nebraska in the last two decades. LB 1308 should pass, but it should not be an excuse for the zealous supporters of the death penalty - those that party outside the Nebraska state penitentiary on execution days - to kill more people. Death is the ultimate penalty anyone can receive, and though many argue whether it should be administered by the state, with the laws as they stand, lethal injection is the best option. Editorial Pallcy Unsigned erStoriate are the opinions of the $xing 1998 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Unooin, its employees, its student body or the Unfirereity of Nebraska Board of Regents. . ttsasaesSE <J Mnhmnlrnn - ' oi me Daily Nebraskan; the I I Wki __| the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to poifey set by the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. mm run The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee tneirpubfication. The Daly Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daly Nebraskan and cannot be relumed. Anonymous submissions wll not be pubfished. Those who submit letters must identify themseNes by name, year in school, major and/or group affiliation, if any. SubmK materia! to: Daly Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unfinfo.unl.edu. Haney’s VIEW i" fey - Jumping the gun The rush for fighting in Iraq should be reconsidered i— JOSHUA GHUN is a senior news-editorial major and the Daily Nebraskan opin ion editor. As I sit, safe in ray office, safe from the cruelty of the world, a friend of mine may be preparing to die. He is a private fust class in the Marine Corps. He is soon to be pro moted to lance corporal. He is a tank commander for an armored division. He is stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., as I write this, receiving secondary armored training. And he may be sent to fight in Iraq, unless Saddam Hussein backs off and allows die United States to have its way. Tuesday morning, when Bill Clinton announced that “Iraq must agree, and soon, to free, full and unfet tered access to (weapons) sites any where in the country,” my immediate reaction was, “Why?” Why must the leader of a sovereign nation turn over access of his country to every and any industrial power on the block? Why does Iraq feel the need to allow U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in “with an open mind and free will,” while barring all U.S. inspectors? Why do the would-be warlords of the U.S. armed forces want to mobilize thousands of troops and billions of dol lars in equipment to flex their political muscles and military might for the rest of the world? Why should we, as citizens, sup port any of these actions? And why should my friend be sent to his possible death? This isn’t Desert Storm we’re talk ing about, now. We aren’t going to play with our toys in the sand in an attempt to keep gas prices dewn. This would potentially turn into a drag-out fight against a barely industrialized Third World nation that has the confidence inspiring factor of being the underdog. The possibility of little U.N. sup port coupled with the threat of involve ment by other major nations, such as a huge, near-viable economic power just to the north (this time formerly com munist), a lack of popularity among U.S. citizens, an obscure set of goals and a fighting force not motivated to really accomplish anything is a sure recipe for disaster. Ask Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, a Vietnam vet or anyone alive between 1965 and 1975 about that one. I’m not knocking the military, and I’m surely not taking anything away from the accomplishments of those who fought while I was in junior high or before, but this is not yet a situation to go to war over. The stem words and harsh threats by die presidential admin istration, the conservative military and a public whose opinions are clouded by societal propaganda and a warlike his torical account are not enough to justify a full-scale assault on the Middle East I know this has been said before, but people die in wars. People like Pfc. Juan Alvarez of the United States Marine Corns. Like Lt Adam Lineicum of the U.S. Army. Like Lt Judith Gillin of tire U.S. Air Force - my mother. Like Seaman Kevin Gillin of the U.S. Navy - my brother. None of these people are dead. All of my relatives are now retired from die service, but they could have been in a war, as my father was. Tire other two are friends of mine, and by tire end of the day, they could be in another wan But now, since our society has become so enraptured in its own myth of superiority, now that we see military involvement as the end-all, be-all of diplomatic relations, now that our nation’s soldiers are simply numbers in a war machine’s calculator; it is OK to send our brothers and sisters to fight and die on foreign soil for... for what? Peace? Solidarity? The security of the world commu nity? Or is it something more sinister? Perhaps tire Department of Defense wants to justify its budget to a nation with crumbling schools and overbur dened welfare doles. Or we have a president attempting to draw fire away from personal controversies. Or we have a Congress tiring of its failed and futile attempts to discard a president with a high approval rating and a “D” behind his name on the ballot. Our country’s standing armed forces are arguably the most highly trained and well-equipped the world has ever seen. Our soldiers and officers are more educated, more skilled and more prepared for emergencies titan at any other time in our country’s short history. But I hear nary a word of a soldier chomping at the bit to lay waste to the cradle of civilization. Maybe that should be telling us something. It’s been more than 50 years since the country was united in a war against a common foe. Hitler’s Germany and Hirohito’s Japan provid ed unmistakable enemies for our hate to be directed at Both falloi empires were the epitome of evil, the very sour bile that our nation spit out of its collec tive soul. Or so we thought The wars - skirmishes, really, in the grand scheme ofthings-that followed proved a sorrowful legacy to the fight ing men and women who died in Europe and tiie Pacific. Places like Pusan, Khe San, Hue and Kuwait City replaced Thrawa, Peleliu, Verdun and Berlin. There is no Pearl Harbor, only the Persian Gulf. There is no real threat here. Except, perhaps, from ourselves. If more than just one-third of our leaders had military experience, if more than just 6 percent of our nation^ youth joined the service, if more than petty tyrants and political dealings forced us to throw down die gauntlet, our country would remember what it is like to have friends and relatives fight and die. I can only speak for myself. I plan to give up three or so years of my life to the military, to relinquish my individu ality and become a fart of something much larger than myself. I plan to sub scribe to the myth of American ingenu ity and excellence, if only to find out formysetfthatitisnotongertrLie.No one can truly teach me otherwise. And when I hear of these attempts at nobility, I do get frightened. I don’t want to (he thousandsof miles from home for a cause I don’t believe in. However, as tong as our leaders don’t know any better it will continue to hap pen. ! ' : But I hope not today. P ^ \/d r\+& 34 Nebraska Unkm, 1400 It* St., Lincoln, 1 YV rn* 1761, or e-mail <letters@unlmfo.unt.edti. elude a phone number for verification _ _ . _ . .. . .