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Show n;,,,,,, Time Editorial - c, willl fell if Gov. cami weanesoay, January 10, iqqq clean up environment It is with guarded optimism that the of life." Bangerter told lawmakers, .Chronicle greets Gov. Norm Bangerter's call TTnfnrtnnatfilv the envernor has missed the for the formation of a new state agency point: Preserving the environment in and of designed to control pollution and protect itself is enough justification for the Utah's environment. - Bangerter's formation of this new agency. It wasn't announcement came during his annual State necessary to tie it to economic of the State address before the Utah development. However, Bangerter obviously Legislature Monday night, the opening day of knew Utah legislators would only support a the 1990 session.. move that could ultimately be measured in : Utah .,hasj$sujfered from countless dollars. environmental woes over the years, including The governor also said part of his plan d air and toxic-wast- e dumps and included recruiting only "clean" industries the governor's proposal is long overdue: Utah to Utah. We hope he will add to his plan a citizens can only hope the governor's actions serious attempt to clean up the industries will meet up to his rhetoric over the next already in the state. Stricter regulations decade. and prompt sanctions for any business "So much of what we want to accomplish refusing to comply with high standards are in terms of economic growth is dependent in order. In addition, Bangerter acknowledged "it is upon our ability to maintain a good quality r- . - ' smog-choke- becoming increasingly clear that Utah ij once again Deing uuiutjnipiaiea as a destination point for waste of all kinds from all over America." However, as the saying goes, old habits are hard to break. In the past, 1 1 A 1 anyone with enough money was allowed to dump anything they wanted in the state. Even as the governor, speaks, citizens in Green River are competing vehemently to get incinerator located in their a medical-wast- e town simply because of the money it would pump into the local economy. The governor's proposal is laudable. As with so much in politics, it remains to be seen whether action will follow words. The Chronicle urges Utah lawmakers to follow the governor's lead and give Utah's pristine environment the protection and attention it deserves. . Letters Bush was not honest about motives for Panama action about the international importance of the Panama Canal? What about America's Sphere of What Editor: think President Bush is probably a nice guy. I like him not because I'agree with everything he does, but more as a symbolic trust in my government. I was a little offended by Bush's wimpy political strategy during the Jan. 9 news conference, though. In I addition to giving our pineapple-fac- e friendly-neighborhoo- ; d druggie dictator what he was due, he said (shaking his head with manly resolve to impress us with his sincerity) that the only other reason we attacked Panama was to "save American lives." How heroic. How ridiculous. That's like saying the only reason you work is to meet new people. Right- What does he take us for? A crash-tedummy who forgot to buckle-up- ? Influence?' Ask any political science major, and they can give you a dozen more reasons, easy. I'm surprised he didn't even mention the noble cause of peace and democracy. Well, perhaps mentioning peace wouldn't have been good for his ratings. When was the last time war equaled peace? Anyhow, President Bush, if you're going to take a stand on something, please don't lie about the reasons why for fear of criticism. If you're going to do it, then do it like we wish a president should like a man . . . figuratively speaking, of course. , st .,.....,.,.....M..,,.y,,m,.. rvnyrw Patrick Bolan Andrew Hunt -- Uncle Joe Stalin would be proud of our A recent illustration by Pulitzer Prize-winnin- g editorial cartoonist Bill Maudlin depicts former Soviet dictator Joe Stalin, newspaper clutched in hands, standing beside Satan in hell. Not bothering to glance up from his newspaper, a bewildered Stalin tells the devil, "Only a few hard- line countries left: Albania, v China, Cuba, the U.S.A. . ..." The U.S.A. How right Uncle Joe was. If the cantankerous old Soviet despot were alive today, he would assuredly be proud of how George Bush and company dealt with the Panama "problem." He would likely be astounded with the adept manner in which the U.S. government, with nearly unanimous bipartisan support, and virtually no dissent in the mainstream media, engineered one of the most squeamish episodes in the past decade. And when Joe remembers all this occurred in a free society, he'll no doubt pull out his notebook and frantically jot down a few pointers. In fact, the only difference between how Bush handled the invasion of Panama and how Stalin would've dealt with it is the latter would be more honest. Stalin wouldn't talk of restoring order and democracy. He would tell the Soviet public the truth. "The troublemakers in our satellites are getting out of line, so we have to send in the tanks to crush them," Stalin would tell the public. And the debate would end abruptly there. In a free society, however, leaders have to be somewhat of more subtle. Lofty sweet-tal- k restoring democracy releasing accurate information about the invasion, Ramsey Clark's estimates are probably much more trustworthy. Whether the death toll was in the hundreds or the thousands, one positive aspect of ' the invasion is it was almost and unanimously denounced by Latin American leaders. For example, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias called the invasion "unnecessary" and said it caused a great deal of rancor and damage. Central and South American leaders, along protecting lives is a requirement. And, as if to soothe the conscience of a guilty nation, Bush goes on television and tells the American public not to worry. After all, he reminds us, the with majority of Americans supported the invasion. I think the invasion wasn't as popular as Bush and his colleagues like to boast it was. Many people were mortified by the atrocities committed by U.S. forces. One American outraged by the carnage was former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Following the invasion, Clark traveled to Panama to assess the aftermath. From his travels around the country, Clark estimated the death toll of Panamanians to be in the thousands. Oddly, the press didn't give a single estimate of the Panamanian death toll until three weeks after the invasion. By then, even the most conservative Pentagon estimates of the death toll placed it in the, hundreds (still ah inexcusable figure). Judging from the government's record on the Organization of American States, reacted to the invasion with outrage. It's safe to say U.S. relations with Latin America have been permanently tarnished. No problem, Joe Stalin would tell Bush. After putting his arm around the shoulder of the Texas hard-lineUncle Joe would point r, out that the end justifies the means, no matter how violent and squalid those means happen to be. Bush himself went on ,' television and said the invasion was worth it. Noriega is a notorious drug dealer, Bush told Americans. He beat opposition , . candidates, murdered political opponents, wiped out free press in Panama, etc. All this is true. But Bush neglected to mention a report from a congressional committee, led by Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mas- s., released in hard-liner- time convincing the world that the newly installed government of Guillermo Endara is anything but . . , umm, a puppet regime. After February of 1988. The report points out that in 1972, two full years before Noriega was put on the CIA's payroll, his role in the drug trade was widely known. In all, Endara and his two vice fact, the report mentions the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs considered Noriega such a dangerous man they discussed the possibility of assassinating him in 1972. While the CIA was fully aware of Noriega's actions (even when Bush was the director of it), this horrible character remained on the agency's payroll for several years. In 1983, the CIA helped Noriega take over Gen. Ruben Paredes' place as head of the Defense Forces. It was estimated by the Kerry committee that during this time, Noriega was earning a salary from the CIA in the six figures. Everything was operating smoothly, but gradually the power-starve- d "pineapple" stepped out of line. As early as February of 1988, undersecretary Elliot Abrahams (another miserable "stoat in this tale) told the Wall Street Journal that some sort of force was necessaryin overthrowing Noriega. The search for a new puppet was on. In the Jan. 9 Village Voice (one of the few papers with good coverage on the invasion), Marc Cooper writes, ". . . the Bush administration is having such a s ' presidents, Ricardo Arias Caldeon and Guillermo 'Billy' Ford had to swear themselves into office at a U.S. military base during the wee hours of the invasion." Now. it looks as if we have a new set of quislings in power in U.S. Doubtless Panama. policymakers will try to get as much mileage out of these new stooges as they possibly can. Meanwhile, far from being liberated, Panama has reverted back to the U.S. client state it was in 1967. All of this leads one to wonder when our elected leaders will learn from the mistakes of the past. When will they realize death squads, bullets and repression are poor substitutes for bread, ballots and health care? When will it hit them that democracy cannot be enforced by the barrel of gun? When will they see their war on drugs, as it currently exists, is unwinnable? There cannot be democracy in Panama until we have a little homegrown glasnost here. And to have that, "we better begin to "just hard-linersay no" to the Andrew Hunt, a senior in history, is the associate editor of the Chronicle. s. |
