OCR Text |
Show ' The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion. " n Elizabeth Drew, English-America- c writer (1887-- 1 965) Monday, The Daily Herald Brfe b&etdsish NETWORK The Mexican government's angry response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that American drug agents may abduct suspects in Mexico and forcibly bring them to this country for trial illustrates the folly of such rogue pperations. On the heels of the ruling, Mexico suspended all cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The activities of 39 DEA agents posted in Mexico to help counter narcotics trafficking were halted, along with the work of Mexican drug agents in the United States. Mexico will withhold its help in the drug war, the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari declared, until a new extradition treaty is negotiated with the United States. In its 3 ruling,, the Supreme Court said the kidnapping of Humberto Alvarez was legal because the U.S.Mexican extradition treaty of 1978 does not specifically prohibit such unorthodox tactics. Mexico City's reaction was altogether predictable and understandable. Imagine the outcry that would erupt if the Mexican government paid agents to kidnap an American citizen and deliver him to authorities in Tijuana over the objections of the U.S. government. Americans never would tolerate such lawless conduct by the Mexican government or any other foreign govern-hien- t. Nor should we condone our own government's engaging in kidnapping abroad when an extradition treaty is in jlace to provide for the legal transfer of fugitives. j Under the DEA's "catch and snatch" policy, Mexican operatives were paid $50,000 to abduct Alvarez Machain from his office in Guadala-tarian- d deliver him to U.S. agents in pi Paso, Texas. He was wanted for his alleged role in the murder and torture of Enrique Camarena, a DEA agent hh by drug traffickers in Mexico in 6-- Ma-cha- in ; 1985. June 22, 1992 The DEA resorted to these extralegal measures because the Mexican government in the past rarely extradited Mexican nationals to stand trial abroad. Under the Salinas administration, however, there have been some notable exceptions. In fact, in recent years Mexico City has significantly expanded its cooperation with the United States in the international anti-dru- g campaign. This is in now jeopardy because of progress strained relations over the abductions of Alvarez Machain and another drug smuggler, Rene Verdugo, a Baja California rancher who was shoved across the border into the arms of U.S. marshals at Calexico. The United States and Mexico share a tremendous stake in curtailing narcotics trafficking. For instance, Mexiof co is the conduit for the cocaine that enters this country. The need for cooperation is too great to sacrifice for the sake of any single criminal. To get the U.S. Mexican relationship back on track, two things are needed. First, the U.S. government should forswear kidnapping as a means to apprehend criminal suspects who seek haven in Mexico. This policy change could be accomplished through an amendment to the extradition treaty . Second, President Salinas should make an unequivocal commitment to honor the terms of the treaty by handing over fugitives to the U.S. government on a routine basis in response to formal extradition requests. The bitter lesson of the Alvarez Machain case is that, even if the DEA's kidnapping policy is legal, in the long run it is plainly counterproductive to cross-bordlaw enforcement. three-fourt- "WE COULDN'T REACH GEORGE BUSH, ROSS PEROT, OR BILL CLINTON FOR COMMENT.... THEY WERE TOO BUSY APPEARING ON THE PHIL DONAHUE, OPRAH WINFREY, AND ARSENIO HALL SHOWS. . . !" hs -- er Candidates use and abuse the tube By DON SHOEMAKER Knight-Ridd- Whichever button you push or dial you twist, chances are that you'll get a talk show or a call-i- n routine on the boob tube. Five will get you six that in the near future the talk show subject will be one of three men who devoutly wish to win the 1992 presidential election and think that conventional television can't help. Anyone who makes a habit of listening in to one of these abominations on radio or watching it on TV does so at considerable risk to his or her IQ. It is nothing less than a form of intellectual Someone has reckoned that for every hour of Oprah you lose a quarter-poifrom your intelligence quotient. The call-i- n suddenly is more meaningful than the interview or what is called the sound bite, a brief and fleeting exposure on a regular news telecast. Wilson Quarterly, the thinking man's Reader's Digest, estimates that in the 1988 presidential campaign the average sound bite was 8.9 seconds. This is hardly time enough to say, "Willie Horton, I need you again." Applied to the Gettysburg Address it would give Honest Abe just time thumb-suckin- Amendment sham Editor; J am eating crow. I have found out about Perot and I wouldn't vote for him to be dog catcher. Napoleonic Perot is being controlled by the secret combination's C.F.R. and the Trilateral Commission, like every president since Hoover. The "New World Government" is the beginning of the "One World Government. ' ' Editor: g. nt full-sca- Eating Perot crow Newspapers er le The balanced budget amendment is a enough to say: sham! Our legislators are trying to put into "Four score and seven years ago our the Constitution what has been there since it fathers brought forth on this continent a ratified. was new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedArticle 1, SS. 10, CI. 1, says "No state icated to the proposition ..." shall make anything but gold and silver coin If the tube had been around in 1 863 it ' ' a tender in payment of debts. I understand this to mean it is the states that have authoriI want to thank someone who sent me the ty to make what congress "coins" legal (McAlvany Intelligence Adviser). Quote, 1. tender, and the states are only allowed to Perot's lawyer Thomas D. Barr is a CFR make gold and silver coin legal tender. To member. 2. Jean Kirkpatrick, member of make paper money "legal tender" is exWASHINGTON If you're wonderthe C.F.R. and the Trilateral Commission pressly repugnant to the Constitution. I feel was even considered for Being Perot's run- that the reason this statement was put into ing what $1 .9 billion can buy, Sen. Patrick has an answer. ning mate. 3. Perot hired Democrat Hamilthe Constitution is because it's far easier to Leahy, "If that money had been spent on doton Jordan and Republican Ed Rollins to run inflate paper currency than it is to inflate mestic needs ... our nation could have his campaign. Jordan worked for C.F.R. gold and silver currency. Carter and Rollins worked for Reagan, Our forefathers had personal experience bought a hot lunch for 9.5 million school Rockefeller's puppet. with the inflationary effects of paper money children every day of the year. Or our nation could have afforded to fully fund . . . Perot is for gun control, (he once advocat-cd- a during the revolutionary war. Germany also 3.8 million pregnant women, infants and house to house sweep by the military to had this problem with their money precedconfiscate guns and drugs in south Dalyoung mothers that do not get care now. ' ' ing WWII. If our states followed the Constilas. jHe's for large increases in aid to Russia. tution, we could not be in as much debt as a The question Leahy was answering durHe's for computerized paperless tax returns. nation as we are now. This is a major check ing a recent congressional hearing was: He advocates a partnership between big and balance How much is it going to cost U.S. taxpaysystem that has been overers to bail out defaulted U.S. loan guaranbusiness and government (in Mussolini's looked, and because it has been overlooked Italy and Hitler's Germany, this was called we are paying a price as dear as freedom tees to Iraq guarantees that were used to fascism). He's for increasing the power and itself. pay kickbacks to Iraqi officials and possiA trend I have noticed is, as our populace bly even finance Saddam's military mafunding of the IRS so they can squeeze an additional $100 billion in taxes out of the grows poorer our government increases the chine before the Gulf conflict? On June 23, the Iraqgate scandal will get number of programs to feed the poor, and people. "Where there is no vision, the people raises the taxes we pay. This ultimately more airing during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, which will leads to socialism. It is we, as individuals, perish" Proverbs 29-- 1 8. . Jt. should be obvious to any conservative who should care for our neighbors when grill various Bush administration officials on the government's pre-wAmerican who loves the Constitution, hates they can't care for themselves, not the govsupport of the, '.'New World Order," and believes in ernment. If we as a nation obeyed the laws, Iraq. Later this month the committee is traditional American vrJues that we have as set by the Constitution, we could not fail. also expected to vote on whether to recomabsolutely no choice between Bush, Clinton Until we understand the root cause of the mend that an independent counsel be apand Perot. problems we face in our country we cannot pointed to probe possible crimes by U.S. officials carrying out the . All three are establishment candidates solve them. Iraqi who will deliver us into a socialist America I would like to recognize the late John policy. and into the "New World Order" the lesser Gait for his work in bringing about knowlof the three evils is still evil. edge of the Constitution. I have taken the sign off my truck that Byron Heaton Provo said, "Elect Ross Perot." . the saxophone (a sax in the White House?) Hone ZlnaJyoic would have saved generations of schoolboy orators a lot of pain. on the other hand, has no The call-in, time limitations. The performers cost nothing except telephone tolls. The callers are as anonymous as organized alcoholics, and may well be repeaters. There is nothing to prevent a fix but the integrity of the network, so call-i- n polls are meaningless. Nevertheless, the Messrs. Bush, Clinton and Perot are making eyes at the talk masters, as this dubious breed is known, on the theory that their shows have greater access to the folk than regular news broadcasts. d In his repertoire of schemes Ross Perot includes this device as a way of conducting government. The putative president would state a policy and then the people, whoever they might be, would call in with a yes or no. If I have this right I need hardly point out how subject the process would be to abuse by crooked politicians. Come again, Ross. A strong philosophical argument can be made for the presidential talk show, and has. A Democratic political consultant says, "This is a year in which people want to be heard." Certainly they have been heard about Perot. In turn they have heard Clinton on hare-braine- and Vice President Quayle walloping the "cultural elite" before the Baptists, evidently speaking as a surrogate for George Bush. Both pitches the saxophone solo and the Quayle downgrading of book learning were made outside the evening news, where Quayle's sound bites have less to be feared than his bark. Especially by Republicans, who wonder desperately which side of his mouth is about to get Quayle's shoe. There's nothing new, of course, about preempting the tube in a presidential campaign. Michael Dukakis in an M 1 tank was even more ridiculous than Bill Clinton ragging a sax. Dwight Eisenhower used (or was given by his handlers) the device of a fake interview with "plain citizens" in the early days of television. And nobody was ever better at the talk show, in which he did all the talking, than the Gipper. Love it or hate it, the idiot box as a forum for the expression of public opinion is with us to stay, or until some other medium is invented. The first televised political convention, in 1948, was registered on only an experimental handful of TV sets nationally. Now there is hardly a home without an evil eye in the parlor and maybe two or three elsewhere in the house. Newspapers once had "vox popu-li- " in their columns. Spell the "vox" now with a "b" (he wrote grudgingly). Don Shoemaker is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Congress probes deeper into loans to Iraq - D-V- t., ar ill-fat- ed Letters BobBormann Provo Kudos to IHC Editor: Kudos to Intermountain Health Care (IHC) for establishing the first corporate jriove toward improving health care for folks' who lack the resources to buy medical insurance. Not having this option in younger families or among the poor is all too often a tragedy waiting to happen. The fact that IHC js establishing clinics throughout their region is amazingly generous and is the kind of movement that could prevent socialized medicine. ; Mountainlands Community Clinic on 1st North Freedom Blvd. deserves taxpayer and more corporate assistance. Kudos . Eugene J. Faux, M.D. Provo Afraid of Orton & guest opinion policy Editor: The Herald welcomes letters to the I'd call Congressman Orton a big baby editor. Daily Address letters to Letters to the Edibut I'm afraid he'd throw something at me. tor, PO Box 717, Provo, UT 84603. Letters M.J.Ford must be signed and include the writer's full Provo and a daytime phone numname, address ber for verification. Letters should be typed, double spaced, Editor: and less than 400 words in length. Even as a junior high student, I can see The most common reasons for not pubthat executing William Andrews would be lishing letters are: too long, unsigned, illegiunfair. ble, obscene or libelous. Mark Hoffman, Richarjd Worthington, Sometimes letters which are too long for and Dan Lafferty are all serving life sen- the letters to the editor column are chosen to tences in Utah. Each of diem killed with his appear as guest opinion pieces. . own hands. William Andrews did not actuThose long submissions not chosen for ally kill anyone. We should not kill him! guest opinion pieces will not be published as SageChristianson letters without being shortened Unfair oxocutlon Provo items such as trucks and spare parts "free of charge." Some U.S. shippers treated the kickbacks as simply overhead that was passed on to the U.S. government through inflated commodity prices. That's how the Department of Agriculture found itself guaranteeing both the cost of the kickbacks as well as the agricultural products. Some of these U.S. loans for inflated commodity prices allowed the Iraqis to recycle the excess into cash, which they could use to buy weapons. Syndicated Columnist Investigators have also found at least two cases in which they believe the Iraqis A prime focus of this inquiry will be the were able to obtain duplicate loans for the Commodity Credit Corporation, a pro- same shipment of farm goods. In one case, gram the Department of Agriculture used a used CCC contract worth $355,691 was to foster U.S. exports abroad. In theory, apparently forged, then resubmitted for Iraq was granted U.S. backed credits over $10 million in fresh cash cash that, through certain U.S. banks from which it again, could go toward weapons. could draw money to purchase agricultural Today, while congressional investigaproducts. In practice, the program became tors try to sort out all the ways the Iraqis Saddam's personal "automatic teller ma- fleeced the government through the chine" says one investigator. the administration has already Throughout the 1980s, the Bush and shelled out some $1 billion to cover loans Reagan administrations used this program that Iraq misused and then defaulted on. as a backdoor foreign aid program for Iraq CAPITOL TEE TIME Congress during and after its war against Iran. By goes into "executive session" when it the time Iraqi tanks stormed Kuwait, more takes its work behind closed-doorThe than $5 billion of these credits to Saddam recent congressional golf tournament had been granted, of which Iraq has de- from which the public and press were faulted on $1.9 billion. Since they're barred may go down as the first sporting backed by the U.S. government, taxpayers event ever to be accorded that secretive are left footing the bill. status. "The most disturbing thing that we disPerhaps that's because the annual frolic covered happening was that these loan would be a source of embarrassment in an election year when incumbents are already guarantees for these tremendous shipments of supposedly agricultural products endangered species back home particuto Iraq were never actually inspected," larly if voters knew that prizes were solictold us. ited from lobbyists. Rep. Charles Rose, "Therefore (the Agriculture Department) Some 76 members of Congress particididn't know what got to Iraq. ' ' pated and all were big winners at the tourFor example, Rose recently showed that nament held at Andrews Air Force Base. the third largest U.S. recipient of tobacco Each participant took home a shopping bag credits for Iraq was, in fact, wholly owned filled with some of the thousands of prizes by a European group with a long history of that were distributed. The prizes ranged arms sales to the Middle East. Even more from small items such as golf paraphernatroubling, says Rose, the Justice Departlia and Vermont maple syrup to pricey ment knew about it and did nothing . putters and VCRs. But the most common abuse of d The most valuable prizes were saved for funds was to pay kickbacks to Iraqi the winners, but the rest were heaped on officials. Cables from Baghdad obtained tables and carted off so fast that it was a by our associate Dean Boyd show the Irablur to those watching. The grand winner, qis demanded that U.S. snippers send not by the way, was Marty Russo, who only the agricultural products, but other shot a 68 on a par-7- 2 course. y yfc ,ach Anderson nViV I -- CCC-progra- s. CCC-backe- D-Il- l., |