| Show - : 1 7 f talit be 45a1t - r nt 70-fibu- Thursday Morning August 16 1990 '1 r t Atwt ' ' I 4Lmill V'--'- ''' -- 4- I i - i) OW' k :Saddam's New Peace' With Iran 'Cause for Hitting Him Harder 4 - 1! trr1 e- 4''' itf e ' i I Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's sudden capitulation to peace terms with Iran demonstrates not his conciliatory nature but rather his treachery Driving him from power becomes as important as compelling him out of Kuwait As most analysts immediately t-lied Saddam has fully accepted Iran's conditions for settling the war so he can concentrate on Iraq-Iradefending his Kuwait conquest against a Western nation-AraLeague buildup in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Simultaneously he has revealed both his vulnerability and barbarous cynicism When he sent his troops against Iran in 1980 the bully of Baghdad declared a previous agreement establishing the border between Iraq and Iran at the Shatt waterway null and void Miscalculating that the revolutionary government of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would be too weak and unpopular to resist he caused a decade-lonwar of attrition that claimed a million lives on both sides In effect shrugging off all that ghastly cost to Iraq — the deaths the anguish the battered economy — he has restored the situation to what it was when he attacked Iran in 1980 Just so he can now defend another miscalculation — his unprovoked grab of Kuwait With a person like this a prudent nation does not enter into thoughtlessly naive relationships Ecstatic over having finally won their conflict with Iraq Iranian officials are proclaiming a "lasting and just peace between the two countries and in the region" But on what grounds? obse- 4AA 10-ye- n b 144' g -- 1 1 Every so often a big snake gets loose and it sets off what has become a predictable routine Neighborhoods buzz as parents gather their tribes for a headcount the television stations run file burly men wresfootage of a to a out snake and stretch similar tling police officers and firefighters drop their normal duties and start prowling the bushes for the slippery fugitive Hours or sometimes days later the snake turns up behind a pile of lumber The most recent centerpiece in this recurring drama is a python called "Julius Squeezer" presumably named for both his regal disposition and his iron grip The lost emperor spent several days on the lam in Holladay last week before he was recaptured Saturday night Salt Lake County authorities say there are no regulations barring county residents from owning constrictors the size of halfbacks The law bars only poisonous snakes along with lions tigers piranha even raccoons Regardless there is without question a risk associated with snakes that squeeze the daylights out of their meals As herpetologist Jim Glenn put it: "If half-doze- n - : - 15-fo- - Z3 r- A :1 - '''':-:- I : S::- - - ' ' -- I I 1 1 r ' d When large sums of money are in question can a lawsuit be far behind? Circumstances reported from a recent decision by a federal judge concerning who can claim a sunken treasure indicate the answer Three years after a group of undersea searchers found three tons of gold bars in a wreck a mile and a half deep in the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast a court decision said the rich salvage belonged to them alone Denied were at least four other assertions that some of the fortuitous wealth should be divided Evidently information on the ocean bottom where the SS Central America sank on Sept 12 1857 was developed through sonar surveying by Columbia University That information allegedly helped eventual cargo discoverers the Columbus Discovery Group which prompted the school to join in a lawsuit filed by insurance companies who originally paid off on the ship loss by the two and most revealing his miLtary weakness No one should now let him regain a firmer footing — not Iran not the Arab countries not the Western nations Iraqis victimized by his adventuring in Iran and Kuwait have the greatest cause of all to repudiate Saddam Hussein the man who has caused them mostly pain loss humiliation and suffering so that he could satisfy cruel destructive and unavailing personal ambitions there's a python on the loose in your neighborhood and you're the father of a baby you won't want to leave the child outside alone in the evening" Or the morning or the afternoon That risk is what propels emergency personnel to their customarily quick response In this case the county's search and rescue team was called out and search dogs were brought in to sniff after the AWOL snake All of that costs a lot of money and there is no reason why those responsible ought not pay at least some of that money back There are a couple of methods to tackle the expense First the county could charge a sizable licensing fee the proceeds of which would buy training and equipment for the search and rescue team (Perhaps the fee could be on a sliding scale Charge python owners by the foot) The other method is more straightforward Next time Julius or any other squeezer takes to the road send his owner a bill for the expenses of rounding him up Then watch to see if he can slither out of that one 15-fo- men who contracted with Columbia for the sonar mapping and by a Capuchin Order of monks who at one point were assigned a portion of any findings But US District Judge Richard B Kellam ruling against all the additional claimants for lack of adequate evidence awarded the booty estimated by some to be worth a handsome $1 billion to the actual finders The winners were understandably jubilant Richard Robal Columbus America attorney exulted for the group: "The real importance of the decision is it makes it clear that individuals have the freedom to explore the deep ocean and enjoy the benefits of their exploration "Every-- child's dream" he added effusively of finding a sunken treasure is not just human it's also legal Vision hard work and ingenuity pay off" As long youthful dreamers should keep in mind all those verities can also be sufficiently and successfully protected in a court of law Crisis Puts Japan on Hot Seat 1 ' - i I From the Los Angeles Times The diplomatic situation for Japan in the Persian Gulf crisis could hardly be more delicate For one thing this nation of collected islands is wholly dependent on foreign oil for all that it does and so much of that oil comes from the gulf For another Japan is prevented by its constitution — imposed on it in the settlement of World War II — from developing or deploying anything other than a force purely for 1 self-defen- So as a growing number of nations are sending arms and men to the crisis region Tokyo is forced to sit quietly in the backposition ground On one level this is one that the Japanese are comfortable with Their own postwar foreign policy is still evolving their relationship with the West still une I I der scrutiny For the Japanese the best course of action is often the one that permits it to go quietly about its business But they realize as ell as anyone that in it IJR - - ' 1 - D1111560FTtv CR III- ntr '1 v : aruoI - 41 Itt 4011: 44 ill- A it 43 0)7171t 7 0:- : - iii - : - ' 11:so - '':- N ak r :41::sid64 oltii 4V Clef r ' ' --- - --:i 14 - ""' ': s' oil :: 7401 -- - qtt : 1- - I ' : ttl':iiii4st ' lilac $01' d - AVM C' ) 41 ::12Nier V i :C7141" : :It ti4r I s 414 7 r:::: a ' - 101-- - : ?ET::?k 1 ' I fv 77!:t '11 pit '''''' of -1 :j-- ''‘: ' ' 1 --- - s 611111''''''''''41:- : 4elfill : 11617'401"" - t 1L par A 74 glir 0111f49k - n Another Viewpoint ! i A 7! Ti ! 7 r 'Ptt'--'- ' 4 4 71014 l --- l'ii b over having ultimately prevailed against Saddam's arrogant aggression However they would make a large mistake believing he is now a trustworthy Arab neighbor Kuwait supported Saddam during war loaning him billions the Iraq-Iraand obliging the United States Navy to help protect his oil transports through the Persian Gulf But a sense of gratitude did not prevent him from manufacturing an opportunity to march into that tiny Arab emirate proclaiming it an Iraqi possession threatening Saudi Arabia next and defying anyone to intervene Saddam has conceded more than battlefield victory to Iran He has acknowledged his diplomatic bankruptcy of Dreams and Courts Al:4-- 180-poun- D 0 S tr - z Saddam has proven himself thoroughly venal and treacherous If by some miracle he consolidates his hold on Kuwait and causes departure of the multinational forces now arrayed against him he is perfectly capable of once more turning on Iran and again trying to seize the Iranian teTAory he wants by either guile or force The Iranians are entitled to crow Squeezing the Taxpayers iiAk "3'i': V:'4 eh I ji - 0 i Page 14 Section A : 4 i' ' 11111 fdIII 4 4' I 7'''--- ' WM A the long run a weak foreign policy is bad for business and diplomacy As an emerging economic superpower the world expects Japan to take its rightful place at the top table of world powers But unable to send troops and in the position of not wishing to alienate its Arab oil vendors Japan needs to figure out its best profile in this crisis Tokyo was right in agreeing to join the embargo early even before the key Security Council sanctions vote last week and now it would be well advised to assume the coalition's key role of one of the n underwriters Japan would be a key beneficiary of a more stable gulf region and would be an even bigger loser than the United States or Britain if the place went to pieces It could offer to help bankroll for instance the cost of any effort if UN Security Council one is established That would be good policy — and would new friends peace-keepin- mike g Read My Lips: This Is Not a Blockade Knight-Ridde- r Newspapers WASHINGTON — If the first casualty of war is truth then George Bush has gotten in his first licks When is a blockade not a blockade? When a US president wants to duck the harsh truth it's something else Like "interdiction" Or "sanctions with teeth" Or an "enforced embargo" Whatever the Bush administration's queasy euphemism it means the US Navy will have orders to stop board and if necessary fire on ships hauling oil and food in or out of Iraq In other words a close rerun of our Civil War when Abraham Lincoln had Yankee gunboats capturing or sinking Southern ships trying to run cotton and rifles for the Confedern ates Lincoln a more man called it a blockade Bush skirts the truth though He sides plain-spoke- - Sandy h"':!4- Grady t--- t with Humpty Dumpty (in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass") who purred "When I use a word it means exactly what I choose it to mean neither more nor less" Read his lips: this isn't a blockade "There's no point in getting into all the semantics" said Bush "The main thing is to stop the oil coming out of Iraqi" Secretary of State James Baker started this quackery Sunday when he announced King Features Syndicate ATLANTA — After sitting in my living room and watching Sunday's final round of the PGA golf tournament for four hours straight my most fervent wish is for every private golf club to take in 700 black members each Not only would it be the right thing to do but as a result there would never be another Shoal Creek controversy and major sponsors would get back into televised golf I've never seen an issue beaten absolutely the fact that Birmingham's ritzy golf club which hosted the PGA didn't have any black members It was on the front pages of all the newspapers I read played just under the Iraq controversy which may start World War ABC which broadcast the tournament had more to say about the issue than the fact that Freddy Couples can't make a three-foo- t putt I'm sitting there watching the broadcast and instead of showing me Wayne Grady buried in the deep rough I've got commentator Jack Whittaker comparing Shoal Creek to Harpers Ferry Come on How many black members does the Back Bay Yacht Club have? Why is the National Hockey League lily white? Should the Oak Ridge Boys four white guys drop the bass singer and add a black Let's do something about poverty the homeless dope and gang shootouts and then get around to the integration of rich people A few major sponsors of the ABC telecast pulled out over the controversy which left room for itch powder Golden Bond itch powder to be exact They must have run the commercial 50 times Sunday There's this guy Lou Something who's got an itch He doesn't tell us how he got the itch but bows" Funny that sure sounds like a 43P--:- Time to Put Shoal Greek Behind And Get On With Curing Itches to death like the Shoal Creek controversy — "Interdiction will start almost instantly" This surprised US commanders who had no stopor-shoot orders And startled honchos at the United Nations "We'll fire on a ship if it won't stop" said a top White House official "We'll do the usual things — warn them off fire a shot across the Lewis 1!! Grizzard he's got one and then Gold Bond itch powder came to his rescue "Where I go" he said "Gold Bond goes" Hey Lou quit sleeping with your dog and your itch might go away by itself Then there was the Milford Plaza Hotel in New York the "Lulla-Buof Broadway" I thought I would throw up if they showed that commercial one more time For 50 bucks you can stay in the Milford Plaza But be sure to take some Gold Bond itch powder with you Any hotel in Manhattan that would offer you a room at that meager cost might also offer you the risk of catching Lyme Disease There were others There was a commercial for Equalactin which cures irritated bowels I needed a strong dose after Gold Bond and the Milford Plaza Throughout the broadcast nobody mentioned that Wayne Grady who won the tournament has too much space between his teeth that Payne Stewart looks like an idiot in those knickers he wears and that "You're the man!" — which somebody in the gallery always screams when a player hits a shot — has become golf's answer to baseball's wave Let us leave Shoal Creek Let us cure our itches remember to check out beds at the Milford Plaza for things that crawl stop irritating our bowels and return to life as we knew it pondering the question: Why did George Bush decide to take a vacation with the entire world buried in a sand trap? y But the Bush team jumped through verbal hoops to avoid the nasty "B" word "It's interdiction" said State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler "Look it up in the dic- tionary" Why not call it a blockade? Legal experts say Bush would be committing an act of war Lord knows with 50000 troops three aircraft carriers and a mass of Tomahawk missiles tanks and jets moving into position nobody wants Saddam Hussein to imagine we're ready for war Sure dodging honest words is old stuff for US presidents The Korean War was a "police action" Jack Kennedy when he dared the Soviets to ship missiles into Cuba called it a "quarantine" So quibbling over word play — when is an interdiction a blockade? — would be fatuous if Bush were not hiding a Lone Ranger act The UN and Western powers agreed to a voluntary embargo of Iraq oil But Bush usthat Kuwaitis-in-exil- e ing the hocus-pocu- s asked for it changed the stakes to High Seas Roulette If this is a sample are other evasions in store? "Hostages": Does not apply to 3500 Americans being held in Iraq Call them "Stranded Tourists" "Vacation": Inoperative when a president golfs boats and pitches horseshoes while 50000 troops are in desert bunkers Call it "Work Recess" "Piracy": Not to be used for oil companies that boost prices while the United States faces combat Call them "Free Marketeers" That's the trouble when Bush toys cleverly with words like "blockade" He confuses and fritters away US public support already wary and jittery for his enormous Mideast gamble Two suggestions: First Bush should state clearly why he's sending American GIs into harm's way Skip bluster about "halting aggression" and "maintaining peace" Tell the truth The troops are there to keep oil flowing into America's gas tanks and factories Idea No 2 is more novel given the history of US presidents for double talk The minute the US-Iratinderbox erupts into confrontation involving American sailors troops and airmen Bush should ask Congress for a declaration of war Other presidents shied away from such honesty in Korea and Vietnam for fear of engaging communist superpowers Bush doesn't have that alibi If the Middle East blows up declaring war on Iraq would weld together the US populace and send an unmistakable signal to Sad-daHussein: You face personal destruction A war is a war is a war If the desert hell explodes we don't need Bush playing Humpty Dumpty gas-pum- p q Beaver Island Softens World's Hard News Washington Post Service BEAVER ISLAND Mich — The world is such a sneaky place that even here at the top of Lake Michigan one can't get away from it It surely seemed safe to give you readers a week's respite from these vaporings while I wandered some of the most beautiful beaches and wooded trails in the world But no Saddam Hussein respects vacation no more than he does borders And so a week that should have demanded nothing more mentally taxing than cutting down the weeds in the driveway and zapping the poison ivy under the landmark pine was marred by earnest discussions of Mideast politics on All Things Considered- and bulletins from Baghdad or Moscow or Kennebunkport But there is insulation in remoteness and the sounds of desert warfare were largely muffled by the thick blanket of nostalgia that enveloped this island last week Mostly we were living in the past And given what was happening in the present — including the discovery that it would cost $188 a gallon instead of the previous week's $158 to refill the pickup — the past seemed a good place to be The week of recollection and :eunion began with Marilyn and Joe Reed's 40th wedding anniversary a surprise party arranged by their children that drew family and friends from as far away as the East Coast The young Reeds had converted four decades of family album photos into slides and had managed somehow to get the cariuscl to swit :h pictures in time with recorded music of the Fcrties show Fifties and Sixties The reduced all of us watchers to teary-eyelaughter At the end of the week came the traditional island romecoming the weekend of the srmnd-and-lig- Ok 4011111111110111161M11101111RIMMINSIIIMMINIII " Of4:i:-- David Broder : A t survivors who had heard their parents' firsthand accounts of the island's settlement Tape recording was much too intrusive a she said in technique for this her remarks the other night "A bunch of us would have tea together and I'd steer the conversation to what I wanted to know and as soon as I got back to my cabin I would write down what they told me" Helen Pike a white-haireislander who recalled the youthful Helen Hoffman "stopping at our house with her daily supply of candy bars" said in her remarks: "One of my most cherished possessions is the genealogy chart Helen made It is in our family Bible but I can't begin to tell you how many times I've taken it out to make copies for others in the family" There were gifts and proclamations but the gesture that clearly moved the honoree most was the decision by the museum trustees — all islanders — to name the planned addition to the museum as the Helen Hoffman Collar Archival Center When she rose to respond her eyes shining with excitement she told some of her favorite stories of those early settlers who came from the islands of Rutland and Aranmore off County Donegal or from the ports and farms of County Mayo She recalled the wondrously inventive nicknames they used to distinguish the various Boyle O'Donnell and especially Gallagher clans And she told of the island of her girlhood a place without electricity or radios and with only a handful of phones where even the news of World War I battles was softened by vagueness of detail and the passage of time Last week especially that sounded like a wonderful time and places story-gatherin- g d Memorial softball tournament the Saturday night dance and the August Dinner in the Parish Hall The ferry from Charlevoix was packed with hundreds of former residents glad to be back even briefly on the island where they once lived In between the Reed anniversary and the Homecoming was the Beaver Island Historical Society's dinner honoring Helen Hoffman Collar who at age 88 is up here for her 76th consecutive summer The erect and independent lady now seems shock of quite recovered from the long-agseeing her only daughter marry this itinerant reporter Last week's dinner honored not only her fidelity to Beaver Island but her unique contributions to the recording of its history Almost 40 years ago she began sorting out the relationships and setting down the stories of the Irish fishing families who settled on the Mormon Kingdom island after the short-liveof St James ended with the murder of James Jesse Strang in 1856 (That is another story) Her research took her into the land records in the Charlevoix County courthouse and the census forms stored at the National Archives in Washington But by far the richest and most rewarding parts of her work were the tales she gathered — and meticulously l crosschecked — from the Bud McDonough d second-generatio- clima- te-controlled 4 - |
