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Show The Salt Lake Tribune, The Public Forum Monday, January 13, 1966 A9 Tribune Readers Opinions Terrorist Relationship For years Ive been concerned about our funding of contra terrorists in Nicaragua, and governments such as F.1 Salvador and Israel who terrorize their own Indian and Palestinian citizens. Ive wondered if there could be a relationship to what seemed like an ever-risin- g death toll from air crashes or attacks against Western aircraft and airports. Now, the year-en- d tally of nearly 2,000 airline deaths, along with President Reagans threats against Libya and Moammar Kha-dafthreatened response to attack by "transferring the battle inside America tend to reinforce such wonderings. There may be a small measure of comfort, therefore, in reading that the DC-- that crashed on takeoff from Newfoundland killing 248 GIs returning from the Middle East was probably not the victim of sabotage, but of the highly competitive environment spawned by airline deregulation" and shoddy maintenance. All of this prompts one to ask, with "friends like our own Reagan-reduce- d Federal Aviation Administration, and highly competitive environment spawned by deregulation, who needs enemies like Khadafy? It was gratifying to learn the United Nations had unanimously condemned terrorism and even defined it as acts . . . which endanger or take innocent lives, jeopardize fundamental freedoms and seriously impair the dignity of human beings. All of this suggests that instead of attacking Libya for possibly harboring or training terrorists, which we also do against Nicaragua, or funding more government attacks against the people of El Salvador, or more bombing of Palestinians in whatever country they may have taken refuge, we might work a little harder at removing the cause of their discontent by cutting our own foreign military aid to terrorist movements and governments; reinstate quality government airline protection from corporate safety shortcuts; and save tens of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives from presidential military adventures in the process. REV. ARTHUR TALBERT ever-growin- g 8 Time for Accounting It is that time again when the Internal Revenue Service will demand much tax money to fuel Reagans War Machine. It will total up to the penny what each of us received in retirement pay, etc., for 1985. If they know precisely what each of us earned, and if they can demand that we pay great sums of money for the Reagan administration, the Pentagon brass, and our 585 elected representatives in Washington to spend with much glee, is it asking too much if we demand an accounting? We have all heard about the exorbitant sums paid for claw hammers, screws, toilet seat covers, ash trays (obviously, only the best places for the Navy officers to put their butts), $2 billion Sgt. York weapons that are total failures, ad nauseam. I would like to see those In charge of these wasteful practices to be called to task and to provide the taxpayers with an accounting (and justification) of their expenditures. We must justify to the IRS reasons for legal and reasonable deductions on our yearly Form 1040. Just what justification can Reagan, et al. give us for wasteful expenditures of billions of our tax dollars in money and armament? It is time for an accounting from Washington. W.J. BISSELL Orem e coots that must be paid by permittees, such as grazing association fees, higher transportation costs, significantly higher looses, lower rates of grain, etc. Grazing permittees and mineral leaseholders are among the few public land users who pay anything at all for the use of these lands. U you Insist livestock producers are subsidized through the fee level (and we do not agree with that premise), then who is paying the growing cod of recreational uses of public lands, the coot of managing woodcutting permit programs and a multitude of other uses of these lands for which little or no fee is charged? These lands belong to the public. What must be remembered is livestock producers are part of that taxpaying public, and, in addition, they are among the few who pay anything for the use of the land. C. BOOTH WALLENTINE Executive Vice President Utah Farm Bureau Federation the many public-lan- Three Cheers for PMT Forum Rules Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld for good reason on others. Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days. Preference will be given to short, typewritten (doable spaced) letters permitting use of the writers true name. All letters are subject to condensation. Mail to the Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Uthh 84110. Fees Formula Is Fair The Tribunes unfortunate attack on livestock producers (Dec. 31, editorial) showed a misunderstanding of the basis for current grazing fees on public lands. Grazing fees, under current law, are set by the ability of stockmen to pay, based on income received and operating expenses, just like income taxes assessed by federal and state governments on all citizens. In recent congressional negotiations on grazing, even congressmen who often criticize stockmen acknowledged the current formula is fair and no formula change was proposed in the draft bill debated during 1985. The comparison of federal grazing fees and private land fees fails to acknowledge non-fe- d 7), In answer to Barbara Dane (Forum Jan. dramatic literature cannot only provide an escape through song, dance and laughter, it can, and should also provide a hard look at reality, at issues, at history, in other words, a different view of the world and ourselves. I say, three cheers for Chuck Morey, the new artistic director at Pioneer Memorial Theatre, for his work in the past few seasons. Amadeus was the finest production I have seen at PMT. Please, PMT and Mr. Morey, keep striving to bring to Salt Lake City worldwide, critically acclaimed work, and please keep attempting to educate and widen the view of Utahs audiences. Mr. Morey has brought a revitalization of PMT just what it needed. And, thanks to Nancy Melich for bringing this issue to the attention of Tribune readers. BARBARA GANDY Compelling Argument Last year none of the budget surplus was appropriated for the desperate needs of education in Utah. This year education will be billed for the revenue shortfall. The most compelling argument for better education in Utah is the number of persons in important positions who are opposed to it. THOMAS L. ISENHOUR Logan Debtor Nations Need Bakers Plan Now The Washington Post Few events in recent WASHINGTON economic history have been deemed as important or greeted with as much enthusiasm as Treasury Secretary James A. Baker Ills d Bank Oct,. 8, 1985, speech to the meeting in Seoul, Korea. In it, he acknowledged that something new had to be done to pump more money into the major debtor nations, especially those in Latin America. IMF-Worl- Bakers address, said Third World expert Richard E. Feinberg, marked a fundamental shift for the Reagan administration in several conceptual areas, not the least of which was that the former strategy of dealing with the problem wasnt working. According to an IMF report, the international banking community, although it does not underestimate the difficulty of reviving credit flows, appears to be resting its hopes on Baker's debt initiative. Despite this flurry of endorsements of Bakers idea that commercial banks should boost their net lending by $20 billion, and that the multinational development banks should increase their loans by 50 percent in the next three years, nothing concrete has happened. The question going around Washington is: Wheres the beef? Bakers initiative has been kept afloat by carefully timed statements that it is a terrific idea but no one has seen the first loan. To be sure, there was a series of approving letters from big bankers to the World Bank and the IMF, in time for the Dec. 15 meeting of Latin debtors in Cartagena. It was a n:ce show of hands, says Andre de Lattre of the Institute for International Finance, a Washington group representing international bankers. Then, separately, IMF Managing Director Jacques de Larosiere and Bank President A.W. Clausen said Baker had a good idea there. Later on, Clausen and de Larosiere announced that they had met and dis cussed the Third World debt issues. Whats more, they issued a joint press release (said to be unprecedented) urging banks to cooperate with the Baker debt initiative. Then Clausen and de Larosiere reissued their statement, suggesting they thought Miguel de la Madrid told President Reagan at their meeting in Mexicali that his country needed to borrow an additional $4 billion this year, of which $2.6 billion would come from commercial banks. Clearly, while the debtor countries welcome Bakers admission that major governments and not just their commercial banks g debt must help resolve the crisis, they are not yet ready to buy the imsupply-sid- e position of a new, international ideology. Bakers medicine appears to some of these debtors as a strong dose of castor oil, difficult to take all at once. We all want economies that grow, one Latin American official told a Washington Post reporter in Montevideo last month. But. . . if the conditions attached to Baker-pla- n loans are too tough, they will become an obstacle to its use. There is little time to waste in getting the Baker plan working. On a voluntary basis, the banks will do little to increase their exposure in Latin America. Despite some losses, Feinberg says that bank profits on Latin American loans have remained large during this whole period. That may be surprising to some, but not when it is realized that throughout the debt crunch, Latin America has been paying back to its lenders around $30 billion to $40 billion a year as transfers, equivalent to 6 percent of their GNP. The bottom line is that Bakers initiative not only has to get started, but mightily expanded to cut this flow of money from the poor to the rich. Its not always that the economic crisis in Latin America means that the United States loses business, and American workers lose jobs. As Alfred J. Watkins of the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies points out in a volume titled Till Debt Do Us Part, the debt crisis in Latin America was as much of a factor in the U.S. trade deficit between 1981 and 1984 as was the bulge in imports from Japan. again-growin- their first commercial for Baker hadnt gotten enough notice. Finally, Baker, Clausen, de Larosiere, several key private bankers, and a few potential borrowers including Mexican Finance Minister Jesus Silva Herzog all met for dinner Jan. 6 at Washingtons posh F Street Club. Again, the Baker idea was praised, and the general problems of the debtor nations were reviewed. But where are the loans? The first job, explains de Lattre, former deputy governor of the French central bank, is to find a country ready to meet the conditions set out by Baker, and where the World Bank andor the Development Bank are also ready to expand their lending activity. In Seoul, and in subsequent discussions, everybody had assumed that among the 15 countries on Bakers list, Argentina would be first out of the gate with an agreement to engage in the kind of comprehensive economic reforms that Baker had specified. These would include the right mix of deregulation and commitments, such as elimination of restrictions on foreign investment. But nothing has happened on the Argentine front. Meanwhile, Mexican President Inter-Americ- free-mark- How do you tell Libyans from other muggers? GOP Election Hopes Hang On Unity With President The Washington Post A week away from the WASHINGTON start of the most critical session of Congress since his first as president, Ronald Reagan has not yet made the crucial decision that could spell success or failure for himself and his party this year. At both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, officials are waiting to see whether he will play his own game of legislative strategy or join in forging a comprehensive Republican game plan. as of The crux of the strategy question almost everything in Washington this year is the budget-and-ta- x issue: whether Reagan will play chicken with Congress again this year by holding out to the last against revenue increases and defense cuts, or work with his party leaders in the Senate and House to avoid a budget crisis a month before the midterm election. The answer, in both governmental and political terms, would seem obvious. But key GOP legislators and White House officials have said within the last few days that Reagan and his chief of staff, Donald Regan have not yet tipped their hands. The choice was put in stark terms Jan. 5, when former Reagan White House political director Edward J. Rollins appeared on CBS Face the Nation. I think, he said, its very, very important for the White House to sit down with the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate, decide what the priorities are in 1986, what is going to be the national agenda, what are they going to run on in 1986. If they do not, Rollins warned, if they end up in a year of chaos, as they did with battles with the Senate Republicans in August and the House Republicans in December, then I think youre going to have some serious problems. Rollins was responding to a question about the GOPs prospects in the midterm election, with 22 Republican Senate seats at stake and control of the Senate in jeopardy. But, as he noted, the President has as much on the line as any Republican senator or representative who must face the voters. Its very, very important that he Rea- gan personally step right into this, Rollins said, because . whether hes on the ballot or not . . . this is going to be a referendum on him, and its certainly going to be very, very indicative of whether he can . . . lead effectively through the remainder of his term. Rollins view is echoed by some of his former colleagues still on the White House payroll. Their view is that Reagan has little time left for posturing if he is going to shape the product of this Congress and avoid com . , Reagan Met Airport Attacks With Courageous Restraint New York Times Service NEW YORK Once again President Reagan has shown admirable restraint in response to a terrorist attack that took blameand once again he has less American lives done it despite his past rhetoric and the pressures of armchair generals. So common is the assumption that only violence is an appropriate reply to violence that Reagan would be widely hailed for "courage" and resolve if he loosed carrier planes against Libya particularly if he could strike directly at the weird and repulsive (by Western standards) Col. Moammar Khadafy. In fact, it takes more courage to refrain from such wild swings, which would make matters worse; and save perhaps in the such restraint nightmares of the suggests no lessening of Reagan's resolve to combat terrorism. When, in fact, an opportunity arose to strike effectively at a limited and justified target, Reagan showed in the capture of the Achille Lauro pirates that he was ready to seize it. Predictably enough, he was promptly criti 'ized for "violating international law" in the forcing down of an Egyptian airliner carrying the pirates to freedom. hard-nose- Poppycock. It was Egypt that had violatlaw in that the Egyptian government did not meet its obligation, under the U.N. convention on the taking of hostages, to prosecute or extradite the Achille Lauro pirates once they entered Egyptian territory. That entitled the United States, another party to the convention, and one of whose citizens had been killed aboard the Achille Lauro, to take appropriate steps to seize the pirates; they are now being prosecuted in Italy. In contrast, an armed strike against Libya, no matter how "surgical by military standards, would almost surely be indiscriminate. As in the terrorist attacks ostensibly justifying it, Innocent lives would be taken; but, quite possibly, no one directly responsible for the unspeakable Vienna and ed international Rome airport crimes would be reached or punished. Even though such an indiscriminate attack would undermine the moral position of the United States, thats a minor consideration to some of those urging Reagan to take revenge, somehow, somewhere. But a military strike also might cause some, perhaps many, of the 1,000 or so American citizens living in Libya to be taken hostage. Thats certainly to be avoided, not only on what some Americans still value as humanitarian grounds, but also because a hostage crisis would inhibit diplomatic and military options, heighten tensions and prove more damaging than Reagans restraint to U.S. "credibility as a power player in the Middle East. Khadafy, moreover, may be in Western eyes a pariah and a barbarian, but he is not playing his game in the West; he operates in the arena of the Arab nations. Reagan seems s to understand better than the urging him to strike that such an attack would only make Khadafy more of a leader and a hero than he already is to the numerous militants of that other, far different world. Finally, while Americans argue that violence must beget violence, the same deadly view is cherished even more passionately by red-hot- U.S. strike at Libya would be quickly answered with more terrorist assaults perhaps in this country just as the Achille Lauro, the Maltese airport terrorist groups. Thus, a incident and the Rome and Vienna attacks all were at least in part a response to the Israeli air raid on PLO camps in Tunisia. Its prudence, not cowardice, to shun a policy of violent revenge that would surely provoke more violence in return, thus producing more demands for revenge, and so on ad infinitum. Have years of violent response by Israel, however justified, had the practical effect of stopping terrorist attacks on Israelis? Given all these considerations, the economic sanctions Reagan imposed on Libya reached the limits of what he could sensibly even though they probably will be of no do more effect than economic sanctions usually are. By emphasizing Khadafys defiance of Washington, even this limited step may enhance his leadership in the Arab world. The time may yet come, of course, when measured American military response will be the most appropriate and useful reply to a terrorist incident. His record so far suggests that Reagan will not lightly make such a difficult and dangerous judgment. a ing to blows with his Capitol Hill on fellow-Republica- Last year, when Reagan played Rambo, he was blamed by Senate Republican leaders in August for undercutting their budget package and by House Republican leaders in December for sabotaging their ef-- . forts on the bill. That kind of infighting could poison Republican prospects in the midterm campaign; if it is to be avoided, Reagan will have to decide to deal early this year. The budget timetable is David Broder In three weeks, Reagan will submit his own budget for fiscal 1987, holding the line on taxes, providing for 3 percent growth ir defense spending above inflation, and outlining proposed cuts of $50 billion or more ir unprotected domestic programs, in order U reach the Gramm-Rudma- n deficit limit ol $144 billion. That budget will produce screams ol pain and outrage from many members o! Congress and domestic-interegroups. Bui Reagan will have positioned himself to say You guys in Congress set that limit; I have showed I can live with it; now its up to you. The presidents position will be further reinforced by March 1, when the first auto matic sequestering" of funds undei Gramm-Rudma- n takes place. That involve cutting $11.7 billion from current fiscal 1984 spending. White House aides expect Reagai to allow half that total to come from defens accounts, as the law provides, thus demon strating fairly cheaply that he is willing t take the bitter with the sweet. But then comes crunch time. Senate Bud get Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici wants to meet the next Gramm Rudman deadline by getting the fiscal 198 budget resolution onto the Senate floor ii April. Domenici has told the White Houst that if Reagan wants to be part of the pro cess, he has to be ready to talk turkey oi what he will accept in the way of defensi cuts and how much and what kind of fresl revenues he will allow to be thrown into th mix. In his comments Jan. 7 Reagan was saying not now to both propo sitions. By April, however, with both the 198 bill head budget and his prized ed for the Senate floor, there will be grea pressure on him to think again. Personally, I doubt the answer wil change. But if it doesnt, those Republicai hopes of midterm election gains may go ou the window. Republicans win only when the; are delivering a clear and unified nationa message. To believe they can squander 198i on internal fights over budgets and taxes am still prevail in November is really the im possible dream. st news-conferen- ZAfHni . -' frt,aw This bulletin just in . . , officials have released the list of survivors of 1985. |
