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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 20, 1995)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS. OPINIONS. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Bosnia: U.S. would act if money were at stake OUR OPINION: I f Ui tori Slates should pul its mili tary where its money isn't "Never again." While Americans mOwi on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II this year, and politic ians deliver poignant, politically benefi cial speeches aliotit tlur N.i/i extermination of the Jews, thousands of Muslims are being slaughtered or evil ted from their homeland 1 he death toll in Bosnia llerze govina continues to rise, as Orthodox t Htristian Serb fori es shell anti "cleanse" I hiited Nations' "safe zones." pushing thousands of Muslim refugees further south. Sint e this war began in April 19'I2. the l anted States. Britain and other Western countries have been unwilling to get involved in any real wav The United Stales has sent humanitarian aid (food, clothing, etc ) hut no weapons, ground troops 01 aircraft that do anything mm li more than survey the extermination and destrut tion taking place under their wings i'he t Hinton administration lias been "considering” military at tion, "threatening” I ’• S intervention, and "warning" Serb fort es sini e loo t Still, not lung has been done Clinton has said he has no intention of leading Ameri i an fori es into a war in Bosnia without siguilit ant support from the United Nations. Of i nurse, fori es from several hasten) nations are already there, so new reasons have to be created. Despite Clinton's "outrage" at the Serbs' human rights' violations, he has failed to act because it is a politically risky move for a president seeking reelection More important. Western nations consider Bosnia expendable and unworthy of militar\ assistance because tlie\ have no economic ties to the agricultural country In short, we don’t care about the slaughter of Bosnian Muslims bee ause nothing I hot happens in (his small Balkan < ounlrv has any real effec i on lhr» e< onotny <>f the I Jnited Stales Al first glance, it appears that Americ a has frequently come to the aid of countries in similar < in umstancos. U S involvement in World War II helped dismantle Hitler's Third Reich and freed the living from i on t nitration t amps We Waged the Gulf War we were told, bet ause of Sad darn Ifussein's bloody imperialism and horrific a< is of torture against inno cent Kurds ()ur military action m Haiti "restored democrat v " These moral inside a! lore, tor vs ,ti wn. sn ondary to the real moti vation for Ament an action In all t a si's, the United States had a vested econom il interest in the countries involved. Thus, while it may lie politically prudent to portray America as the Great Protector of Human Rights, the thousands of dead bodies in Bosnia reveal our true nature (Hinton has spent his term selling his vision of the "global community From the Information Superhighway, to NAFTA and GATT, he has said repeatedly that America cannot afford to isolate itself from the world mar ket Yet. when the dialogue shifts outside the economic realm. Clinton becomes ambivalent. We are encour aged to ilo business with a neighbor, but should turn away when we hear him killing his wife and chil dren through the adjoining wall American military action is Bosnia will not win an elm tion or remove an eco nomic threat, but it is a moiai imperative l ’nfortu nately, morality has rarely been a spark for political action, and 50 years from now a different president will stand at a mass grave in Zepa and say. ‘ We knew and did nothing. Nev er again.” Th-e ><*}. •• I '*•'<*ate1 ;» (-•*'-**? 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Jervvit©r fi^AX) Newsroom J46 S5M Display Advertising !M6-J?12 Businas* Office 346 551? Classified Advertising 346 4>43 2 Oogtv* On.ty Em&aKI Ihursday July 20 1995 VJ/ien tke United Mat ions is (demoted to traffic duty AcRoWV'Ai uu OPINION A needed helpin’ of Southern humanity When we stereotype hating, open minded residents of the Croat Northwest think of those who dwell in the Deep South what images tome to mind' Well, there's tie* arterv-t logging bis» nits and slop those people love to eat Then there's that music that always has some redneck i owboy moaning aiaiut shotguns and mobile home parks And then there's that ear vvrencli mg twang that Southern. Iter k of the-woods, inv w ile is -also-my-umsm-sounding noise that those people velp out w henever they talk It s safe to sav that all of us who live in this land of free thinking have a pretty good idea of w ho Southerners are and how they behave So when a voting mother murdered her two beauti ful suns in l intuit. NT. last ()i tober, we North westerners could easily apply our bias-free knowledge to the amt. Those bigoted tools would fight eat h other for the honor of nm lung the rojve around the murdering mother's neck In light of our expertise, it's difficult to make sense of the news that came out of Union this week The reports indicated that the jury sells turn in the Susan Smith double-homicide tase was arduously slow It seems the pros«*cut»on was hard-pressed to find 12 |urors and six alter nates who would l>e willing to send Susan Smith to the electric chair even if the evidence supported that sentence After 50 jurors had been questioned, only to were deemed qualified to sit on tile panel The main reason for the other 4(>'s dismissals’ Moral opposition to the death penalty Maylte we don't have the i ase right This couldn't l»e the Susan Smith who I wt rayed our pain and sympathy when she confessed that she hail strapped her sons. Michael, t. and Alev. H months, into her red Mazda and rolled them to their death in a nearby lake. And yet w e heard panelist No 1? tell prose cutors, "I am against the death penalty because two wrongs don't make a right " In the w ake of the news from Union, perhaps we should momentarily put aside our biases against those with that irritating twang it would appear that these small-town Southerners are quite extraordinary in their ability to champion a vision of humanity over the “human" c all to vengeance Panelist No 17 seemed to display this ability. The prospective juror told prosecutors about a personal tragedy in her own life. She said that she understood how "things happen to some body. that they could go off the deep end." If only Panelist No. 17 knew just how befitting her commentary was to the ai i used Indeed many things' have happened to Susan Smith. Her father committed suicide when she was a child She battled with mental disorders throughout her adoiesi em e At age i t, it was re< orumetided that she l>e admitted to a hospital for the treatment of her depression. Her mother and stepfather coldly denied their daughter this assistance Soon after. Susan was molested by her stepfather 1 ive years later, Susan found herself married ton man who would eventually cast her aside Keith ( unningham alter Michael ana Alex were horn. Given Susan's tortured history, the feelings of made qtmi v and confusion that are often associated with parent mg could only have been exaccr bated by the arrival of her two sons 'Hus was a time of "crisis parenthood” for Susan On Ot t 25, after having been told by another lover that he no longer wanted her or her chil dren, Susan’s mental anguish reached <1 noil, I he result was a tragedy that we certainly • annot condone but perhaps < an trv to comprehend. And now. looking behind w ire rimmed glass a* and appearing many wars older than the 2 i shu is. Susan Smith sits silently between her two lawyers She is taking a daily dose of the anti depressant Prozac and is not allowed to say much bet a use whenever she does tall., she begs lor death Vet the responses from her neighbors to questions about their moral statu e on tin* death penalty are overpowering They have stood proudly, and said "Only God can take lives" — "Two wrongs don't make a right" — "I t ouldn’t give anyone the death penalty" "I couldn't live w ith myself if 1 did" — "I would never" — "I feel like taking a life hei a use two lives is gone is not going to change the situation." The lucid words overshadow the dialect that we arrogantly categorize as "quaint." 1can only wonder what words would have been uttered by the murderer's peers if the event had occurred somewhere in lane County The people of Union argue for the sanctity of life with more eloquence than any lawyer or judge could ever hope to display. They know that the story of the murderer as well as the murdered must In* known before any judgment can be passed, drat no form of revenge w ill bring back the victims and that no person can solve violence with violence. Those dose-minded rednecks will never cease to amaze me. Keith Cunningham, and English majorat the l -m versity. is a columnist for the Emerald.
