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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 29, 1995)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS. OPINIONS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Bosnian peace doomed if war criminals go free ■ uun uriniun. Diplomatic solutions will tail if perpetrators of genocide go unpunished As approximately 20.000 U.S. troops prepare to leave for Bosnia on an in-your face, no-nonsense peace enforc ement mission, specu lation and the realities of that war continue to under mine President Clinton’s peace ac cord for the region Clinton and his military advisors, learning from < ata strophes such as the mistake in Beirut that allowed a ter rorist to kill approximately 250 U.S Marines, will soon send a group of well-trained and heavily armed Amen can soldiers to the Balkans. This time, our men and women will ice armed with permission to at tually use their weapons i( and when they are threatened Still, sending our troops now to join a NAT() fori a of about 40.000 troops, is like applying a band-aid to can cer or installing smoke detectors after a house has burned to the ground. Though it may prove to he too little too late. the ll.S. has finally committed to doing something other than just verbally condemning the war in the former Yugoslavia. Sending our troops is a good idea for many reasons. However, there are a num ber of complex problems that stand In the way of a lasting peat e in Bosnia any one of which could bring the entire process to a grinding halt. On Saturday, thousands of Bosnian Sorbs protested tin* peace accord in their frontline section of Cuba vie a in Herzegovina i ney are concerned that the plan, which will all but cut Bosnia in half, could result in massive retaliation from the proposed Muslim Croat federation scheduled to gov ern their part of the city. The Serbs should bo afraid. One of their own leaders. Slobodan Milosevic, orches trated the bloody war that took the lives of 250,000 of their former countrymen, driving two million people from their homes and creat ing a sea of refugees In fact, the International War (.‘rimes Tribunal indie t ed two of Milosevic 's i om rados for (hr sn'ond tirnr on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. It is no small irony that Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, one of the accused, recently asked that the U.S. and its allies guarantee the safety of the more than 100.000 Serbs living in and around the city Now that he and his henchmen have slaughtered thousands of Muslims and Croatians. ho wants protec - lion so his people won't he handed the same fate. If Serbs like Karadzic and (ion Ratko Mladic, the other iwcr ac ( used leader, are not brought to justice for their crimes, Croatians and Muslims will not be able to move forward in forgiveness and reconciliation, and the accord will fail The war will begin again as soon as American troops leave after their one-year stay. With the help of a NATO c oalition force bolstered by a U.S. contingency, perhaps their hate can be contained so more people won't lose their lives. irm(**r>* t\ntf I(TwtM n wmiwan, Uorvin avowjfi i.ioj, atma bw k*w« nun ,«s !*•*». trd t!»(fWj> tfg»ng B» tutrvnt* M IV Oregon 0.i*j t m*»»W f'ottitfwg Co lv »l B» m»y*<Wt» ol £*»»(*■ ! ygen* Omjw> * name* o< e* toaW fi*n !f« f m*i*M nMpandKWr o( mt UnwirM) «cb C^H*» t! 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Z MF AW fiMt vf&iQH ;Y) Dear senator: Please keep my tax money It u^nis «s if many more eyes than usual have turned to politics these days With Senator Pai kwood leaving office and the federal government debilitated by internal strife, there is cause once again to lose hope in the American system. I.u« kily for us. a group of “dogs" in the Capi tol has not yet lost hope As the deficit contin ues to rise, and the debt skyrockets beyond iiuiunn conception, a group of House Democrats, known as the “Blue Dogs" to their colleagues, has been working on its plan to conquer the hud net "Many Blue Dogs were on it' called Yellow Dog Democrats, a Southern term for someone who'll vote Democratic no mat ter what even if the parly candidate is a Yellow IK>g A Blue Dog is a Yellow Dog w ho's been choked so hard by the Democratic leadership that he or she has turned blue," R A Zaldtvnr told tbe Oregonian (11/24/95). IrabcMf Instead of further attacking the Republican party, or tunung on its own party, this group has left partisan politics aside it an effort to cre ate a much-needed solution. Congressional Budget Office, Robert Reis chauar said, "If there's a desire to resolve this on lioth sides, (the Blue lk>g plan! is an obvious framework on which to build It's something that would appeal to the broad center of the American population." For once, that broad center seems to include college students as a group to lie protected. Under this plan there would lie absolutely no cuts in student aid Hint's right, none. The group seems to realize that it has become virtu ally impossible for most students to put them selves through college without going into severe debt The idea borrows heavily from President Clin ton's Welfare Reform plan, but Republican ideas an* prominent as well. Both Medicaid and Medicare would show increased savings, most of which would not dirw tly affect the recipient Most amazing however, is thut during the next seven years, while these modifications are occurring, more than $30 billion would be cut from the national debt (Oregonian. 11/24/05). While $30 billion is small potatoes when com pared with the total debt, we must start some where. It sounds great But w here is all this money suddenly appearing from? How tan the budget be balanced with just a few hundred million dollars in cuts and yet save $30 billion?" This is where the plan gets sticky and loses a lot of sup port . More people would support the Blue Dog plan 66 / am willing to pay for a .stable government, a balanced budget anil taking a bile out of the national debt. -99 it it weren't tor the so-called 'out-ot-control" cuts. These cuts don't target a specific group Instead, they target taxpayers as a whole. Thus, the taxpayers would not get the $245 billion tax cut the Republicans want to give them. Well, so what? Survey after survey comes up with the star tling new "fad" that Americans would rather balance the budget (gasp) than take a tax cut Yes, it's true As the American people finally fight to have the government keep their money, the government wants to give it back I must have heard a 100 times "You get what you pay for." And 1 am willing to pay for a sta ble government, a balanced budget and taking a bite out of the national debt Hut it doesn't look ns if we will get the chance to do that. We have been promised a tax cut and that is what it looks like we will get — like it or not. Once I pay my taxes, that money is gone. Out the window I consider it money well-spent, and I don't expect a refund because I worry about whore that money would be coming from. Every year that we don't pay off the debt it gets more out of control Good news for Congress — they won't lie around to worry about it Bad news for us — we will lie College students today are the ones who are going to be paying and paying ... and paying. We will pay with our financial aid now and Medicare when we are older. Because we are the ones going to be hurt, we need to stop the insan ity before it steams us over. That's why I am encouraging all students to fight against the stu pidity of accumulated debt and ask, even plead their representatives and senators to please keep our money. Sooner or later, the money will have to lh* paid. It might as well lie when there is a solution at hand. Kay Kirautscheid, a sophomore majoring in biol ogy. is a columnist for the Emerald. WHAT 00 YOU THINK? The Oregon Daily Emerakt welcomes your opin ions on this and other issues You may submit a tetter no longer than 250 words to the Emerald ottices at Suite 300 in the EMU or send us your thoughts via email at ode#oregon uoregon.edu
