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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2001)
Thursday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu 1 I EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL j. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com but not: CAPTAIN SENSIBLE This month marks the end of what Saddam Hussein called “The Mother of all Battles.” We, at the spear head of a multinational army, went in to save the small nation of Kuwait from a larger invader. Af ter less than a month, that invad er, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, was ejected from Kuwait and his vaunted armies smashed. Howev er, Hussein was never made to an swer for his crimes in an interna tional court. His war crimes and shattering of international treaties, still ongoing, are some of the most unconscionable acts this world can witness. It is high time, now, 10 years after the war to fin ish the job: Arrest Hussein, and bring him to trial for his crimes. In a war, one of the immediate goals of any army is to neutralize its opponent. This the U.N. coali tion did handily. In one post-war report, the U.S. Army stated that only two of Iraq’s 42 divisions were still in any shape to fight. However, the aftermath of a war also has to address the root cause of the conflict and remove it. It was here that we failed miserably. We did not remove the cause of the war: Hussein himself, the leader of the Baath party and dic tator of Iraq. Hussein has committed numer ous breaches of international law during his two decades in power. In the vicious 1980-1988 border conflict between Iraq and Iran, a war that laid the foundation for Kuwait’s invasion, Hussein made large use of chemical weapons, including the nerve gas sarin, on enemy troops. This is a direct vio lation of the Geneva Protocol, which applies to all nations. Sarin has also been used by Hussein on a large scale to eliminate ethnic or religious minorities within Iraq it self that he felt were threats to his power. Two major groups de stroyed in this way from 1986 to the present are the Kurdish mi norities in the north and Shiite Muslims (one of the two main branches of Islam; Hussein is a Sunni) in the south. When the war ended, U.S. aid to forces poised to depose Hus sein from within was hamhand ed, to say the least. More than $100 million was spent by the CIA to equip and encourage tradi tional anti-Hussein forces to re volt. The returns were dispropor tionately small. Other than some small running battles with Iraqi forces, the only other defining re sult of the plan, according to The Washington Post, was that one of the CIA-aided groups turned trai tor and aided Hussein in slaugh tering their comrades. Hussein has only increased his grip on power in Iraq since the end of the war. Sanctions placed on the na tion have restricted his reach, but not his ambition. It is now 10 years later. Kuwait is free. However, so is Hussein. We would like to think the Gulf War is over, but it isn’t. We are, at this moment, only in the middle of a prolonged armistice. We will not have a full victory until the Hussein family is out of power in Iraq. There can be no victory until the perpetrator is made to answer for his crimes. Pat Payne is a columnist for the Oregon Daily Emerald. His views do not necessar ily represent those of the Emerald. He can be reached at Macross_SD@hotmail.com. . Letters to the editor OSPIRG working against Norton It was fitting that the front page of the Emerald yesterday coupled an article about OSPIRG’s return to the ASUO ballot (“OSPIRG goes back to ASUO ballot,” ODE, Jan. 31) and the confirmation of Interi or Secretary Gale Norton (“Senate confirms nominations of Whit man, Norton,” ODE, Jan. 31). Norton has a history of develop ing pristine wilderness and advo cating for polluters as they scar our land and pollute our waterways. OSPIRG has a 30-year history of fighting for forest protection and cleaning up Oregon’s polluted wa terways. Norton’s confirmation is now the cornerstone of the Bush/Ch eney plan to drill for oil in the Arc tic National Wildlife refuge. OS PIRG is working to protect the area, fighting to save the porcupine caribou, hundreds of species of birds, and saving one of the last unspoiled places on Alaska’s eco logically diverse northern coast. All of this drilling would take over 10 years to get oil to the states, and when it finally did, it would only produce about 6 months worth of oil. Now more than ever, it’s impor tant that we have public interest groups like OSPIRG working to protect our environment from greedy hands of the new adminis tration and from the oil compa nies, like BP, that have been chomping to get this beautiful area for years. Michelle Ternus sophomore psychology Oil spoils nature I am writing to discuss the re cent oil spill in the Galapagos Is lands, in which a tanker ran aground and spilled more than 170,000 gallons of oil into a na tional park. This is a reminder of the danger that oil poses to the nat ural world. Unfortunately, clean-up crews say that it will be impossible to re move much of the oil that has spilled into the ocean and that threatens nearby islands. I hope that in the future we will learn from this disaster to better protect our most important natural areas. For example, right now BP is pushing to open the Arctic Nation al Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The Arctic Refuge is one of the last unspoiled areas left in the United States. It is also one of the most ecologically important pro tected areas. It is a unique and pristine wilderness area where many species, including caribou and polar bears, make their home. I urge BP to look at the mess that oil has made of the Galapagos Is lands and to cancel their plans to drill in the Refuge. Michelle Swank freshman undeclared CORRECTION The story “OSPIRG goes back to ASUO ballot” (ODE, Jan, 30) should have da rified that OSPIR6 staff a re funded by student fees, not the state Public Interest Research Group.
