5A
OPINIONS/ Cimlotte $n>t
Tuesday December 23, 2003
Iraq situation about more than oil
Ada Rsher
M.D.
Whatever the reason for
our involvements in Iraq, it
is quite clear that oil is a
major factor. Given that
what is at stake is not this
nations or any nations oil
other than that of the people
of Iraq, the arrogance of
those nations seeking to help
rebuild that country to get a
tap at the spigot of flowing
black gold smacks of con
flicts of interest.
In the rubble of destruction
in Iraq the need for water,
consistent electricity and
other basic human services
seemed evident before the
bombs fell. The chance to
help a nation rebuild and
serve its citizens will stem
terrorist activities so get on
with the rebuilding. To give
preeminence to a
Halliburton with significant
oil industry ties or any other
company in Iraq’s rebuilding
without open competitive
bids squeezes out those
small companies such as
Richfield, N.C.’s Oakwood
International which has a
concrete house in a box
which can be shipped, up
and functioning in 16 days
and adapted to that culture
while employing its people in
their rebuilding process as
well as stimulating the econ
omy of this country.
^0 allow saturation of gov
ernment control by private
energy officials or those with
substantial previous ties is
to develop energy policies,
which may not best protect
the nation’s security or ener
gy resources. To denigrate
Islam, one of the world’s
fastest growing religions and
deny its members equal reli
gious protections is to mis
understand the U.S.
Constitution.
Whatever the reason for
our involvement in Iraq the
fact is we are there and it
was not a move that should
have been discounted. In all
the talk of Weapons of Mass
Destruction and the fact that
20 percent of the world’s oil
supplies as we know it
presently is there, lost is a
more fundamental reason
why Saddam Hussein
should have been removed -
genocide on his own people!
For too long the nations of
the world stood by while
Hitler tried to wipe out the
Jews in Germany. For too
long good men and women
stood silently as Rwanda
also saw thousands upon
thousands of its people
wiped out in tribal conflicts
whose darkened skin may
have blinded nations from
the reality that the whole
sale extermination of people
by repressive governments
cannot continually be
ignored. So what’s a super
power to do?
What justifies a nations
invasion of another sover
eign nation? Should it be a
preemptive first strike by a
super power in its quest for
terrorist, the seeking of
humanitarian relief for those
oppressed, the elimination of
genocide, or the search for
the right? Should we wait
until another Hitler shows
himself before we tread
where few willingly go with
out an ulterior motive? Do
we constantly expand our
search for oil without will
ingly seriously examine
behavior necessitating this
gluttony based on larger cars
and houses with less fuel
efficiency for smaller fami
lies? Are we willing to look
at alternative fuels in solar,
water, wind and hydrogen
fuel cells which create new
jobs, energy self sufficiency
and a potentially large man
ufacturing base while
bemoaning NAFTA and
other agreements which
have contributed to a net
national loss of jobs.
Is not the protection of the
life of those already here a
fundamental Pro-life posi
tion? “I do not know what
course others may chose, but
as for me, give me liberty or
give me death” (Patrick
Heniy). I personally do not
know what course others
may chose, but if it is up to
me, we should consider
intervening to eliminate
genocide no matter who the
perpetrator or where the
location.
ADA M. FISHER M.D. is a
physician, licensed teacher for
secondary education and fonner
Rowan Counts^ school hoard
member. She was a Repuhlican
candidate for U.S. Senate and is
a candidate for the 12th U.S.
Congressional District in 2004.
Contact her at R O. Box 777:
Scdisbury, NC 28145; telephone
(704) 637-6134.
Ron
Walters
Santa Claus and my brand new basketball
It was the first Christinas
that I had begun to figure
out the role of Santa Claus.
My parents knew that I
wanted Santa to bring me
two things—a new basket
ball and a small ventrilo
quist’s dummy.
(The dummy was really
just a doll that looked like
Charlie McCarthy. But when
you pulled the string in the
back of his head, his mouth
would move. 1 thought I
could learn to talk for the
dummy without moving my
mouth and become the next
Edgar Bergen.)
My parents told me that
Santa couldn’t be expected to
bring me two ‘*big” presents
and that I would have to
choose which one I wanted
the most.
Of course, I wanted both.
But I alsi wanted to please
Santa Claus. So I began to
try to decide which one of
those presents I could do
without—if 1 had to.
I needed the new basket
ball. I was one of the
youngest kids trying to play
the game in my neighbor
hood—and the older kids
wouldn’t always let me play.
The new ball would be my
ticket. The big kids would
want to use it, and to use it
they would have to let me
play.
As for the ventriloquist’s
dummy, I was sure I could
use it to amaze and enter
tain—and get the attention
that I craved.
So it was a hard choice—
and Christmas was coming
in the next few days. I could
n’t make up my mind.
Just before my parents’
deadline for deciding, I was
pla3dng up in our attic.
Guess what I found. It was
an imwrapped square pack
age that I hadn’t seen before.
So I checked it out and saw
that inside the package was
a brand new basketball-
just like the one I wanted
Santa to bring me.
This was a puzzle.
What was the basketball
doing here in the attic? I was
pretty sure I knew the
answer, but I didn’t like it.
My fnends and I had been
talking about the question of
whether or not Santa was
real or not. Some asserted
with all certainty that they
knew that their parents
were responsible for the
mysterious gifts that were
supposed to come from
Santa. One boy promised
“for sure” that he had stayed
up and seen his parents
putting out Santa’s presents.
Another group held firmly
to the beUef in Santa Claus.
I was a part of this group. We
appreciated the difficulties of
our position. We were begin
ning to understand how
many, children, houses and
towns there were in this
world—and how far apart
they were. We struggled to
explain how all of Santa’s
work could be accomplished
in so short a time.
We thought these things
through, making ourselves
believe. Whatever our
doubts, we could not con
ceive of living in a world
without Santa.
There was a practical side
to all this as well. As one of
the boys put it, “What if
there isn’t a Santa Claus?
What if our parents are real
ly the ones who give us those
presents? If that should be
true, what do you think will
happen when we teU our
parents we know that they
are Santa Claus? They
might just stop what they
are doing.”
He made good sense. I kept
trying to put my doubts
aside.
But this basketball in the
package made it hard for
me—hard not to believe that
my parents had bought it
and put it up there until
Christmas when they would
put it out as a gift from
Santa. Yes, it was all coming
together. And I didn’t like the
conclusion I was reaching.
But I sure did like knowing
that I was going to get a new
basketball from Santa—or
whomever.
So, there I was—crushed
under the grim reality of
been having to deal with a
world without a real Santa
Claus. With all this on my
shoulders, what do you think
I did next?
You are going to find this
next part hard to believe.
But here is what I did. I
marched down the stairs,
found my mom in the
kitchen, looked her in the
eye, and said, “Mom, I have
decided what I want Santa
to bring me. I want him to
bring me the ventriloquist’s
dummy.”
At the very moment I was
painfully giving up my beUef
in Santa Claus, I was ready
to exploit the system—
knowing that I already had
the basketball.
The story is' not over.
Christmas morning I came
down the stairs looking for
my dummy and my new bas
ketball. Sure enough, there
was the ventriloquist’s
dummy beside the fireplace.
But there was no basketball.
No basketball. “I thought I
was getting a basketball,” I
said to my parents.
“But don’t you remember.
You said you wanted Santa
to bring you the ventrilo
quist’s dummy, and that is
just what he did.”
‘Yes,” I thought, “but.. .but
... but ... I saw the basket
ball.”
It was aU a puzzle. All so
confusing. I liked the ventril
oquist’s dummy, but I sure
wanted the basketball, too.
And I had seen it in the attic.
Later that morning, when
we were opening the family
presents, my dad reached
under the tree and handed
me a -wrapped-up, square
package. “From Mom and
Dad” the card said. When I
opened it — well, you know
what was inside.
I had my basketball —
from my parents.
“Of course,” I thought.
“That is why it had been in
our attic.”
I had my ventriloquist’s
dummy from ...from Santa.
Yes, from Santa. Who else?
And I had another gift. It
was, I think, the best gift of
all.
One more year of believing,
there beside my memories
and empty places.
D.G. MARTIN is a syndicated
columnist.
Gore, Dean
and blacks
A1 Gore’s recent endorse
ment of Howard Dean for
the Democratic presidential
nomination underscores a
titanic struggle within the
Democratic Party that
places considerable pressure
on the black community.
What is now forming is a
“’two-camp” struggle with the
Bill Clinton operatives rally
ing around retired Army
Gen. Wesley Clark and the
Gore faction supporting
Howard Dean. The pressure
of two opposite camps takes
much of the emphasis away
from the other candidates
and begins to make this
appear to be a two-person
race.
The fact that A1 Gore
announced his support for
Dean in Harlem was also
important. Not only is it the
backyard of Congressman
Charles Rangel and now
includes the turf of Bill and
Hillary Clinton. Gore was
sending a clear message: the
Democratic Party must
change direction. Gore came
aboard Dean’s train because
the former Vermont gover
nor had the courage to
directly oppose George Bush
on America’s invasion of
Iraq. Dean criticizes Bush
for continuing to pursue a
war that is wasting billions
of American tax dollars,
making many more enemies
and thus, heightening
American insecurity in the
process.
Most important, it also sig
nals a change from the
Clinton strategy of talking
like a Republican while
walking like a Democrat.
For my money, I would
rather stand for something
rather than to be following
either Richard Gephardt or
Joe Lieberman into the fog of
supporting Bush on the war
and then criticizing his tax
policies. If they support the
war, how would they pay for
it? Seems to me they would
have to run the same budget
deficits that Bush is running
and diy up funding for social
programs.
So, the Gore endorsement
was very big because it
moved the ball toward the
goal post for Dean and
caused the entire
Democratic team to consider
more seriously his emer
gence as the clear leader of
the pack. Congressional
Black Caucus Chair Elijah
Cummings is said to be sup
porting Dean. If that’s true,
the black community will be
split. The black spUt, howev
er, will not be between Clark
and Dean, but between A1
Sharpton and Dean. Each
say they want to change the
direction of the Democratic
party, which seems to be
where the black vote wants
to go in this election cycle.
Should Sharpton puU out?
Absolutely not. Although
Dean looks very left to many
people, actually he is not far
left and it is possible that he
could adopt a far more com
promising stance on issues
important to blacks.
Candidates tend to play to
their core constituencies in
the primaries and then to
the rest of the country in the
general election. The betting
by his detractors is that
Dean vhll look too liberal to
the rest of the country in the
general election. Dean is no
dummy - he is just smart
enough to give them what
they want in the general
election and that raises the
question of how far wiU he go
in backing away from blacks
and the rest of his core con
stituency.
RON WALTERS is a .syndicat
ed columnist.