The Daily Tar HeelWednesday, April 1, 19925
r n m
Former U.S. attorney general
assails Persian Gulf War efforts
By Anna Griffin
Slate and National Editor
The U.S. effort in the Persian Gulf
War constituted the worst type of mili
tarism and imperialism, said Ramsey
Clark, former U.S. attorney general
Tuesday night.
"We glorified the power of violence,"
Clark said in a speech sponsored by the
Student Peace Initiative and other stu
dent and local humanitarian groups. "We
saw a 42-day advertisement for milita
rism, and we loved every minute of it."
Clark, who ran the Department of
Justice under President Lyndon Johnson
from 1966 to 1968, told Carroll Hall
crowd of about 200 that the Persian
Gulf War represented the latest in a
continuing series of senseless U.S. ag
gression against the rest of the world.
"To see the assault on Iraq in context,
you have to think back before that to
what we did earlier," Clark said. "This
wasn't the first."
The string of U.S. assaults against
defenseless foes dates back to the Viet
nam War, Clark said.
Since then, the Defense Department
has launched a continuous string of
attacks against smaller countries in an
effort to become the world's sole super
power, he said.
The invasions of Grenada and
Panama and the bombing of Libya rep
resented smaller steps in the United
States' march toward world dominance,
Clark said.
' In all recent military conflicts, the
' United States has had ulterior motives
in attacking, he said.
During the Persian Gulf War, the
Bush administration claimed to be con
cerned about protecting Saudi Arabia
and liberating Kuwait while the presi
dent and his top aides actual ly wanted to
control Iraq's oil supply, he said.
"(In Desert Storm) we had two pur
poses," Clark said. "One was to destroy
their military capability, and one was to
cripple their country for future genera
tions." Although the American military ac
cuses other nations of terrorism, U.S.
battle strategies are usually deceptive
and against traditional military ethics,
Clark said.
"(Libya) was a surprise attack in the
middle of the night," he said.
"Some of us might be old enough to
remember how we felt when the Japa-
i
DTHGarth Fort
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark criticizes U.S. military policy Tuesday night
nese launched a surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor.
"We deliberately bombed upper
middle class residential areas so terri
bly that the (Libyan) people would say,
'We've got to get rid of Quadaffi,'" he
said.
"Apparently, the 'king is never
wrong. If the president decides to attack
and kill someone, then so be it."
Clark said the United States also
helped perpetuate the bloody, 8-year
Iran-Iraq War in the hopes that the two
nations would destroy each other, leav
ing a political void in the Middle East.
"We should never forget Henry
Kissinger's words at the beginning of
that war: 'I hope they kill each other,'"
he said.
Like U.S. involvement in the Iran
Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War was part
of a carefully planned attempt by the
federal government to take over the
world's oil supply and thereby domi
nate the international economy, Clark
said.
"We would never have dared to have
attempted such a thing during the Cold
War," he said.
"But by the time it happened, it was
all fun and games because we knew
what trillions of dollars we had commit
ted. We knew what that equipment could
do."
Clark, who met with Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein in November 1990,
said the Iraqis had nochoice but to fight.
"(Hussein) said to me, 'If I withdraw,
I'll be attacked, and I lose twice. Once
for failing to have courage, and once for
being a fool for thinking they'd let me
(surrender Kuwait)," Clark said.
By the time the ground war began,
the Iraqis were virtually defenseless, he
said.
"We've called the 4 days 'the ground
war,'" he said.
"There was no ground war. There
was no war. They'd either been killed or
were so beat down they couldn't do
anything."
Clark said the continuing U.N. sanc
tions against Iraq were "a crime against
humanity."
"We corrupted the United Nations to
bring (the sanctions) about," he said.
"The U.N. was created to end the scourge
of war. We have made it an instrumen
tality of war."
Clark said he would like to see the
U.N. Security Council abolished be
cause it was no longer democratic and
was controlled by the five largest arms
producing nations in the world.
The former attorney general also said
that the U.S. defense budget should be
cut by 90 percent and that arms research
and development should be prohibited.
"If we continue to allow our country
to commit militarism and aggression
against third world countries, then God
help us."
Senate decision not to subpeona
reporters averts free speech fight
By Lars Munson
Staff Writer
The Senate Rules and Administra
' tion Committee March 25 denied a spe
r'cial counsel the authority to compel
testimony from two journalists respon
sible for the disclosure of sexual-harassment
charges against then-Supreme
Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
Experts say this most recent devel
"t" opment in the ongoing "leaks" investi
' gation headed off what would have been
a landmark debate over First Amend
ment media rights.
'This issue goes to the heart of politi
cal debate in a democratic society," said
Jon Buchan, a Charlotte-based attorney
prominent among media law experts.
The sexual harassment charges, filed
by Anita Hill, a former employee of
Thomas at the Equal Employment Op
portunity Commission, ignited several
of the most emotional and highly publi
cized Senate hearings in U.S. history
and, in the eyes of many Americans,
eroded the credibility of the confirma
tion process.
In an official ruling March 25, the
Senate declined a request from special
counsel Peter Fleming to force Nina
Totenburg of National Public Radio
and Timothy Phelps of Newsday to
name confidential sources and to an
swer questions who leaked Hill's alle
gations. Also spared from testimony by the
ruling was Paul Rodriguez of The Wash
ington Times, who broke various sto
ries on the Senate's "Keating Five"
investigation.
"Approving these requests would
send the wrong message to the Ameri
can public, which rightly demands the
fairness and respect of individual rights
for all its citizens," said U.S. Sen.
Wendell Ford, D-Ky., the chairman of
the Senate committee of rules and ad
ministration, in a press release.
rama
The ruling helped the Senate avoid
yet another controversy surrounding the
high-profile nomination and contro
versy of Thomas, a former U.S. Court
of Appeals judge.
The decision also helped the Senate
avoid a seemingly inevitable debate with
the news media over First Amendment
rights, said Cathy Packer, a UNC jour
nalism professor.
"If the Senate had tried to compel
testimony or send the reporters to jail, it
would have ended up in court with the
reporters arguing that they had a First
Amendment right not to disclose their
sources," Packer said.
Buchan said the result of such a court
case could have monumental implica
tions concerning the interpretation of
the First Amendment.
"Forced disclosure of such a source
would clearly intimidate other govern
ment officials and reporters with im
portant knowledge about the inner work
ings of government," Buchan said. "The
result would be some form of self-censorship
on the part of these people."
Prior to the decision, many members
of the media feared the Senate would
erode the First Amendment by siding
Capital
with Fleming.
"These proceedings threatened to
throw the Congress and the press into a
series of confrontations that would have
been detrimental to both, and detrimen
tal to the country," said Hugh Stevens,
an attorney with the N.C. Press Asso
ciation. "Any time you have the Congress
attempting to override the First Amend
ment Rights of journalists, or anyone
for that matter, the implications are
immeasurable."
But some experts contend that even
if a formal challenge against the report
ers' right to protect their sources had
been brought before the Supreme Court,
Totenburg, Phelps and Rodriguez would
have been protected by the First Amend
ment. "One of the important principles gen
erally applied in cases like this is that
the government, before it can force tes
timony from journalists, is required to
show that they'veexhausted every other
possible source of that information,"
Packer said, "In this situation, it is quite
clear that they have not done this."
Although Fleming has been thwarted
in his efforts to subpoena the journal
ists, the investigation into the leaks will
continue until April 30, when Fleming
must submit his report to the Senate
committee.
from page 3
council must complete in the 1992-93
fiscal year.
Fuel storage tanks must be replaced,
at a cost of $20,000, to comply with
state and EPA regulations.
The town also must complete $40,000
worth of improvements to the traffic
signal system, because the N.C. Depart
ment of Transportation has been con
tracted to upgrade the system.
Horton said that the town could float
a $1 -million bond authorized under a
1989 referendum to provide additional
funds but that the town would have to
pay a debt service of $ 1 1 5,000 a year.
This debt service could be financed
with an increase in cable franchise fees,
an increase of fees for various inspec
tions programs, a reduction in town
operations costs or an increase in the tax
rate, Horton said.
"The council has indicated that they
would prefer not to raise the tax rate this
year," Horton added.
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