The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 22, 1971, Page Page 2, Image 2
JIM FARRELL
EDIT01
LUCRETIA JONES DAVE LUNDGREN
MANAGING ED AD. MNGR.
EDITORIALS
IM,
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Our Times
As the war ends, d
BY SMITH HEMPSTONE strong), are the r
WASHINGTON-Now that the war. Well, they cau
war in Vietnam is winding down,
there are cries for a universal until hl fz
amnesty for all draft-dodgers, ltl neso f
deserters and conscientious ob-pa
jectors.
The concept of amnesty--ofhelwcnbdvi
wiping the slate clean and makinggoetjalrh
a new start-is an appealing one.
And the chances are that, in due toewohv o
time, there will be at least a se-ipin,ad e
lective pardon for some of thoseOfte,prhp
who refused to fight for theirreitsnoinpi
country, as indeed there should be. sre hi em
But to say this is to say far lessdrvgofan
than dove apologists wish said.al,hvhdte
Consider the remarkable words ofthprcofherc
James Reston Jr., writing In a de emhr
recent issue of The New Republic: hv og hog
"The country has erred; the fln nete
instinct of the exiles and theprc;tema
prisoners has been right. Amnesty ffl hi bia
must come as an honest andbtthyddnti
courageous attempt at national Toewot
expiation. The majority of Candalesde
are not waiting for their country to tre hi ak
forgive them. Rather. ..it Is a cutybto
question of whether they can gnrto,lvn
forgive their country." sm ftoew
In other words, the 30,000-100,000 eptItsrfs
deserters and draft-dodgers in
Canada and elsewhere maintainthmevsi
that they won't come in out of theCnainelsr
cold until the country is preparedsevortpath
to admit that they, not those whoowdticunr
went to Vietnam (and whose wu eamnn
-. .u*k.s .may ave enlust:.tong),tarn that r
..war..Well,.they.car
Harriet Van Hor
1
Blueprmi
BY HARRIET VAN HORNE
Columnist
NEW YORK--"Brave new
world" used to be such a fine
phrase! It still chimes sweetly in
the mind, always summoning up a
vision of Miranda in "The Tem
pest" clasping her hands and
crying, "0 brave new world that
hath such people in it!"
One has to go back several
yesterdays to appreciate how
much people expected of the brave
new world a-comin'. Tomorrow
was always going to be better. In
1900 men made a religion of
progress, order, security. Wait and
see, We'd have more riches, more
leisure, more telephones and
bathtubs, sleeping cars on trains.
All items to enhance our moral
supremacy.
Today we've given up on moral
supremacy and we hardly dare
face tomorrow. The 1971 Nobel
Prize winner in physics, Dennis
Gabor, says we are suffering from
a "terrifying imbalance in in
novations." Our technology has
become compulsive. We feel we
must innovate or die.
Simple, as only very wise men
can be, Dr, Gabor sees the menace
to life and love and beauty in this
mad frenzy of innovation. The hero
of the next generation, he told
writer Helen Dudar, will be neither
the scientist nor the inventor but
"somebody who is happy and can
make people happy."
Anybody who thinks the Viet
namese war is positively our last
isn't aware If how firmly the
Pentagon has this--and every
other--Administration in its thrall.
Were he not politically indebted
to the industrial-military complex,
President Nixon could be
remembered with the emperor
who found Rome brick and left it
marble. He could, were his Quaker
emands f
ii heroes of the owes them
stay in Canada As for the
ver before that a uniform t
aluies comes to legitimacy <
themselves
fallen afoul of which they
ed roughly into That is a s4
use who have been so jud
er than serve, all places.'I
ie underground mitigating f
r to avoid con- the circums
rters. framing the
i the 3,500 draft In all cat<
son or who have individual
are the most crime (and
sty. They, after Minor, a cr1
:ourage to pay importance,
nvictions and it Thomas Jc
at they should Tallahasse
life branded as reporter a
save paid that ciation of ci
ave refused to Court has re
lons as citizens him liable
in from them. Canada or a
ok refuge in will take hi
or elsewhere When Jol
iot only on their draft in 196:1
their own conscientiot
he lives lost by vice. These
C), because the than two 3
dIto go, found American c
/ietnam. The Southeast
fused either to According
penalty for not was an A
they said they When he fle<
nothing and it 23 years oi
ental sophistry completed
is country nvow ------When he wa
n
ts for wars
ideals unspotted of the world, be
remembered as the President who
so valued life and so hated war and
destruction that he declined to
sanction any more nuclear bomb
tests.
But the tests will go on. And the
wvars will go on until the final
"wargasm," as Herman Kahn
calls it, when all the buttons are
pushed and every living creature
perishes. If you doubt the
possibility, listen to the blueprints
they're drawing at the Institute for
Land Combat. That's a U. S. Army
"think tank" where a staff of 170
civilian analysts and military
officers are creating and "or
chestrating" all the wars we may
be fighting between now and 1990.
The possibilities, as outlined in
Paul Dickson's new book, "Think
Tanks," sound absurd. But the
absurdity is nevertheless chilling.
We might have, for example, a
war in Yugoslavia with us, jtaly
and the Yugoslavs standing off
Russia, Romania, Bulgaria and
Hungary. Or a war against Russia,
East Germany and Poland fought
in northern Norway. For these
engagements the ILC anticipates
we must have some 600 new
weapons. All paid for by tax
dollars with many cost overruns,
of course.
There is something insane in this
picture of mature, intelligent men
bending all their energies on
plotting destruction and death. The
Intelligence Threat Analysis
Group-ITAG, of course-foresees
some 385 "possible wars," with
the United States risking in
volvement in 145. The Congo and
Bolivia are also mentioned as
likely war theaters. And so is "an
Asian conflict at Taiwan with the
Republic of China, the United
States, the Phillippines and Japan
fighting Communist China."
That's the brave new world on
or amnest
something in return. consul
deserters, by donning renout
hey acknowledged the old en
>f the contract between to kn
and their government doing,
since have disavowed. returni
'rious offense and has board
ged in all tim' s and in "4 dicate
'here can, of course, be Thei
actors, depending upon world
tances and motivations that ol
action. 18-yea
sgories, of course, the to see
circumstances of the misses
it IS, despite Reston and t,
me) are of paramount secon<
Take the case of our sy
iley, the 27-year-old Jolley
e (Fla.) newspaper more
hose formal renun- Wi
tizenship the Supreme still fli
fused to upset, leaving it wou
for deporation to to issu
ny other country which is call
m' withd
ley registered for the compl
, he apparently had no elapse
s objections to ser- of trib
he discovered more pleas
rears later when the these
ommitment to defend consid
~sia became obvious. meriti
to press reports, he Thal
itudent in high school, and b
I to Canada, Jolley was was tj
Id and had virtually young
lisa college education, and di
lked into the Amerian -
the Pentagon's drawing board. As
my father once said after some
young vandals set fire to an empty
cottage, "There must be other
'things those boys can do on a rainy
Saturday."
Up at the Hudson Institute,
Herman Kahn's think tank,
they've devised the full strategy
for that possible war with Red
China. It calls for our side to
"detonate a one-megaton weapon
at 500,000 feet above Peking as a
demonstration." Simultaneously,
the United States begins round-the
clock broadcasts and drops leaflets
proclaiming the destruction of
Chinese military installations.
"Your leaders have led you to
disaster," we shall tell those poor
stupid Chinese peasants. Back
home, we'll be needing no leaflets
to tell our poor stupid citizens the
same news.
I know that the next 30 years are
expected to bring us all sorts of
technical marvets. Herman Kahn
has listed these for us, too:
superperformance fabrics, papers
and plastics, control of climate,
two-way pocket telephones, in
dividual flying platforms, home
computers to perform all
household tasks, hibernation and
controlled sleep to cure disease,
laser beams everywhere. All this
plus programmed dreams and
"nonharmful methods of
overindulging."
That programmed dream of
tomorrow's wars is certainly an
overindulgence and harmful
hardly describes it. For some of us
the best possible program for
tomorrow would call for the
closing of the Pentagon and the
opening of a vast Institute for
Peace. But don't count on it. As Dr.
Gabor says, "People have to be
educated to be good."
Copyright 1971 Lms Angeles Times
y begin
ate in Toronto in 1967 to
ice his citizenship, he was
Dugh and intelligent enough
wprecisely what he was
athe snippy note which he
ed to his selective service
with his draft card in
di.
e is all the difference in the
between Joiley's case and
an impulsive, not-too-bright
r-old who goes over the hill~
his girl before shipping out,
his troop-ship, gets scared
akes off for Canada. The
I has a claim on a measure of
mpathy and understanding;
's claim on these qualities is
tenuous,
eh is why, with Americans
ghting and dying in Vietnam,
Id be wrong and inequitable
e a universal amnesty. What
ed for, when the American
rawal from Vietnam is
ete and a decent period has
d, is the creation of a system
unals to review all amnesty
related to the war. Before
tribunals, cases should be
ered on their individual
will be a time-consuming
urdensome process. But so
be process by which other
men were selected to fight
e in Vietnam.