Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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ONLINE POLL (GAMECOCK • Wednesday July 27,2005 5 Do you think North Korea is a threat T y-■-1^ XTT-|—■v /^v “■—m “▼"■rT'i /~^A ssr.— VTF WPOTNTS www.dailygamecock.com. y 1 1 .J y f 1 1 1 ^ 1 THfSSAMECOCK CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Editor: gamecockeditor@gwm.sc.edu News: gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu Viewpoints: gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu The Mix: gamecockfeatures@gwm.sc.edu Sports: gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Public Affairs: gamecockPR@yahoo.com Online: www.dailygamecpck.com Newsroom: 777-7726 Editor's Office: 777-3914 STAFF EDITOR Steven Van Haren NEWS EDITOR Taylor Smith VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Patrick Augustine THE MIX EDITOR Shana Till SPORTS EDITOR Alex Riley COPY EDITORS Laura-Joyce Gough Brindy McNair PAGE DESIGNERS Jessica Ann Nielsen Megan Sinclair Mary Pinckney Waters ONLINE EDITOR Ryan Simmons STUDENT MEDIA DIRECTOR Scott Lindenberg FACULTY ADVISER Erik Collins CREATIVE DIRECTOR Susan King BUSINESS MANAGER Carolyn Griffin ADVERTISING MANAGER Sarah Scarborough CLASSIFIED MANAGER Sherry F. Holmes PRODUCTION MANAGER Garen Cansler The Gamecock is the editorially independent student newspaper of the University of South Carolina. It is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer, with the exception of university holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of the editors or author and not those of the University of South Carolina. The Board of Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Office of Student Media is the newspaper's parent organization. The Gamecock is supported in part by student activity fees. One free copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $1 each from the Office of Student Media. GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS If you see an error in todays paper, we want to know about it. E-mail us at gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu. TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock Advertising: 777-3888 1400 Greene St. Classified: 777-1184 Columbia. S.C. 29208 Fax: 777-6482 i EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR Steven Van Haren NEWS EDITOR Taylor Smith SPORTS EDITOR Alex Riley THE MIX EDITOR Shana Till VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Patrick Augustine IN OUR OPINION Spurrier era must start without shred of doubt After the hire of Steve Spurrier, Gamecock fans had reason to hope the football programs string of bad luck was ending, but recent news of an NCAA investigation and probable sanctions underline the need for transparency. USC football understandably does not want the con sequences of Lou Holtzs tenure to impact its ability to be competitive for years to come, but the old aphorism that honesty is the best policy holds true for the programs dealings with fans, the media and the NCAA Its best for the Spurrier era to begin with a clean slate and not under dark clouds of suspicion. Another component of the transition to Spurriers style of play means that some players will find themselves moved around while adjusting to a new system. However, this is no excuse for the coaching staff to renege on old commitments to scholarshipped players. Certainly, athletes who do not follow team rules will lose the privilege of getting a USC diploma along with competing, but Spurrier must not cut scholarshipped players who have not had the chance to prove themselves against the best of the SEC. If USC is to avoid the plight of programs that reduce collegiate athletics to a moneymaking ven ture, players must be able to trust USCs commitment to them. Deadly force essential in war against terror The recent shooting in Britain of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes has once again brought out critics of the war on terror. Obviously a mistake was made — de Menezes was not the terrorist the police thought he was, and the situation is a JACOB tragedy. What it DAVIS is not is the Third-year brutal police P^joumaUsm action many in the media are making it out to be. Early news reports made a point of de Menezess Brazilian descent with headlines intimating that his ethnic background made it easy for the police to mistake him for an Arab. Whether his appearance was a factor in the incident will only come out during the thorough investigation into the incident now being conducted by Scotland Yard. Police tracked de Menezes after he was seen leaving a house police suspected was being used by terrorist cells in the London area. When he was confronted in the train station by uniformed police officers, he fled. After repeated orders to stop, he was shot eight times ds he tried to board a train. This occurred the day after three other bomb attacks, similar to the ones successfully executed only a week earlier, were foiled when the explosives failed to detonate. De Menezes stepped into this highly charged atmosphere and chose to ignore direct police orders. I can only wonder what the various “Monday morning quarterbacks,” with their 20/20 hindsight, would have done. The fact is the officers acted precisely and correctly. The police have had a “shoot to kill” order in effect for years in regards to potential suicide bombers, spanning back to the days when the likely culprits were members of the IRA. It is simply not a good idea to shoot people in the chest when they likely have explosives strapped to their bodies. The fact that the officers acted so quickly and that de Menezes was the only person hit despite the crowd in the station speaks well, not ill, of the police and their training. The investigation into the incident will bear out whether or not the sum total of the police s actions was correct. However, for my money I can’t bear to think what the headlines would have read if police’s suspicions had been true. If, within two weeks of an attack that killed more than 50 people, and the day after another foiled attack, police had let a man under surveillance from a suspected terrorist hideout board a train despite him ignoring repeated police warnings to stop, the uproar would have been, rightly, titanic. ''/ir JOST That AM£*<^hW AlC£ 5AlP TH^ veucAtf wwr THet^Tney^oouo^7 Tfi £l ( HAv/e AMV0OOY 7^ 3 ni ^ _, £l6CTI0N/S / yj| Jll tf/O ir^Virr— COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS