European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 20, 1969, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday january 20, 1969 the stars and stripes Page 9 great debate on Vietnam is Long overdue the Nixon administration and the Senate for Len relation com Mittee or in a High Speed col Liston course. The foreign policies of Presl dents William Mckinley Wood Row Wilton and Franklin d. Roosevelt precipitated Hie bitter Ett great debates in american history. All had a their Basic question to isolate or not to Iso late. The fury of these debates was such As to dispel easily the idea that americans Are a phlegmatic people. From president Wil son s acid Obser vation that a Little group of Ernest Cuneo grou wilful men were suffering free Dom to die to sen. Burton k. Wheeler s Savage charge that for planned to plough under every third american boy the presidential senatorial brawls have been about As restrained As a Bowie knife fight on the old Frontier. President Nixon is expected to inaugurate a much harder line with the communists starting with Hanoi. The Senate is bracing itself for what seems perfectly of Toust that the new president will heavily escalate the Vietnam War unless Hanoi agrees to negotiate. This is what president Eisen Hower did in Korea � indicating to the communists that he would no longer be limited territorially or in use of weapons nuclear included. Since the foreign relations committee will hurl itself upon this policy and or. Nixon must make Early decisions the tremendous struggle May Well be in the immediate offing. Actually the great debate on Vietnam is Long overdue. Failure to air the issues May be the cause of our difficulties there. American policy on Vietnam has resembled More a Compro Mise on a congressional Bill than a foreign policy. It is As if a number of doctors could not agree on whether to operate and compromised by permitting the surgeon Only an incision one Inch in depth. By analogy this Compromise results in useless shedding of blood without effecting the result desired. For this reason a great Many of the Hawk senator have turned Dove. They hold that unless the american forces Are fully free to use their tremendous strength they should be withdrawn. These senators now doves May be expected to rally to president Nix on s position but Only paradoxically enough if it is sufficiently hawkish. It has been perfectly obvious for some time that the bipartisan foreign policy which marked the Senate s policy for 20 years is dead. Oddly it was thai demo cratic senators who forced the Compromise Vietnam policy on president Johnson and the re publicans headed by senator Dirksen who defended him. The powerful democratic senatorial doves Long have insisted that president Johnson unconstitutionally backed the country into the War by extending the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Practically All voted however for the appropriations for the armed forces i onto they were committed to Battle. However a very considerable number of senators thereafter brought All possible argument and pressure to Bear on limiting or stopping the bombing. Fhy took this extreme position Pur Suant to a dedicated View thai this additional risk to american fighting men was justified in a desperate attempt to effect a peace. Equally dedicated senators As Well As the american generals and admirals earnestly told them they would increase casualties five fold. It is All but certain that the Nixon administration will nor accept this continuing rate of Amer ican casualties. Obviously Nixon will attempt to fix both responsibility and blame for the loss of american life on the Senate doves. Upon this Issue honorable men May honorable disagree. Unfortunately however both sides have overstated their cases raising much uglier issues. The senatorial doves have charged Nixon faces inflation menace the new Nixon administration rides in the face of a Cost of living problem that Only a full revamping of Federal outlays can Stem. The Situa Tion being inherited is enough to shatter the nerves of an astronaut. The courage and skill required Are downright monumental but so Are the stakes in our welfare and National Security. Coming to the end of the Road Arthur Okun chairman of the president s Council of economic advisers finally conceded that the government itself has been the major cause of inflation because it has been pouring so much deficit Money into the econ omy. Deficit financing borrowing to spend More than the govern ment s income Means inflation. As Washington continues to Bor Row More and More to pay its Bills the Cost of Hving threat and other dangers multiply. The effect is epidemic Al like typhus in milk. Who can keep up with these rises in the Cost of Irving and they cannot be stopped until the deficit financing is stopped. Although tax collections taken straight out of our hides were at an All time High in the past fiscal year the official Federal deficit was $25.4 billion. Washington s outlays of All kinds far exceeded anything that the spenders of our Money told the Public they would spend. In a bookkeeping performance that wot As outrageous As it was illegal the deficit was juggled to make the  Ink look less . Even so the deficit was $4.6 billion More than president John son Ltd Ink forecast of Latt Jan wary As ii none of this had any thing to do with us or the Cost of living at All. Hand the rest of the Washington Robin hoods of the Ted Ink teem a detached As if they were tailing an torn of by Cloud in the ghost of a trim cell pet ship looking Down benignly and at indifferent at they Are Remote. But what of us at on result of All this the Cost of living hit another new All time High on january 1. It is rising at a rate one third faster than even the year previous. Like the Eiffel Tower it just goes straight up. Politicians make political Hay by boasting about the higher figures scrawled on pay envelopes. This is a pure bamboozle. The net take Home pay and what you can get with it is All that really counts in the family. The rising Cost of living is Chip Ping away at everybody s Oay at the record breaking rate of nearly one half per cent a month. It wipes out Ond More the 1968 pay gains of 45 million workers who according to the labor department s Bureau of labor statistics got pay raises last year. They gained an average $5.86 a week in wages. But of this higher Federal taxes reduced the take Home pay of those with three dependents by $4.26, and the increased Cost of living left them worse off than before. The official consumer Price Index shows that it now costs $12.34 for every $10 Worth of typical family expenses As hey were before the new Frontier great society took Over. And col . Heinl or. Food at the rate its Cost is oing up and the Dollar s value Down it will soon be cheaper to eat the Money. The value of the Dollar that the new Frontier great society inherited had dropped on Jan. 1 to 81 cents. The average weekly pay Check of $109.21 was Worth $78.06 after taxes in terms of that inherited Dollar s Purchas ing Power or Only $70.85 for a single worker who pays higher taxes. Unless the Nixon administration can Stem it we will have at this rate of decline a $1 pay Check Worth 50 cents within exactly six years. And what about the silently of so silently abused millions on millions who Are trying to get along today on any kind of fixed income these forgotten people will find their pension annuity savings Bank nest egg life insurance benefits and their income from these reduced by about one third in the same length of time. There is no easy and prob ably no popular Way for the Nix on administration to turn this situation around. But courage and skill and the right sense of responsibility Are the Only Way out of this great gruesome nonsense. C 1968 United feature Syndicate inc. That Fth War is immoral indeed that the american armed forces a personally immoral and that their presence has wrecked the morals of a decent agricultural people. They further darkly hint that there h an american military Industrial Complex which like the corrupt Saigon government has a vested professional and financial interest in the continuation of the War. The Hawks for their part in Sist that the doves Are infiltrated by the commies and quite aside from their overt support of Hanoi have Given secret Aid and com fort to an enemy in the Field in a manner which had War been declared would be seditious and possibly treasonable. The least that the nation is Likely to see is a renewal of the Savage confrontation Between the Northern Dove and Southern Hawk democrats whih ook place at the Chicago convention. A very possible result is that the South will become solid again solid Republican. C North american newspaper Alliance that s an identified flying of eco from Home to Odds against Israel go up up up if 50 million arabs once again try to push 4 million israelis into the sea the numerical Odds will be even More unequal than they were 18 months ago in june of 1967. Russia hat completely reared Egypt and Syria and has re placed older undamaged iraqi weapons and aircraft with Ater better Quality models. More than $,000 russian military advisers Are now serving Down to Bat Talion level in the egyptian syr Ian and iraqi armed forces. The opinion expire de in the column and. Cartoon on this Page represent Stone of the author and Are in no Way to be considered representing the View of the Star and Stripe Luelf or of the United state flow Rorn to. Russia in a sense has re armed Israel too. More than 200 Modem russian t54 and 5tt tanks were salvaged by the israelis after the six Day War and Are now in service with ample quantities of spares and ammunition in Israel s Doughty Little army. According to qualified military sources the user has furnished at la to $2 billion in replacement military hardware to Egypt Syria and Iraq since the summer of 1967. While this has covered All important War lots Russia hat primarily reared the arabs of an air War. Out of More than 700 combat aircraft now on hand Egypt hot received 150 Mig-21s and 80 new Su-7 fighter attack planes. Both Syria and Iraq now Nave More and newer russian torn Bat aircraft than they had in 1967. Russian pilots now serve As division and Squadron readers in certain Arab air units. Previously the russians Only instructed. And 150 egyptian pilots Ore now undergoing advanced operational training in the soviet Union. Jordan which alone emerged from the disastrous 1967 Baitx Krieg with credit and some Hon or is not awed by the user but from British and . Sources. While any War especially at history hot already thrice demonstrated any War be tween Israel and its Arab enemies is ultimately decided by imponderable factors the bal Ance of Fortes in the Middle East weighs heavily on the Arab Side. Israel with a population of 4 million faces Egypt Syria Iraq Jordan and Lebanon with nearly 50 million. Israel s instant armed forces when mobilized to Tal 275,000 those of the five Arab states add up to 424,000, plus More than 250,000 restive and paramilitary troops of in even effectiveness. In tanks guns and combat aircraft the Arab israeli spread is even wider. To North american Nev Pap a Alliance