European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 3, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 a the stars and stripes wednesday october 3,1990 column George Black up Calls to arms always serve same purpose the rehearsals for War in the persian Gulf provoke an especially harrowing form of anxiety in the Public mind. Minutes devotes a segment to chemical warfare a time cover shows a ghoulish full face shot of a Soldier in a Gas mask under the caption a Are we ready for this a but Are chemical weapons worse than some of the other technologies of destruction that men employ to kill one another it is hard to pose such a heretical question especially since my own Grandfather was crippled by Mustard Gas in 1918 in the Charnel House of the Somme. But what gave his suffering so bitter an Edge was the fact that it was inflicted by such an exotic and stigmatized instrument. Quot the stigma Long predates the mass use of Gas in world War i. In 1854 a British peer lord Dundonald proposed using Fulfur Gas to reduce Czar Nicnolas Garrison at Sebastopol. The gentlemen of the War office decided that a an operation of this nature would contravene the Laws of civilized warfare and Felt that a the facts were so horrible that no honorable combatant could use the Means to produce they ordered lord Dundonald a memorandum destroyed. Satisfied that they had established ethical criteria for their conduct of the Crimea Campaign the British generals then went after the rus it9 it 3n4 Atno Bersonnet. And of Trahd but on he Brt Fht s 4e-# least carib Ptah out our psf sians with the new High velocity Rifle the. Quot tall get encased in a larger one and the newly a a bouquet a number of Small grenades invented Shell a known More familiarity As Quot whistling Dick a which blew on Heads and shredded internal organs in a most efficient fashion. It is hard to quibble with the humanitarian motives of those who framed the 1925 Geneva protocol which barred the use or first use in the . Interpretation of Poison Gas. But at the same time the moral taboo attached to certain kinds of armaments has conveniently allowed the planners of War free from scrutiny to devise alternative ways of humiliating demoralizing and killing the enemy. The essential moral Case against chemical weapons is the indiscriminate threat they pose to civilians and the most shocking evidence of Saddam Hussein s character has been his use of Poison Gas against kurdish non combatants. The Reagan Anthony Lewis administrations response was to Block sanctions against Iraq while pushing ahead with its own production of chemical weapons inducting binary warheads a enough according to the american chemical Solety to kill the worlds population 5,000 times Over. In a sense that time cover showing a masked combatant rather than a civilian makes an emotional argument by false logic. In addition the desert theater of saudi Arabia is thinly populated. Also iraqis nerve gases Are a non persistent a that is they remain effective for Only a few hours. The intense desert heat would hasten their evaporation making a Gas attack on . Troops even less Likely to cause random civilian deaths. Iraq possesses Mustard Gas which blisters Booy tissues especially mucous membranes like the inside of the lungs and nerve agents which cause respiratory failure within a few minutes. What of the a advil Izeda weapons in the . Arsenal napalm is a gasoline based Jelly that adheres to the skin and Burns. White phosphorus bores its Way through to the Bone with a fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Cluster bombs the modern version of the crimean a a bouquet randomly expel thousands of tiny fragments that penetrate deep into the body tearing up internal tissue As they go. There Are also the More mundane ways in which soldiers die. Is it so preferable to be Fried alive inside a tank the preferred manner of Dealin death in the Gulf remains undetermined for now Henry Kissinger a proposal for a a a surgical strike on Iraq remains on the table. One might have thought that out of shame such language would have fallen into disuse after Quot surgical Quot . Bombing wiped out the patients of a mental Hospital in Grenada in 1983. But then the men who dictate the design and vocabulary of death As Well As dominating our Public discourse Are the think tank types and superannuated diplomats As Remote from the fight As the aging British generals who Drew the line Between div lived and uncivilized killing in the Crimea these men done to personally have to face anything More hostile than a Tough question from Ted Koppel on a night line a and in the Case of Kissinger not even that they would have us forget the Blunt truth enunciated in a War and peace by Prince Andrei a the object of warfare is Black is foreign editor of the nation Magazine. Special to the los Angeles times anti crime Bill could Hurt poor defendants if attorney general Dak Thornburgh were Ever unimaginably charged with a crime we wild be be Content to be defended by a lawyer just six months out of Law school a lawyer who had never before been in a trial a drunk or rep. Henry j. Hyde a do would he want to be told he could Nave Only a lawyer willing to handle his Case however Long and complicated for ,000? or told that lawyers would bid to defend him and be would get the cheapest Quot Dick Thornburgh and Henry Hyde would not want to face a shoplifting charge with that land of Legal representation in my opinion. But they want americans to go on trial for their Yves that Way a with inexperienced incompetent lawyers lacking the Money to make an effective defense even if they knew How. That is what Thornburgh and Hyde Are doing with an anti crime Bill about to be debated in the House. They Are trying to remove a provision that would set minimum standards for lawyers in death cases. And Congress is so scared of looking a soft on crime they May very we succeed. The level of Legal representation in capital cases is shockingly Low in this country. Some dedicated lawyers do act for defendants too poor to pay for counsel As most of them Are. But in the Southern states that have most of the cases appointed counsel Are often pathetically inadequate. Mississippi and Arkansas limit the total compensation of appointed lawyers in death cases to $1,000. A Georgia judicial circuit has used bids to find the cheapest. It is commonplace for capital defendants to be Given lawyers just out of Law school lawyers who do not present mitigating evidence or look for it there have been cases of lawyers drunk and on drugs. There was a lawyer who said the Only criminal cases he knew were a Miranda and dred Scott dred Scon the 1857 supreme court decision on slavery had nothing to do with criminal Law. The National Law journal this year did an extended study of capital cases in six Southern states. It concluded a indigent defendants on trial for their lives Are frequently represented by is trained unprepared court appointed lawyers so grossly underpaid that they literally cannot afford to do the Job they know needs to be the fact that so Many capital cases Are mishandled at trial has had distorting effects on our judicial system. Convicted state defendants have gone into the Federal courts to Challenge their convictions by writs of Hareas Corpus and those proceedings have caused delays that understandably trouble Many people. Federal judges do not like the Burden of the Hareas Cor its cases. But they find violations of the Constitution so Agrant that they set aside convictions or sentences. The anti crime Bill approved by the House judiciary committee would limit the right of state prisoners to bring Federal Hareas Corpus cases. But it also gets at the underlying reason for the problem the capital trials flawed by inadequate defense. The bal sets minimum standards of experience and resources for lawyers who represent capital defendants. The standards were proposed after extensive hearings by the american bar association. But the Justice department objects to the provision for competent counsel. Hyde has a substitute Biu backed by the administration that would drop the counsel provision while just about wiping out the Hareas Corpus jurisdiction of the Federal courts. Members of the House Are running scared on the crime Issue. The Specter of Willie Horton is in the air. The administration and some Law enforcement people have attacked the committee Bill with distortions calling it a pro for those reasons the House May be on the verge of removing what has been the safety net of our criminal Law Hareas Corpus the historic remedy for injustice. There Are Many issues in the Bill but for me the right to an adequate lawyer when you Are on trial for your life is Basic. The right to counsel in capital trials is hardly a Radical idea. Nearly 60 years ago conservative supreme court Justice George Sutherland wrote in the Scottsboro Case that the defendant in a death Case needs a the guiding hand of counsel at every if Dick Thornburgh Ever got into difficulty he would not have to depend on an appointed lawyer. But he is sensitive to the needs of less fortunate people. I think it will be heavy on his conscience if Congress strips away the right of Federal court review without assuring capital defendants the guiding hand of competent counsel c new Yolk time
