European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 20, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 a the stars and stripes do tunes Walter r. Mears thursday december 20, 1990 it a a a a ifs at icy or a Washington a while it won t happen president Rush has said he would Welcome a session of Congress called by its democratic leaders to a strongly endorse what in a doing Quot in the confrontation with Iraq. Vice president Dan Quayle if Congress Isnit going to do that it ought to keep quiet. John h. Sununu the White House chief of staff said most members of the House and Senate want to state their opinions on persian Gulf policy but Don t want to have to cast an up or Down vote on it. With messages like those the Republican administration is sharpening the political line on persian Gulf policy disputing its critics and trying to prevent democrats front positioning themselves As the peace party. A a. Its not a party line Issue nor is there significant dissent on the . Objective of getting Iraq out of Kuwait. There Are differences on tactics and especially on timing a whether to wait while economic sanctions punish Iraq or Send troops to liberate Kuwait after Jan. 15, the United nations deadline for has made the latter offensive action course one of his options. An array of democratic leaders in and out of Congress prefers to wait longer for the sanctions to work. A Quot in a White House approved speech Quayle accused congressional democrats of playing politics with the persian Gulf in Senate hearings that offer a the luxury of criticism without the Burden of accountability,�?T11 he complained about the sequence of witnesses with critics appearing before administration officials testified a although that happened because the White House chose not to Send its spokesmen until after the United nations had voted to authorize the use of Force against Iraq. / a i. Quayle said the committees should have waited. A if there was such an urgency to have the hearings Why not have an urgency to help the president Quot he said. Hush said that he thinks he has increasing support in Congress l in noted that he had told House and Senate leaders that a if you want to come in Here and strongly endorse what i am doing or endorse the United nations Resolution i Welcome that because 1 think it would Send a very Strong Clear signal to the world a Sununu had said earlier that a i have the feeling that most of them wish that they never get asked to make a decision one Way or the other on the the new Congress that convenes next month will have to Vole on appropriations to pay for the desert shield operation. Quayle addressing Republican governors in Pine Hurst n.c., last week said an expression of solid congressional backing for Bush would improve the chances for peace. A a a a a. A a Quot. A a a a. A .a.m. Rosenthal a but that would require Congress to resist the temptation to use the current hearings on the Gulf for partisan political advantage a Quayle said. Instead be said some congressional democrats Are trying to portray themselves As the party of peace and the administration As the party of War. He say which congressional democrats. A a in a not getting into names at All a Quayle said later when he was asked to identify his targets a a in a not going to do that and you re not going to bait me into Short of a Resolution of support Quayle said con Gross can by remaining silent. We re going to interpret their silence As being a two Days later when the Senate foreign relations committee resumed its hearings on the persian Gulf sen. Joseph r. Biden jr., a Deh said the purpose was to broaden understanding of the crisis and ways to resolve it not to score political Points a the administration has responded by accusing this and other congressional committees of partisanship a Biden said. A we Are accused of seeking to break the Bush he said that Isnit so. Make or break issues will be shaped by. The outcome in the persian Gulf not by congressional hearings or political debate. A if we win a relatively Quick and decisive Victory As is very Likely i think the president will emerge As the hero. A said rep. Stephen j. Solarz a new York Democrat who supports his current course. A if we were to get bogged Down in a protracted conflict with the casualties building ii the country would obviously come to a different a a c the associated pres trials could cleanse nation the Public trials of the murder cars of tire soviet people will be held in Moscow. But there will be so Many cases that judges and juries will probably also have to sit in Leningrad Kiev Perm Odessa and other soviet cities. Almost nobody in the West wants to talk about it but the trials Are inevitable a unless once again darkness closes in on the soviet Union. Too Many soviet citizens have been murdered by men still in office or collect. Ing retirement checks too Many millions imprisoned for the crimes to be forgotten by the soviet people while the criminals go so unless the stalinist executioners and their fascist minded Brothers frighten the Gorbachev government into crackdown As the last Hope of retaining Power the trials will begin possibly As soon As iy92. The demands of the survivors of the gulag will grow too loud to be ignored. They will be joined by the relatives of the murdered and of those other millions who disappeared but were never forgotten by those who loved them. Soviet newspapers sometimes Cany stories about Rock trials held in preparation. But in the West the intellectual and political commitment to the Gorbachev regime is a Strong thu Uhre is almost total silence about the human and social need for punishing those who tormented the soviet people for so Long. One american Public figure has not silenced himself. The december Issue of commentary a Magazine Ever More important and rare for intellectual clarity carries a passionate letter from Zbigniew Brzezinski. A a Hitler a crimes Are still being justly punished a he writes. A but in the soviet a a conservatives who fight democracy and decentralization. What they w ant to conserve is their hold on Power and their necks. Their Only Safe Haven would be another Complete soviet tyranny under which they could imprison torture or murder anybody who might testify against them. Quot. A the gift that president Mikhail Gorbachev can give to his people is to rid himself of these men. But Many Are his it. Union there Are literally thousands of sex colleagues some his mentors. The signs killers and sex torturers living on official from Moscow Are that he is afraid or in pensions attending various revolutionary willing to make this final break with the celebrations decked out in their medal six communist party in whose name the Brzczinski adds that a former secret crimes w Ere committed police major called Seremenko the a Reich Manhy of the murder of 15,000 polish officers at Katyn lives comfortably in mos cow. Tie says that officers who took part in Stalin a Auti Jewis i purges Are still around. Plenty of russians victims or accomplices know who they arc. The killers will not go quietly to their docks. They still hold High places in the almost every Day brings word of a new Gorbachev move to strengthen the Kab and other forces of a Law and order a which in the soviet Union sustain neither. Democratic Law peaceful order a . Need police and judges responsible to the people or their elected representatives not faceless men in the Kremlin frantic to but at least some of the american journalistic and academic admirers of Gorbachev Are finally seeing he has become More the problem than the solution. Now perhaps they will join those of us foreigners who have been bellowing warnings about Blind Western Aid to the Gorbachev government and Cavalier dismissal of soviet democrats. Welcome. Maybe Gorbachev will hear. But the Hope lies chiefly in soviet democrats the new dissidents. They know that the men Gorbachev still embraces have Only one connection to the soviet future a their place As the accused in the process of judgment. The trials will give the soviet peo pie the Chance to face the past write freedoms Legal verdict on the communist Era and so end it. A c new York times. Docks they still hold High places m the perpetuate their own Power. That Rule of government the communist party the Law under Freedom is what is feared most Kab and the dozens of other police and by the rightist allies to whom Gorbachev intelligence agencies of the soviet Union a none of them disbanded in the almost five years of the Gorbachev men and those who carried out clings. Inside the soviet Union democratic groups cry this aloud. Western govern Mentsen tend not to hear preferring the tit Al a it Quot �?1 r a cd their orders arc of the Tolu risks of greater the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states government. A a a
