European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 18, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday february 18, 1991 the stars and stripes Barry Schweid Page 13 commentary a a i a a. A a. A. A a proposal to pull out just a trap iraqis proposal to pull out of Kuwait amounts to a complicated bid to convert an impending military debacle into a diplomatic Triumph for Saddam Hussein and palestinian arabs. President Bush said key Quot coalition leaders had brushed it off As a nothing and yet the president pointed out the Glimmer of an a opening noting that in its statement Iraq May have recognized a for the first time that Iraq must leave a a a. A. A a a a it Saddam officials in Washington believe is not dealing from strength. V us. Officials Are Quick to Point out that the offer conditional like All previous overtures followed Many Days of destructive bombing raids that left the iraqis in a a a precarious military situation. Sen. Sam Nunn d--ga., chairman of the Senate armed services committee said Friday that a if there Are conditions attached to the withdrawal then i done to think it will go very far toward a but he added a this could be the opening bid in Saddam s move toward diplomacy. In the Arab world you always have to be prepared for bargaining and this May be the opening the iraqi offer puts pressure on Bush to keep Arab nations in the War coalition even while insisting again that their dispute with Israel Over occupation of the West Bank and Gaza can be addressed Only after the persian Gulf conflict ends. Bush s Arab allies Are probably in no hurry to accept peace terms that leave Saddam in Power and his military might intact along with Israel they would worry about future aggression even if Iraq were to give up its occupation of Kuwait for now. By reiterating that Iraq must pull out of Kuwait unconditionally the White House held fast to its refusal to link the persian Gulf conflict to israelis hold on the territories and their palestinian inhabitants. A not Only was the Iraq statement full of old unacceptable conditions but Saddam Hussein has added new conditions a Bush said. A although bus1i did not elaborate White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Saddam is now trying to a dictate the new leadership in Kuwait and is demanding that the coalition finance the rebuilding of Iraq. A a saudi Arabia Egypt and the other Arab nations in the coalition Are under pressures of their own. While diplomats try to keep the War and the Arab israeli dispute separate Saddam has managed to link them in the minds of millions of palestinians and other arabs. The iraqi president has had considerable Success in the streets and in the bazaars in converting his annexation of Kuwait into a rallying cry for Israel to yield the William f. Buckley or. Territories to palestinian control. While Secretary of state James a. Baker Iii has said repeatedly that no one believes Saddam invaded Kuwait to help the palestinians the logic of his argument is lost on the multitudes who have made a Folk hero out of the iraqi president. They have forced King Hussein of Jordan to risk his Strong ties with Washington by siding with. Iraq in the War. And they could make it very hard for King fahd of saudi Arabia and president l Losnie Mubarak of Egypt to keep fighting a and keep risking More Arab lives a now that Saddam has offered to pull out if Israel will do the a other condition a that the United states withdraw its military forces from the area a could expose the Region to a resurgence of iraqi Power despite. The losses Iraq has suffered. Allied bombardments have taken a heavy toll of Saddam a armoires especially his deadly scud missile. Launchers. But he retains a powerful army and More tanks it than Britain and France combined. Even so the White houses abrupt dismissal of the iraqi leaders initiative Drew some dissent. A this May or May not be the break we re looking for a said sen. Paul Simon Dill a but we should be open to negotiate if Afaq is r a or Gen. Alexander Haig former Secretary of state told can a the Good news is that clearly Saddam is beginning to crack. The bad news is that this initial proposal and Many More that will follow Are going to be steeped with traps and Pitfalls which we should not he said iraqis offer is a thus far not a serious Effort but a trap which we re going to carefully avoid. What we Are doing is right and the outcome will be ultimately a Victory if we do not succumb to some specious peace offering which has other objectives.�?�. 1 the associated pres Sarnett doing much More harm than Good the quarrel Over Peter Arnett of can Isnit one that quickly separates the sophisticated from the the True believers in All but total press Freedom Advance As their clinching argument that it is useful to know even what it is that the enemy wishes us to think because in that Way we learn something that May prove valuable. The Point is tenable in pure epistemological theory the More you know the More you know but in the real world a pretty Good argument can be made against expediting the telling of untruths. I had a dramatic personal experience in which this question weighed in the balance. It was five or six years ago in the heat of the cold War and i was a guest on Ted Koppel a a program. The other guest was a soviet Quot journalists practising in Washington. I put journalist in quotation Marks because of course in those Days there was never such a thing As a soviet journalist. There were soviet propagandists a i.e., men and women instructed Quot a to Tell the american people whatever the Kremlin desired them to be told which w As uniformly tendentious. The subject Koppel had invited us to address was a what do the russian people think of a Xyz and i said that that subject i wanted to know Why or. Prop Agantovich had been invited on the program because his Job was to lie to the american people about what the russian people thought about anything at All if such were his instructions by his employer the soviet state. Besides i said there is no systematic apparatus permitted within the for finding out what the russian people care about because what they care about is of no interest to their slave masters. Quot. A there was a huge response to the position i took As Koppel conceded though he continued right through Berlin Wall time inviting soviet propaganda machines on his program. Now the free speech purists will argue that there is nothing wrong there because somebody is on the spot to rebut what you say. To which the Best answer is that if we spend the whole of every Day considering every question to be an open question a to be rebutted in due course we have taken the position that learning is impossible process because we have no foundation stones to build upon. If Ever Day during the reign of Adolf Hitler one had to re establish that he was anti semitic Mccause someone had said he Wasny to you would never get around to formulating a strategy to Cope with his anti semitism. And that takes us to the Arnett problem. Do we or do we not know that the United states and our allies Are Tak my considerable precautions to spare the civilian population of Iraq to the extent this is possible answer yes. We do know this. Why because we Are told it by people we Trust because even by iraqi showings enemy civilian casualties have been relatively Light and because if we really did no to care about civilian casualties we could end the War by noon tomorrow by very simply nuclear zing Baghdad which gives us an insight into . Priori ties. R a a but Here is Peter Arnett Day after Day retailing the iraqi line that we Are hitting innocent civilians intentionally. How can we know that he knows that he is retailing iraqi lies in return for permission to continue broadcasting Harrison Salisbury Back in the mid-ll/5 a got a pulitzer prize for his reporting from Moscow which a. He volunteered some time later a was. Often misleading and even untruthful because that was the Price of doing business in the . When cmdr. Lloyd Bucher and his team were caught and tortured by the North koreans and were told to pose for a camera testifying that they had not been a mistreated Bucher passed around the word that when the camera shot the picture they were All to raise the of their right hand and Point it heavenward the Good old sign for a up the North koreans had been told by the commander that this Symbol meant give my love to Mother or something of the sort. When the North koreans discovered its True meaning they submitted the americans to More torture. Well you can t expect Arnett to pose with his Middle Inge a up during his now can you but Short of that it is simply True that x number of people. Wih believe that indeed we Are. Conducting ourselves inhumanely. And these misconceptions should not be taken too lightly. The distinguished British historian Alistair Horne wrote last week a a Britain so secret weapons in the Falk Landsman have been her ability to impose total censorship on All those frustrated journalists cooped up under the hatches of the Canberra. In be often wondered whether Given Vietnam style to coverage on the Normandy beaches in 1944., there would Ever have been a a Day plus 1.�?� a y a. So. Done to sell the anti Arnett Case too Short. A. C Universal press Syndicate t
