European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 23, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday March 23, 1991 the stars and stripes. B Page 13 commentary Mary Mcgrury Amateur photographer deserves a medal should we not give a medal to George Holliday his video of the brutal beating of a Black speeder by White policemen of the los Angeles police department May in the end contribute More to the preservation of democracy than some of the More forceful moves made by the american military in the persian Gulf War. Holliday a plumbing business manager was not out to save his country or protect anybody a civil rights when he started filming the horrendous scene that unfolded under Quot his Balcony on March 3. He was trying out a new camera. But he soon knew what he had and promptly sold the film to a local television station a for $500, it should be added. The commercial aspect does not detract from his singular service to the Public. The whole world stopped dead in its tracks to watch a sequence of violence that matched anything that was coming in from Kuwait or Iraq. The whole country began asking Why a Man who was lying on the ground had to be clubbed by three officers of the local police department. He had been speeding they said. He is also a convicted Felon. Neither circumstance justifies what happened although los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates tried to do so a not for the first time. A an aberration a he called it although his City is currently paying out $8 million in claims to Black and hispanic citizens who have been slammed around by the police for being what they Are. You just have to ask yourself what would have happened if Rodney g. King had gone to the authorities with a Story of police brutality without the help of George Holliday a videotape. He could show his injuries a a broken ankle. A optic nerve damage. A the loss of several Teeth a. A internal bleeding. A facial fractures. But who would have believed an sex con who was alleged to have been driving 100 Miles an hour a against the los Angeles cops thanks to George Holliday we know considerably More about members of the land. In the Holliday video we learn that they Are not the least bit self conscious about clobbering a suspect. They were not furtive or nervous As they landed blow after blow they were not of John Young Here s1k�$ 1uk1i0n.toutebw ,yfii<lr6 int.a.,anp�?T1bu just  Sopkp to lilt piously the least bit worried that any of the Brothers who stood around watching would turn them in. By their conduct they practically insist on being suspected of doing this kind of thing routinely. It is not necessary to be a bleeding heart Liberal to be appalled. Conservative columnist George will appearing on a this week with David Brinkley a called for the resignation of chief Gates and characterized the actions shown on the tape As a a police riot in a  Southern California is a place where rage and violence Are much in Vogue. They pick up trends very fast. Not so Long ago the Drivers around los Angeles were shooting each other to express their irritation with the flow of traffic on their freeways. And we have just been through a War. War sanctifies even glorifies violence that a what its All about. It is hard to imagine an excessive use of Force in War when killing is the name of the game. Even so the Bush administration was worried about an Adverse reaction to one of the final actions of the War the pounding from the air of iraqi troops who had declared they were withdrawing from Kuwait a the onslaught under the circumstances seemed gratuitous vengeful. They were As much of a threat to our troops As Rodney King was to the furious los Angeles cops who bashed him. . Commanders could argue the iraqis May have intended to link up with the iraqi Republican guard which was proceeding Down another Highway but they were sufficiently concerned wih the image of a Slaughter to have Bush say the iraqis were executing a fighting Retreat and could not by trusted. But the exercise which one . Pilot described As a shooting fish in a barrel a was after All directed against iraqis the last iraqis to leave a ravaged Kuwait iraqis Laden with the spoils of War. No protests were heard. The generals had the excuse of War. The land had no excuse and chief Gates after stonewalling for a while decided the clubbers had to face charges. Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley declaring himself shocked and outraged has asked a police panel to investigate police training methods. Thanks to George Holliday there is no exit for anyone involved. He a not the kind who gets invited to the gallery for a presidential speech. Honouring someone for exposing police brutality is not popular. The crime rate is too High. Of course it might go Down if there were Universal respect for the fairness of the police but that s a complicated concept for a country that has just seen How Well War can work. C Universal press Syndicate Schwarzkopf showed respect for War truth a from Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf one would have expected to hear a lot about sorties casualties strategy and of course Victory. Instead what stood out in a recent televised interview was his use of a word that sometimes gets 4-f status in the waging of War. The word is integrity. Schwarzkopf cited an a erosion of integrity among the command Structure under which he served in Vietnam a a. A \ Schwarzkopf told Barbara Walters that As an officer in Vietnam he resented having to obscure the truth about american Success and enemy resilience. He said that As commander of Allied forces in. Desert storm he might have withheld information for the safety of his troops but he was determined not to lie. Schwarzkopf seems to have internalized at least one of the key lessons of Vietnam. It is that War cannot be waged on false pretences and padded statistics. From the Start of the persian Gulf Battle Schwarzkopf sought to distance himself from the Vietnam Era practice of comparative body counts. Some asserted that Schwarzkopf was covering up by not tallying enemy losses for the Public. But in this Case Schwarzkopf was just remembering Vietnam. There body counts could deceive in two ways first they could be falsified. Second even when accurate they could be misconstrued by the Public. Unspoken i think is Schwarzkopf reluctance to trivialize human life with statistics. Is it Worth one american life to claim 100 iraqi lives and Are those 100 iraqi lives simply digits on history a Ledger americans who listen to Schwarzkopf gain respect for his respect for War. He does not look at soldiers As pawns or As Cannon fodder. Likewise he has the seasoning of Vietnam to understand the myth of american invincibility others Chest thumping to the contrary. Many american lives were lost in Vietnam in part because policy makers subscribed to that myth. They did no to know that it was possible to lose. With the stunning Success of desert storm we risk succumbing to the myth of our own invincibility once again. Even before the iraqis had surrendered columnist William Safire was thumping his Chest in the new York times. Quot a he chastised military briefer for Public statements that made iraqis forces out to be More ferocious than they turned out to be. He also cackled about the dire projections of american losses that a ground War might entail. A posterior cover ers wanted to assert a gloomy evaluation in Case something went wrong better to look unduly cautious than realistically optimistic a Safire chided. His Point As a Hawk from the get go was that we did no to need to be so cautious in deciding to take on the Straw Man Saddam. To which someone like Schwarzkopf is saying a cautious darned right we were cautious a or a Iraq overestimated darned right my troops Are too precious for me to underestimate the  it is Clear that the strategists in the �?T50s and �?T60s who got this country involved in Southeast Asia underestimated the enemy. In that Case to turn satires phrase the Hawks became the posterior cover ers and people like Schwarzkopf had to do the covering for them. I am soothed to think of a military Man like Schwarzkopf who is so pained by the realities of War and. So cognizant of past mistakes. Maybe with warriors like him around Well have fewer w ars. A. C Cox news service