European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 22, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday july 22, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Jesse Trevino Are this thing called Iran Contra will not go away will it it Isnit the press or president Bush a political opposition driving its nettle some resurgence. Rather it is what so Many Call the system trying to work. The leftover trials of the scandals lesser lights that neither the press nor the Public cared about have Given it new life. Legal cases that were once footnotes have now sprouted gnat like wings. The press despite the easy target it makes for Many people including cynical politicians Seldom drives these kinds of events. In fact a Case can be made a and is made by some of the so called alternative press a that the mainstream press has dropped the Ball on Iran Contra. The press has not been Able to get the real Story behind this second scandal in As Many decades involving direct threats to the Constitution from the White House. But Iran Contra like the gnat will not go away. Annoying thing. More than once it was thought to have been swatted away after the nefarious but triumphant Oliver North upstaged congressional hearings on the scandal in 1987 and after then candidate George Bush bushwhacked cd so Anchor Dan rather on live National television during the 1988 presidential Campaign. It seemed to Many then that Iran Contra had been squashed to leave a smudge of the Wall of history but not much else. Yet Here it is again. And the buzzing gets louder. Not surprising the Low level cases before special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh have managed to keep the noise at Low drones. The system is trying to work. Walsh has continued working methodically and quietly and must believe the to hum trials and plea bargaining of the Low level personnel not the John Poindexter or the Bud Mcfarland hold the answer to the mystery. The system might yet produce results of historic proportions. These Itsy Bitsy trials and procedures Iran Contra affair Are gumming up the works for those who want Iran Contra to die. But men such As Alan Fiers jr., former head of the Ciao a department in charge of working with the nicaraguan contras still have their lives ahead of them. He is Only 53. For Fiers unlike the rest of the country Iran Contra holds deep personal meaning. He does no to want to go to jail. He wants to be rid of Iran Contra yes but of a prison cell As Well. He has pleaded guilty to two counts of lying to Congress in essence so that he could get on with his life. But to do so he let another gnat Loose the revelation that hundreds of tape recordings a la watergate exist of conversations Between Cia officials and their operatives. Could it be that the tapes hold a gun a or in this Case guns for the Ayatollah Khz omani and the Contra rebels a that after All these years could still be smoking the revelation of the tapes must have Felt As Yogi Berra said like d�5jii Vul All Over again for official Washington. For the average journalist listening from anywhere u.s.a., it sounded like the gnat metamorphosed into a killer Bee. The killer Bee could Well sting its first victim in Bush a rather presumptuous nomination of Robert Gates to succeed William Webster As director of the Cia. Bush perhaps still the old Midland Texas Wildcat Ter took a reckless Gamble nominating Gates. He after All was at the Agency a More or less according to Gates a when the Iran Contra affair unfolded. And so now the press must get to work. If the men and women who perpetrated this scandal a Selling arms outside the Legal boundaries established by Congress and defining their own foreign policy objectives a did in fact commit extra constitutional excesses their appetite might be whetted. That is Why the country too must go Back and dig further and find the truth. Only the truth will set the country free of this recurring Nightmare. The Cost will be High. The country already has spent $25 million and set up another Small giant of a bureaucracy Trackin this sordid business. Going Back acid revisiting this chapter of american political history will also Cost the Public More of its patience and More of its Faith in government. But go Back we must. Else the end result could be not just gnats swarming about the government but greater threats eating away at the Constitution. C Cox news service Jesse Trevino is editorial Page editor of the Austin Texas  s. Rosenfeld cold War orphans seek place in the world the ebbing of the cold War has Given Rise to the compelling idea that the places that paid the heaviest Erice As scenes of great Power rivalry deserve a special and. This is the argument of among others the overseas development Council a help the third world group that has produced a after the wars a an Appeal for International assistance to reconstruct Afghanistan Indochina Central America Southern Africa and the Horn of Africa. Each of these mortally wounded places has its own pathos and political fingerprint but certainly on humanitarian grounds alone there can be no denying their common claim on International sympathy. The human and economic devastation has been enormous and is in some cases continuing. Just the mine Fields left behind constitute a historically unique carry Over of breath catching dimensions. In a harsh irony however the formerly a a vital or a a strategic american interest in these places has dissipated with the passing of a perceived global communist menace. The residual american interest in them must compete with the now More tangible and pressing american economic interest in countries a bloodied by a decade or two or three of War. Our gaze shifts from the woes of intervention to the internal tension constituting the fated five a own contribution to their misfortune. Nor do the five have the substantial american Kin that would let them compensate by pulling our political levers. A further irony As the London Summit underlines the five Ean no longer Hope to play Washington against Moscow. Instead they must compete in tight world Aid and capital markets with the very Powers responsible depending on your politics for aggravating the Long civil wars on their soil. How then do these orphans of the cold War a tens of millions of people still living wretched lives a expand on the support generated for them by their current friends Ana lobbies they must Hook up with the new currents flowing Strong in american and world opinion in order to position themselves not simply As stepchildren of the old order but As the legitimate progeny of the new. Otherwise they reduce their chances of getting others already at the table to move Over and make a place for them. This requires in the first instance severing their lingering connections to communism. Notwithstanding Moscow a Retreat from Empire Afghanistan Angola Vietnam and Cambodia for instance Are still saddled with communist governments. The sooner they make the transition to representative elected regimes the sooner they can reach for the benefits of membership in the International  requires in the second instance opening their economies a to democratic guidance to Market discipline to International association a in the manner now being pioneered in Eastern Europe. Not so much in the advanced West and certainly not in the retarded soviet Union but in striving pm land Hungary and Czechoslovakia Are self help and International participation being joined in an Experiment that provides a relevant working Model for societies trying to claw their Way out of the pit. Anything that puts these countries in a special category a such As the Well meant notion of setting up their own reconstruction fund a carries some risk of delaying their entry into the Community of developing countries and into the world Economy. In that sense their moral entitlements and economic imperatives pull somewhat in opposite directions. To the extent that we Are genuinely interested in their welfare moreover we should be slow to counsel the cold War orphans to rely on our generosity or in the appropriate cases our guilt. Neither of these impulses seems to me to be running very Strong in Post Reagan America. They Are overshadowed by our enthusiasm for democracy free Enterprise and International cooperation. Those Are the currents we should be advising others to ride. The mine Fields and the toll of civilian lives and limbs they continue to take require a special word. The medical facilities to care for the wounded whose number includes Many children and is constantly growing Are Well beyond the capacity of local governments to provide. Countries whose factories made these weapons and whose forces set them out have a Clear obligation not simply to hand Over maps of the Fields where there Are maps but to Clear the Fields. A de mining corps its a Good Job for a de mobilizing soviet military. C the Washington Post the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those it 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