European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 18, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Saturday january 18, 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary . Rosenthal Bush Rose to the occasion once one year ago this week George Bush took one of the most important risk filled and courageous Steps Ever ventured by a president of the United states a to do Battle against an aggressor who had not directly attacked the United states. In the last half Century two other presidents had gone to War against marauding dictatorships a president Roosevelt against Japan and president Truman against North Korea. But in both cases . Armed forces or a dependent ally had already been attacked. And at the time there were few who mounted protest. President Bush welded together agreement from a country and Congress that had deep misgivings. He had to convince both that moving against a powerful dictatorship in support of a weak dictatorship was in this Case Worth risking the lives of american men and women. He had to make the country understand that the aggressor was armed not Only with a potent Arsenal but also with a concept and intent of combining military and political Power into domination of a Region essential to . Interests. He did. And five Days after he ordered the beginning of the ground War it was All Over Saddam Hussein Defeated. No Leader stood higher in the esteem of the world and his countrymen than George Bush. Then at the moment of Victory began the slide a that sad series of errors misjudgments switches and distancing from Friendship and principle around the world. 1. Bush permitted Saddam to remain in Power his killer squads around him. If he were a Hitler As Bush said it was like permitting Hitler to remain in command of Germany a also Goebbels Goring Himmler. The nazi party and the wehrmacht High command. 2. Bush permitted Saddam to use the substantial air instructions on How to refuse Iraq nuclear capability step one remove warhead a year ago and ground forces that the coalition left him. He used them Well a to drive hundreds of thousands of kurd and other iraqis who had trusted America into the cold and death of Mountain Refuge. V Bush thought he could help Mikhail Gorbachev Patch together a free Market Economy within the soviet system. That was like trying to marry a hedgehog and i Garden Snake. The Man Boris Yeltsin who was to say that was treated scornfully by the Bush administration a until he became president of Russia and handed Gorbachev his pension papers. 4. Blish hedged on the . Pledge of support to Baltic Independence and stalled almost to the Point of what a a More respectful word than a betrayal Quot a 5. Bush in Kiev delivered a lecture on the Dang is of Independence when that was what ukrainians and All other inmates of the soviet system so plainly lusted for b. Bush presides Over the . Government while political leadership in Europe goes rapidly to Germany and says not a word. 7. Bush has made the free democratic United states the main supporter of the syrian dictator discernible from the iraqi variety Only by the difference in mustaches. 8. Bush weakens the Mideast peace talks. He permits the administration to show stunning contempt for is Rael by voting for viciously Strong language denouncing the deportation of 12 palestinians a stronger than the condemnation of Iraq for conquering Kuwait. What else does he have in mind for Israel to break its will and destroy the name of the nation the United states once called its Only and cherished Mideast democratic ally when was that a yesterday 9. Bush clings to his Peculiar taste for chinese communist leaders using his Power to Block minimal congressional economic Steps to protest the brutality of the worlds biggest gulag. 10. And now Bush leads a sales pitch to Japan a surely one of the most embarrassing expeditions in the history of either country. Great salesmanship buy or else. What happened to George Bush nothing much i suspect. T Ime and again after the Gulf fighting he had his Choice Between consistent democratic idealism which from the Baltic to Beijing has proved Itsell the most powerful political instrument in the world and opportunism a which looks smart for a minute Ami then turns out to be too smart by Hall. Bush just made his choices for opportunism. That s sail. But he did Rise to the moment once a year ago. C Thi now Yak times Ellen Goodman experts cast doubt on crack they Are called Quot a biological underclass and a a lost those Are just two of the Milder name tags attached to the children we have come to believe were permanently damaged by their mothers use of cocaine. The posters in maternity clinics conjure up the same image of the prenatally doomed a some people who smoke crack never get Over the schools too have been put on emergency Alert a the crack babies Are coming the crack babies Are indeed the phrase Quot crack babies and now a crack kids Quot is shorthand for monster children who were born addicted. These Are the kids destined to grow up without the ability to pay attention or to learn or to love. But just when the name has stuck it turns out that a crack baby May be a creature of the imagination As much As Medicine a syndrome seen in the Media More often than Medicine. Some three years after the epidemic of stories about these children began some six years after hospitals began to see newborns in deep trouble researchers Are casting doubt on the popular Demon of the War on drugs. Like the National panic about child snatching a putting missing children on milk Cartons a that raged until it was tempered by reality the Story about a crack babies Quot is in for some revision. The very phrase a crack baby is in any literal sense a Misnomer. Cocaine is rarely taken by itself. Its part of a Stew of substances taken in a variety of doses and circumstances. No direct line no Universal cause and effect has been drawn from the mothers use of cocaine to fetal damage. Alcohol and and tobacco May do As much harm to the fetus As cocaine. So May poor nutrition sexually transmitted diseases and the Lack of medical care. Most important it appears that the children born to cocaine using mothers Are not hopeless cases permanently assigned to the monster track. Or. Ira Chasnoff who did some of the original work identifying the problem babies of mothers who took cocaine in combination with other drugs has done a two year follow up study about to be published. It says in his words Quot their average developmental functioning level is Normal. They Are no different from other children growing up. They Are not the retarded imbeciles people talk this is not. He cautions a Green Light for taking drugs during pregnancy. Drugs remain a serious health problem and cocaine specific Alk contributes to Prema baby lure birth and Small head Sie. While the children in his study a children who have been offered some help now function normally As a group they Are at risk individually. But Chasnoff says a was i study the problem More and More i think the Placenta does a better Job of protecting the child than we do As a the need now is to Widen the Lens from nature to nurture and from the environment of the unborn to that of the born. Another researcher who has taken a responsible second look at the a crack baby syndrome is Claire Coles of Emory University in Atlanta. She believes these children labelled by their drug of origin Are a often victims of Gross neglect not brain the worst damage that drugs May do is to the world a child inhabits after birth. Coles has a collection of horror stories about children growing up neglected especially by cocaine addicts. One a crack kids who could t concentrate in class was hungry another poorly developed a crack baby Quot was being raised by a 5-year-old sister t he myth of the a crack baby Quot became a Media hit Coles believes because. Crack is exotic and happening mostly m marginal populations among bail people who Are not like us. It is easier to syndrome think about crack than alcohol or tobacco. There is More than a touch of racism in the attention. We Are interested in genes these Days and More interested in assessing moral blame. In a time of pitifully few drug treatment centers for pregnant women the a crack baby panic resulted in a wave of arrests of pregnant women. One of them Jennifer Johnson is still awaiting trial in Florida on drug charges. But perhaps the worst effect of this distortion is the sense of hopelessness dispensed with the title Quot crack hopelessness on the part of mothers teachers and even the children themselves. As Coles warns Quot if a child comes to kindergarten with that Label they re dead. They Are very Likely to fulfil the worst so no More convenient and empty names. The children whose mothers used cocaine Are neither universally nor permanently nor uniquely damaged. The so called a crack kids Are just a portion of our growing population of children in deep trouble. They Are Only children like so Many Olheis. Growing up with a treacherous mix of nature s and nurture s woes. It you need a Label Call them kids who need help i it of i
