European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 17, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Thursday August 17, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 make a play for part ownership in baseball if baseball is America s National pastime As peo ple like me Are always rhapsody zing then Why in t America a partner in this Enterprise we Are told the players strike will be costly to both the Public psyche and the Public Treasury. Yet the pub Lic has no voice in these matters. The free ride for baseball has gone too and state politicians choosing to believe that losing a major league franchise is tantamount to simultaneously losing face and being visited by the bubonic plague regularly allow themselves to be blackmailed by exodus threatening baseball owners into building grand new stadiums and other amenities entirely at Public Cost usually in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet probably because of baseball mythic image no one seems to think it Odd that the taxpayers Don t usually get to vote yes or no on these vast outlays of their dollars. At the Federal level too baseball receives special status having been granted full exemption from the antitrust Laws so it can a was no voter referendum on that one yes must t forget the does Sydney h. Schanberg Public Doe get one vote on baseball the fans cast ballots to choose which players go to the annual All Star s my Point simple. It s time to raise hell. Everybody walks on eggshells around baseball. That s got to Stop. These testy remarks Don t come from an anti base Ball curmudgeon. I be been a baseball addict for nearly50 years. I Don t want to see this strike. A Hole will open in my this fan has reached the Point where patience has expired. Mystique or no there have simply Bee too Many violations of the Public s naive Trust. If we re going to Lay out huge bundles of Public tax dollars to ensure the profitability of these private enterprises then the government entities that provide this capital ought to get a proportionate percentage of those profits. In other words a City or state that spends half a billion dollars to put up a new stadium and build new Access roads for it should automatically become apart owner of that team with the percentage of ownership to be fact that very magnitude of expenditure is about to take place in new York City specifically in the Bor Ough of the Bronx where the Yankees play and profit. Principal owner George Steinbrenner like so Many other owners has been pampered by the local govern ment. For instance he is allowed to pay Only a minimal rent for Yankee stadium which is owned and periodically refurbished by the City of new York. The rent payment based on a formula that lets him deduct maintenance costs has averaged out in recent times to just a few Hundred thousand dollars a year. This pit Tance of a figure is achieved through creative account ing by the Yankee front office the City obliges by never auditing the team s books. Yankee profits have been Lush. But of late Steinbrenner has declared them not Lush enough. Tak ing notice of the sudden surge in attendance in cities such As Cleveland and Baltimore where the baseball teams have spanking new stadiums Bult by their local government the new York owner has threatened to move his franchise elsewhere unless government pro Vides him with a new Playpen. The mayor and governor have responded by imitating frightened rabbits holding out architectural plans and bags of Money As they beg Steinbrenner not to leave Home. The Price tag is a minimum of $600 million. This mayor governor Combine has been very polite careful not to ask anything in return for our Money certainly not a partnership in the Yankee profit making machine. Why should we countenance this the Yan Kees Aren t Down on their Luck homeless in need of shelter or food Stamps. Why can t we insist on being partners Why can t we demand to see Steinbrenner s books for that matter Why can t we demand to seethe books of any baseball team that receives taxpayer subsidies which Means All of them this brings us Back to the strike it s not the goo Guys against the bad Guys the players make too much Money to get the hero role in the morality play. But a least we know what the players make. The owners cry ing poverty refuse to open their books. Where s the Federal government in All this what about the hardly revolutionary notion of or Dering or at least pressuring the two sides to accept binding arbitration if that is the strike is really devastating to our souls. And then after the strike is halted can we discuss this partnership idea so maybe we can get something More than psychic return for All the Money we invest in that private Enterprise known As baseball c now Day Clinton peacekeeping policy vaguely familiar what a difference time Clinton administration came into of fice determined to make assertive multilateralism the Cornerstone of its foreign and military policy. International peace keeping especially by the Secre tary of state Warren Christopher told the Congress in March 1993, can and must play a crucial sixteen months later As . Troops were dispatched to Rwanda there was a mad scramble to disavow any connection with peacekeeping in any is a concern in several agencies about Mission creep " a senior Clinto administration official Tot a the washing ton Post on july 27, acid we want tomake sure. That the Mission will not be to keep the peace or help rebuild the nation. It will be humanitarian Only. ."1." two Days later making those com ments official president Clinton said the sole purpose for deploying . Troops to. Rwanda is humanitarian Relief not for was much More involved in these remarks than just the . Response to the genocide in Rwanda. They rep resented a fundamental change in Clin ton administration policy As reflected in a presidential decision directive signed on May 3,1994. Titled the Clinton administration s policy on reforming Multila teral peace operations it was the final version of a review begun shortly after Linton took office. Then identified As presidential decision directive add 13," it first came to Public attention in june 1993.pdd 13 reportedly welcomed the rapid expansion of . Peace enforcement operations and pledged the commitment of . Troops . Command ers. This draft evoked so much Public and con Gressional criticism that it assent Back for More work but the coup de Grace to the notion of assertive multilateralism was the debacle in Mogadishu Somalia in october 1993. The nation building fiasco in Soma Lia As a july 29, 1994, Washington Post editorial categorized it turned Public an congressional opinion dramatically against peacekeeping operations. What had seemed an easy Way to Slough off for eign policy problems on the United nations had become an embarrassment. The administration realizes they be got an Albatross around their Hecks with Harry a Summers this a Senate aide told the Washington times in March 1994, a critic noted that the latest draft of add 13 puts peace keeping in the basement of administration this change was reflected in the approved May 1994 version of add 13, now renumbered add 25. Instead of a revolutionary new approach to foreign and military policy Asad originally been advertised add 25was a return to traditional verities. It began by acknowledging that the Pri Mary Mission of the . Armed forces remains to be prepared to fight and win two simultaneous regional peacekeeping can be one useful too to help prevent and resolve such com Fli cts it says before they pose direct threats to our National three rigorous Levels of review Are then specified before troops can be committed. Paradoxically this new set of rules repeats almost exactly the six pre conditions for commitment of . Troops abroad Laid out a decade earlier by Cas Par Weinberger president Reagan s Secretary of defense. The United states should not commit forces unless the engagement is deemed vital to our National interests Sai Weinberger in 1984. Participation must Advance . Interests said Clin ton in 1994, we should have precisely defined to litical0 and military objectives Weinberg or said. The role of. . Forces is tied to Clear objectives Clinton said. Their size composition and disposition must be continually reassessed Wein Berger noted. There exists a commitment to reas sess and adjust. The size composition and disposition of our forces Clinto noted there must be some reasonable Assurance we will have the support of the american people and their elected representatives in the Congress said vein Berger in the most controversial of his six Points ,., / Domestic and congressional support exists or can be marshalled said Clinton in what by 1994 had become the conventional Wisdom finally said Weinberger the commitment. Should be a last resort a Maxim Clinton would certainly second. Ironically disaster is the common thread Between these two sets of rules. Just As the 1983 Beirut Lebanon debacle prompted the Weinberger doctrine so the 1993 Mogadishu debacle prompted Clinton s abandonment of massive multilateralism and his return to common sense. C los Angeles times
