European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 14, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday december 14, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 15 on William Raspberry America As Jim Sleeper of the Newyork daily news once noted is one of the few places on the Globe where charge of racial or ethnic bigotry is a serious indictment. Even when americans Are being unfair to one group or another they ate at pains to protest that their objective is inclusion not exclusion that they believe i America As a Wel coming place Fornall who share her ideals. This desire notto be seen As bigoted has helped to change perceptions Laws and attitudes. It has also kept at least one important Issue virtually off the table immigration we have been worried about the deleterious effects of uncontrolled Immi Gration fora Long time yet we be been fearful of speaking plainly about it lest we be viewed As bigots. We have seen the social costs of immigration overcrowding and depressed wages to name two. A least one poll found that some two thirds of hispanics the category usually evoked by the phrase immigration prob Lem believe we re admitting too Man immigrants. Why is straight talk on the subject so difficult a one explanation May lie in the re action to California s recent passage of proposition 187 a decision of the Vot ers there that they will no longer pay forthe health education and welfare of Ille aliens. A fair number of liberals have attacked the vote As immigrant bashing and at least two conservatives Jack Kemp Handbill Bennett called it an ugly Antipa thy toward All As William b. Dickinson of the by Centric Institute put it those who favor open Borders have Long tried with considerable Success to blur the distinction Between Legal and illegal immigrants. America s tradition As an Immi Grant nation its congenital sympathy for underdogs and its less principled desire for an endless Supply of cheap Labo make it easy to excuse poor people who slip across our Borders in the dead of night. Those of us who support an or Derly immigration policy based on 1 Pis is ustice not bigotry find ourselves demonized As bigots racists or nativists.". Even that quintessential Liberal Barbara Jordan came in for her share of knocks when the commission she headed called for an end to Public Aid for illegal Immi Grants aside from immunizations an emergency food and health care. Is easy enough to see what drove the californians. The presence of the illegals in California and Texas and i dozens of highly impacted places in America is the result of the failure of the Federal government to keep them out. This same government through the fed eral courts has ruled that the state has the duty to provide services including health education and welfare for people whose very presence Here is a violation of the Law. But the states get Little help from Washington in paying for these services and the feds though recently better at enforcing the Borders seem unable to Deport the illegals they arrest Here. But p Assing proposition 187 in t the end of the matter. In the first place unless the supreme court overturns its ear Lier ruling California state Law Wilt not relieve californians of the Burden of Edu Cating the children of illegals or undocumented workers As the gentler less accurate phrase has it. More important it s not Clear upon sober reflection that California has an interest in keeping Large numbers of its residents poor and hungry and ignorant. A counterargument is used by anti welfare advocates harsh treatment of present illegals will seem inhumane but generosity will Only increase their numbers. Dickinson like Mortimer Zucker Manof . News argues that it s time to re Vamp american immigration Law across the Board including those Bede Iling questions of which country s immigrant should be favored what skills should be required of those admitted and How Many immigrants Are too Many. Certainly it seems reasonable to re think the 1990 liberalization of the rules that allows immigrants to Send Home for members of their families very broadly defined and to reconsider As Well the notion unique to the United states that anyone born Here is automatically , but for How i d be Happy to Hearse rious and candid discussion of the one problem that everybody acknowledges Isa problem illegal immigration. As Zuckerman noted these Are the people who have by definition broken the Law and they Are guilty of an ethical breach As Well they have jumped the line of people patiently waiting for year for their visas does it really make sense for the fed eral government to Reward these violators of Law and civility with mandated services for themselves and their children paid for by Money Short states with no Choice in the matter can t we put aside our charges of big Otry and at least talk about it c we Hington Post were the wounds healed or just forgotten. -. I ". Orleans almost 20 years ago in a front Gage column the chief editor of the italian newspaper Gior Nale commented on a raging scandal of the time. He was reminded he wrote of what British prime minister Winston Churchill had said when see ing an american film on the Normandy Landing in which two soldiers made brutal by Battle were show attacking a group of schoolchildren. I have nothing against America washing its conscience in a Bidet Churchill what bothers me is that it compels others to drink its invited to participate in a retrospective at Tulane University in new Orleans on the March 1968 massacre at my Lai i too was reminded of Churchill s words for it is As wrong to condense America s 25-year Effort in Vietnam to that single atrocity As it was to epitomized Day with scenes of american soldiers run the most part the Tulane conference was not an anti War weep in As Many such academic conference son Vietnam tend to be. Thanks to the organizers professors Lou Campomenosi and Randy Fertel this was balanced introspection whose thrust was not to self flagellate but instead to face the darkness and heal the of the great shortcomings of Vietnam War analysis is the Lack of historical perspective with to Many believing that the War was uniquely horrible the most bloody cruel and unjust conflict in the history of Mankind. Shooting Down that myth professor Stephen Ambrose author of More than 20 books on . For eign relations and military history set the tone for the discussions that followed by providing a balanced historical overview. Not that the terrible happenings at my Lai were minimized. Helicopter Pilot Hugh Thompson a True hero of that awful Day told of his attempts to Stop the Mas Sacre. Ron Ridenhour related How he finally got Washington to look at what happened there. Pulitzer prize Winner Seymour Hersch re counted the events described in his two books on my Lai and the subsequent cover up. An retired Marine Gen. Walter Boomer and col. Hays Park provided a military perspective. When my Lai first came to Public attention in 1969, i was on the faculty of the army command and general staff College having returned from Vietnam two years earlier. The consensus there was that Calley the officer who presided Over the my Lai murders and his company commander capt. Ernest Medina ought to have been hanged drawn and quartered and their remains scattered to the several Gates of the infantry school at fort Benning ga.,.As a reminder to All who entered of the duties of an officer of the line. But civilians were horrified by those sentiments. Harry g. Summers those supporting the War rallied to Galley s defense seeing him As a victim of the anti War movement. For its part the anti War movement also opposed singling out Calley who they claimed was being made a Scapegoat in a War where everyone involved was guilty of atrocities. The result was that Calley and company fell through the cracks literally getting away with murder. No one was More frustrated by this miscarriage of Justice than col. William Eckhart the army s chief prosecutor of the my Lai War crimes who gave Elo quent testimony at the conference on the failure to bring to account those responsible for the orgy of cold blooded murder rape and sodomy of innocent Villag Only cause the army could find in its investigation of my Lai was a failure in leadership from the sergeants commanding the squads to the general com manding the division. That being the Case for the last 25 years the . Military has concentrated on building effective leaders at every level to ensure Strong combat command and control. There was a consensus at the conference that the military has come to grips with my Lai. But there was also a feeling that the american Public whose mis placed sympathy had let Calley go free had not so much healed the wounds of my Lai but forgotten about them. And More s the pity for evil in All its banality still lurks unseen in the darkness. C los Angeles Timea
