Editorials
Wednesday, October 23, 1996
NATO doesn't belong in
presidential race
PRESIDENT Clinton's call for the admission of Eastern European nations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) regrettably has more to do with the presidential election than with foreign policy. It is no accident that Clinton's pitch was made with only two weeks left in the election campaign and that it was made in the Upper Midwest, where there are lots of voters who can trace their origins to Eastern Europe.
As for the Republican challenger, Bob Dole, he agrees with Clinton but finds a reason to criticize the president anyway, charging that he has been "dragging his feet" on the issue. Dragging feet happens to be the wisest strategy - not for the election campaign but for world stability.
The difficulty is that Russia is suspicious of proposals to expand NATO. No matter how often proponents declare that expansion would not be aimed against them, the Russians refuse to believe it. On its face, the argument lacks credibility because the nations that would be affected - Dole has mentioned Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic; Clinton has not been specific - are former Soviet satellites that still fear Russian domination.
To be sure, no one in the West wants Russia to swallow up Eastern Europe again. But expanding NATO could be counterproductive, because it would confirm suspicions in Moscow that the West remains hostile. That could help the most nationalistic and undemocratic elements in Russian politics to gain power - the last thing the United States and the other Western democracies want. There have already been threats by Russian officials that they would not proceed with the ratification of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty if NATO expanded.
"A gray zone of insecurity must not re-emerge in Europe," Clinton said. The West must not "allow the Iron Curtain to be replaced by a veil of indifference." But NATO was established to counter aggression by the Soviet Union, which no longer exists. The alliance is struggling to find a new role in the post-Soviet era. Without the threat of world Communist domination, is the United States willing to go to war to defend, say, Poland against an attack by a non-Communist Russia? Not likely. Yet that question lies at the heart of the debate over the expansion of NATO, because expansion means more commitments.
Too-lenient sentences
FRATERNITY hazing at its worst is a far cry from the gang ritual known as "jumping out" as it was administered to 17-year-old Misiona Faumuina outside Waipahu Recreation Center last year. Punching, kicking and stomping resulted in Faumuina's death a day later from severe bleeding in the brain. His three assailants were sentenced to no more than five years in prison, a punishment that trivializes the brutality of the attack.
Ruby Ridge probe
THE siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and the subsequent debacle at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, fueled the anti-government paranoia of the militia movement. Now federal prosecutors have charged a former FBI headquarters manager with obstruction of justice in the Ruby Ridge case. Full disclosure of the facts surrounding Ruby Ridge - and Waco - and punishment of those officials if any who broke the law are essential to repair the breaches of public trust those incidents caused. The prosecution of Kahoe appears to be an important step in achieving that.
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Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor