Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 15

Tucson, Tuesday, June 1 0, 1 986 l)f Arizona Bailq Star Section A Page Fifteen1 iVIEWPOINTS Narcissistic celebration lliberty party illustrates our self-absorption T1986 The Washington Post WASHINGTON Newsweek has published a special issue. ABC will telecast the event. Commemorative coins have been Issued, awards will be bestowed by the president and, even more, Frank Sinatra will sing. The Statue of Liberty, 100 years old and all gussied up, is going to get a party. It is clear, we love that statue.

It is just as clear that we love ourselves more. Balancing the powers of making war By Archibald Cox WASHINGTON All Americans wish to be sure that the United States is equipped to combat terrorism, and to punish the terrorists who so savegely destroy property and murder innocent people. But it is essential to our survival as a self-governing people that the fear of terrorism and our passionate sense of outrage at acts of terrorism not be allowed to rush us into hastily upsetting the constitutional allocation of war-making powers in the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The bombing of Libya has provoked just such a dangerous over-reaction among some members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Robert 1 Dole, R-Kan. Dole has introduced a bill which would authorize President Reagan to use armed forces "as he deems necessary" to counter terrorism.

This unnecessary and rash legislation would render the War" Powers Resolution essentially meaningless. Congress should reject it. The authority granted by the Dole bill would not be limited to combatting a Moammar Gadhafi. For example, the president has said that the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua is training and giving refuge to terrorists. Under the Dole bill, the president would be empowered to send armed forces to Nicaragua, thus engaging in hostilities that could well lead to war without the full participation of the people through' their representatives in Congress.

It was in the wake of Vietnam and the Cambodia -invasion that Congress overriding President Nixon's veto enacted the War Powers Resolution. In so Richard Cohen i -r- I' yv.mi 1 i fi i P7 )'. 'i'h I. I I v( A -1 rfm 11' doing, Congress restored the balance of war-making In consultation with Congress i nt rpsniimtin leHVKS diiisuiKi uuie iuuiii iui without prior consultation, small units of military per- -sonnel directly against terrorists where there is no attack upon a government and no clear indication mai lae guvci uiiicui win icaisi uic mumciicnui isi measure. An example of this is the use of armed forces to intercept and force the landing of an Egyptian airplane believed to be carrying the terrorists re- syuiisiuic iui uic 11 naming ui iuc nuiii utuiu v.i uwv ship.

In cases of more far-reaching hostilities, consul- The statue has earned our affection and there is nothing wrong with bathing it in fireworks and showering it with praise. It is a mighty monument, almost sacred to some, that says more about America the reality and the myth than any other work of man or nature. The statue Is our statement: outstretched arms, a welcome and the promise, sometimes false, that you can be what you want to be. For many Immigrants, that promise was kept. But the celebration of the statue's 100th anniversary is fast becoming more than a birthday party for a national symbol.

Like the 1984 Olympics before it, it is becoming an excuse for celebrating not just who we are as a nation but our self-proclaimed superiority as well. We are no longer just different or distinct. We are No. 1. In the last several years, the United States has gone from resurgent nationalism to outright narcissism.

We can't get enough of ourselves. We no longer just celebrate distinctive American traits our culture, our ethic but proclaim them the best. Free-enterprise capitalism, which on the whole has been a boon to America, is prescribed as a panacea. We are confident we have the kinks worked out and think the whole world ought to adopt it. The new narcissism has given rise to a new kind of isolationism.

Unlike the old isolationism, the urge now is not to withdraw into our own continent so much as it is to ignore the wishes and the sensibilities of the rest of the world. We have, for instance, slowly diminished the importance of the United Nations. We have withdrawn entirely from UNESCO. We walked out of the World Court when Nicaragua went before it to complain of U.S. attempts to topple its government.

The trend and the results are clear: We are more on our own than we used to be. Similarly, the United States went it alone when it came to the Libyan air strike. Aside from the British permitting the use of NATO air bases, the rest of the Western alliance would not go along. They had their doubts; we dismissed them. For what seemed like good reasons at the time, we bombed a sovereign country, killed the child of its leader, and now have reason to wonder if we retaliated against the right country.

Is it possible that Syria is behind most terrorism? America, though, shows no doubts. It is in no mood to second-guess itself not on Libya, not on SALT II, not on stoking the fires of counterinsurgencies all over the world. Our righteousness is proclaimed by President Reagan and lesser politicians, and blessed in the most sanctimonious terms by preachers. From the former we are told we are right; from the latter we are told that God is on our side. Like Iran under the Ayatollah, both have fused religion and politics into iron conviction.

We do God's work and, by golly, we do it well. Some will say this narcissism is a product of the preceding era of national doubt. The war in Vietnam Tminn in i unirpvs Nft'iiiN imiinv 111 ut? mi imtriiiuK restriction when one bears in mind the need for bipartisan support and national unity. Congress should in fact consider strengthening the war Knwpni KHSfiiuiifiii mi iinimi' nil wint ii provides that the president "in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing U.S. armed forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances Section 3 is at the heart of the resolution and presidents historically This party is fast becoming another episode in a national binge a bender of yahooism, chauvinism and narcissism by a country whose greatness is manifest and hardly needs to be so brassily proclaimed.

have resisted full compliance. It is important to recognize that the responsibility for strengthening the War Powers Resolution rests to a significant degree with Congress. It must reassert its nreroeative to reDresent the DeoDle in decisions to I a i commit U.S. forces to hostilities. Don't leave it up to the Pentagon Unhappily, the national defense establishment per- sistently resists the participation of the people's elected representatives in decisions involving the in Liberty deserves one.

But this party is fast becoming another episode In a national binge a bender of yahooism, chauvinism and narcissism by a country whose greatness is manifest and hardly needs to be so brassily proclaimed. The old lady In the harbor Is being used. The party we claim is for her Is really for ourselves, and the noise is getting awful. Walt Whitman listened and heard America singing. Now it blows its own horn.

Columnist Richard Cohen, who has won numerous awards for investigative reporting, is co-author of "A Heartbeat Away: The investigation and resignation of Spiro T. Agnew." and the scandal of Watergate all caused us to question what sort of people we were. We were hard on ourselves, but then we had reason to be. The saddest monument in America commemorates the dead of Vietnam and those are only some of that war's victims. A nation as powerful as ours can do a lot of damage when it is wrong.

Its first obligation should be humility, caution and prudence: all true conservative virtues. But now we run those barricades of virtue with little patience. We are insufferably sure we are right. As a nation, we wear one of those "Damn, I'm Good" buttons. Everyone loves a party and, for sure, the Statue of troduction of armed forces into hostilities or situations in which the risk of hostilities is imminent.

It resists even though the lives of hundreds or even thousands of Americans may be lost and the nation may be precipl- tated into war. U.S. military actions in Grenada, Leba- non and Libya and very probably in El Salvador and Nicaragua, have repeatedly violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the reauirement for Drior consultation. LIFESTYLES The realities todav are such that there will be reoeated need to consider the use of U.S. armed Stopping crime by giving the addicts a fix forces in hostilities short of war.

We should not shrink from the choice when there is genuine necessity. But in making those choices the role of Congress and the hnlanrp nt war-malrinp nmuprs pnviqinnpH hv the Founding Fathers and laid out in the War Powers Resolution should be preserved. In our outraee at terrorists and the SDonsors of terrorism, we must not forget that the history of liberty 13 uuc Ui vuiiaiaiil vigilance agaiiui uiai av.iuuiuiaiiuii of power by an executive. We must take care, now more than ever, not to erode one of our most precious national legacies the system of checks and balances that for nearly 200 years has kept our nation free and preserved our people's liberties. i Archibald Cox, a former U.S.

solicitor genera, is chairman of Common Cause. THE FAR SIDE fti? 3) Tu7i 1906 Universal Press Syndican of people in kS City, and loo wtX would be driven by desperate compulsion to steal and kill for the money necessary to maintain their habit. Children would not be enticed. The wave of street crimes in broad daylight would diminish. Third, police and other law-enforcement authorities, domestic or foreign, would be freed to deal with crimes, which aren't drug-related.

There are several objections that might be raised against such a salutary solution. First, it could be argued that by providing free drugs to the addict we would consign him to permanent addiction. The answer is that medical and psychiatric help at the source would be more effective in controlling the addict's descent than the extremely limited remedies available to the victim today. I am not arguing that the new strategy will cure everything. But I do not see many addicts being freed from their bonds under the present system.

Another possible objection is that addicts will cheat the system by obtaining more than the allowable free shot. Without discounting the resourcefulness of the bedeviled addict, it should be possible to have government cards issued that would be punched so as to limit the free supply in accord with medical authorization. Yet all objections become trivial when matched against the crisis itself. What we are witnessing is the demoralization of a great society: the ruination of its schoolchildren, athletes and executives, the corrosion of the work force in general. Many thoughtful sociologists consider the rapidly spreading drug use the greatest problem that our nation faces greater and more real and urgent than nuclear bombs or economic reversal.

Free drugs will win the war against the domestic terrorism caused by illicit drugs. As a strategy, it is at once resourceful, 'sensible and simple. We are getting nowhere in our efforts to hold back the ocean of supply. The answer is to dry up demand. Louis Nizer, who is author of nine books, is senior partner in a New York law firm.

By Louis Nizer 1986 The New York Times NEW YORK We are losing the war against drug addiction. Our strategy is wrong. I propose a different approach. The government should create clinics, manned by psychiatrists, that would provide drugs for nominal charges or even free to addicts under controlled regulations. It would cost the government only 20 cents for a heroin shot, for which the addicts must now pay the mob more than $100, and there are similar price discrepancies in cocaine, crack and other such substances.

Such a service, which would also include the staff support of psychiatrists and doctors, would cost a fraction of what the nation now spends to maintain the land, sea and air apparatus necessary to Interdict illegal imports of drugs. We see in our newspapers the triumphant announcements by government agents that they have intercepted huge caches of cocaine, the street prices of which are in the tens of millions of dollars. Should we be gratified? Will this achievement reduce the number of addicts by one? All it will do is increase the cost to the addict of his illegal supply. Many addicts who are caught committing a crime admit that they have mugged or stolen as many as six or seven times a day to accumulate the $100 needed for a fix. Since many of them need two or three fixes a day, particularly for crack, one can understand the terror in our streets and homes.

Not long ago, a Justice Department division issued a report stating that more than half the perpetrators of murder and other serious crimes were under the influence of drugs. The benefits of the new strategy to control this terrorism would be immediate and profound. First, the mob would lose the main source of its income. It could not compete against a free supply for George Rebh which previously it exacted tribute estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions, from hopeless victims. Second, pushers would be put out of business.

There would be no purpose in creating addicts who.