Editorials/The Shadows of War/Testing AIDS Patience
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS THE SHADOWS OF WAR H istory's great law of unintended consequences may be at work again in our nation's capital. According to my calculations, the congressional hearings into the...
...As long as this continues, the victims of AIDS are going to increase in numbers as an ever-higher percentage of carriers of the virus die...
...That is what makes the recent outbursts against the government's call for routine testing so reprehensible...
...But it is obvious that economies do not grow in a war zone, and ever larger areas of Central America are at war thanks to the activities of Cuba, the Eastern bloc countries, the Libyans, and the Sandinistas themselves, who are solidifying their dictatorship by repressing the Nicaraguan clergy, independent members of the press, and what vestiges of political pluralism remain...
...Once the death toll reaches a certain point, the vast majority of Americans who now support testing will insist on it and on more...
...but as to its spread, its treatment, its prevention, and its cure, the pessimists' predictions are steadily being borne out...
...Remember the furor over juvenile by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Decades of dealing with Communist revolutionaries gainsay such fatuity, and the worrisome news stories now emanating from Central America make it clear that the problems ignored by Congress today are going to get worse...
...Meanwhile voters will remember that in the summer of 1987 the Congresscapped four years of dillying and dallying by excoriating the handful of Americans who tried to support anti-Communists in Central America before our Marines were needed...
...The news from Central America is not auspicious, particularly for those who believe in appeasing the area's revolutionaries...
...They are tipping off the American citizenry that there brews in Central America a threat to our security that will have to be met soon or late...
...The disease was only discovered six years ago, but for at least four years it has been recognized that no cure exists...
...And all the solicitude shown to the extremists has merely served to multiply their numbers and their obsessions...
...Apparently mail on Capitol Hill is running in favor of these witnesses...
...Money and military material is flowing into Nicaragua from our enemies far in excess of what Congress has been willing to spend in the defense of American interests...
...This is how the AIDS discussion has proceeded...
...Education is important but, in light of the knowledge we now have, both testing and education are only the first steps in containing what is a deadly and incurable infectious disease...
...Knowing what we know about AIDS, there is no alternative to testing...
...Real income has dropped by as much as twenty percent...
...The right-wing extremists can divine the word of God...
...Even the treatment of the disease is doubtful, certainly very unpleasant, and expensive...
...Today the extremists actually shape the debate, deciding who can participate and what can be said...
...It disposes TESTING AIDS PATIENCE 10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1987 of its victims through certain death...
...In fact, a former member of Mrs...
...The fanatics can demonstrate...
...AIDS is going to kill almost everyone who carries the virus...
...The fact is that testing is inevitable...
...So apparently are most of the social problems associated with the urban crisis of the 1960s, for they endure...
...There has been an increase in Communist guerrilla activity in Guatemala, where Castro-trained guerrillas of the reinvigorated Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union are increasingly clashing with Guatemalan army patrols in the countryside...
...The extremists of the left and the right were then shaping the AIDS discussion and even AIDS policy...
...Little was done about it in the 1950s when it was identified as a crisis, and little is being done about it today...
...That is a recipe for increased trouble in Central America come election time 1988...
...It is as rampant as ever, but apparently it is a social problem Americans can live with...
...Today there seems to be little science or government can do about it, and in preventing testing the extremists are preventing us from taking even the rudimentary steps available toward limiting fatalities...
...Of all the intellectual reviews in the country, The American Spectator has led in publicizing science's gloomy news about AIDS, yet not one of our pieces has ever been publicly commented on in such a way as to illuminate the discussion, ignorant as that discussion often is...
...Ronald Reagan in all his eloquence has not been able to convey that important communique to the heartland, but recent testimony from those who have been trying to aid the contras has...
...Congressmen who oppose military approaches to subversion in the area and speak of "diplomatic solutions" urge that we invigorate these economies...
...If disgruntled congressmen succeed in having him fired they will discourage the Sandinistas' enemies, encourage those who spread subversion in Central America, and make it ever more difficult for the Administration to secure additional aid for the contras in the months ahead...
...They have variously been ignored or scorned as opponents of homosexuality or as Puritans...
...rr he fact is that, owing to spreading 1 terror and the threat of Communist takeovers, capital is fleeing Central America along with those professionals who create it...
...Congress has been acting as though our enemies in Nicaragua will become our friends or simply become tranquil...
...AIDS is one social problem that we cannot live with...
...Meliorists can dream up many reassuring things to say about AIDS...
...The Administration's opponents convened these hearings with high hopes that a pathetic collection of witnesses would bring discredit to the Administration and to the policy of opposing Communist expansion in Central America...
...To some degree it explains why the discussion has been so combustible and futile, and why the disease spreads...
...According to my calculations, the congressional hearings into the Iran-contra affair are achieving something altogether different from the congressional investigators' intentions...
...Any offense that he has given to Congress has been small potatoes when weighed against his efforts to reverse Communist subversion...
...Thus far, however, witnesses have generally acquitted themselves well, and it is increasingly possible that these hearings will stand as evidence of Congress's dereliction of duty come election day 1988...
...The war in Nicaragua seems to be spreading, and recently there were reports that Ecuador's Communist guerrillas had received increased arms shipments from none other than the Sandinistas...
...delinquency...
...For two decades or so, as intellectual and ethical standards have given way to the hoots of indignant primitives, we have seen serious matters rendered absurd and unresolvable...
...and recent news stories suggest that dangers to America are increasing there...
...Many on Capitol Hill want him fired for supposed infelicities committed by him during previous congressional testimony...
...The problem of AIDS will not endure...
...Owing to the nature of the virus, the development of a vaccine to eliminatethe disease is unlikely and the development of a cure cannot be predicted...
...Some perfectly sensible and well-intentioned people have been explicating the grim side of this disease for most of its brief life...
...All this disturbing news has not escaped the voters, and there may be worse news ahead...
...AIDS is, then, another serious matter that has been rendered absurd by extremists, but it is one serious matter that will not be rendered unresolvable even by them...
...Abrams is one of the most competent men in American government...
...Polls indicate that the citizenry's interest in Central America is growing, Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Post column syndicated by King Features...
...For years now, one sort of extremist or another has stepped in and rendered complicated these straightforward matters...
...Thatcher's government responsible for British medical policy recently told me that when he mentioned these pieces—pieces that he admired—to some American health authorities they would not comment on the work, fearing that this would attract unwanted controversy...
...Many of these extremists who have such influence in public debate would, in earlier times, be adjudged non cornpos mentis...
...Yet it now appears that Congress wants to speed up this depressing process by rendering vacant that one State Department office that has defended American interests in Central America, that of Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams...
...whereupon the discussion might proceed rationally, perhaps even fruitfully...
...rr he most serious medical threat to 1 modern America has been treated as a partisan political matter...
...He is trusted by America's friends in Central America...
...ffi he AIDS controversy is but the 1 latest in a long series of straightforward issues made rancorous and grotesque by fringe groups of the left and the right...
...Throughout the region, economies are in a shambles...
...In El Salvador Communist guerrillas supplied in part from Nicaragua have again brought their war to the cities...
...The left-wing extremists can speak of civil rights and plots against minorities...
Vol. 20 • August 1987 • No. 8
