Editorials
Contents Volume CXI, Number 4 Correspondence 100 Editorials 101 Power to the prez: Jeremiah Baruch 102 Cherchez la femme: John Deedy 104 Subversion, IMF style: Steve Ellner 105 Lesson in...
...Yes, this can really take place...
...However, Mr...
...David Toolan Editorial Assistant: Anne Robertson Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, Abigail McCarthy Poetry: Rosemary Deen, Marie Ponsot Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, Sheila Tanksley Advertising Manager...
...Reagan then authorized naval and air intervention into the internal Lebanese fighting, and overnight the U.S...
...A number of them finally responded to his appeal, not the least helpful being the Wall Street Journal, which, in a September 14, 1983, editorial, declared, "Mr...
...James O'Gara Executive Editor...
...The American force was originally intended as a buffer between Israelis and Palestinians, and then as a police force to protect the refugee camps -- both possible goals...
...As for the Democrats, they apparently became convinced that Lebanon was a prime campaign issue, and they showed themselves determined to keep Mr...
...The deficit's threats to the economy have to be addressed now, not several years later when a constitutional amendment might finally be adopted...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $24...
...Reagan's feet to the fire as long as possible...
...foreign, $29...
...The emergence of a bipartisan national consensus on this issue would be difficult, but it is not totally impossible, and the efforts can only be helpful...
...It was then that death started to come to the marines, culminating in the terrible terrorist attack that had such a devastating -- and understandable -- effect on American public opinion...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...Speaker Tip O'Neill was tireless in demanding speedy withdrawal, and front-runner Walter Mondale, after saying in an interview four days previously that the marines should not be withdrawn, changed his mind and added his voice to the Democratic chorus...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $43...
...According to reports, this was pointed out to the president and he was offered the alternative of asking for increased power to rescind appropriations once no.w.a," ,02...
...In short, the possibilities of not only a regional but a world confrontation stemming from our Lebanon policy are all too real...
...Reagan made it clear that the United States would continue its policies of military pressure on the Soviet Union's client, Syria...
...This would be a good time to call on former secretaries of state for counsel...
...This was not the first time Mr...
...All they have to do is give more power to the president...
...The marines may be safer, but we are a long way from being out of the woods on Lebanon yet...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...When the U.S...
...In Congress, members just back from visits to their constituencies returned increasingly restive over administration policy, and not just Democrats either...
...C 'o"mmonwe l THE FUTURE IN LEBANON W AS PRESIDENT REAGAN'S decision to order the marines in Lebanon shifted to the naval ships offshore a wise move...
...Nonetheless, over the long haul broad popular support for national foreign policy is essential...
...foreign, $53...
...What to do...
...intervened 24 February 1984:101 with force of arms on his behalf, it lost its protective cloak of neutrality...
...Reagan should make the line-item veto the centerpiece of his reelection campaign, and he shouldn't flinch from claiming it as the Republican answer to the deficit issue...
...The president seems to have taken this advice with the apparent goal of shifting the campaign debate over the unprecedented deficits from the substance of the problem to proposals for different ways of dealing with it...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...It is understandable that the U.S...
...heaven knows we support far worse regimes elsewhere...
...Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, A Review of Pubfic Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Pubfishing Co., 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...In the face of all this, the administration vigorously counterattacked repeatedly, but Republicans admitted privately that public support for White House policy in Lebanon was evaporating and that change of some kind would be forced on Mr...
...Canada, $26...
...T I IIII...
...In withdrawing the marines Mr...
...As early as October 16, 1981, reminiscing over his California experience, he asked visiting news editors, "You . . . wouldn't like to start an editorial campaign to give the president the fight of line-item veto, would you...
...role changed from peace-keeper to belligerent...
...Canada, $47...
...That point aside, our basic national problem in Lebanon arose because Mr...
...This was surely good advice, and Mr...
...Whether total withdrawal would send the wrong message or not, a case can certainly be made that the marines should never have been sent to Lebanon in the first place...
...10016...
...Such shelling and air attacks would be directed not only at the limited areas previously hit but at Syrian-controlled forces anywhere in Lebanon, always with the danger of dragging into the fray our ally Israel with the real possibility of a new Middle Eastern war...
...Since a majority of the American people, to say nothing of the Democrats in Congress, seem unpersuaded of the wisdom of what "we set out to do," this can lead only to further division...
...Reagan should follow it -- not excluding the possibility of a Geneva-type conference with the USSR and Syria...
...But this cannot be...
...Reagan early on transformed the marine peace-keeping presence in Lebanon from something that was feasible into Mission Impossible...
...This means that Mr...
...GOP minority leader Robert H. Michel, while still trying to support his president, had been making it plain for weeks that Republicans too wanted some change...
...So goes the theme underpinning Mr...
...Reagan recalled nostalgically his budget powers as California governor...
...But he certainly should flinch if the item veto is being portrayed as the answer to the nation's deficits...
...There is little doubt about the reality of that pressure...
...As governor, I found this 'line-item veto' was a powerful tool against wasteful and extravagant spending...
...In one sense this is all ancient history now, and some would argue that we must put it behind us...
...A Republican congressional countermove to the Democratic resolution on the withdrawal of the marines called on the president instead "to explore other avenues" for a Middle East settlement...
...At least it will ease the political pressure he has been feeling on this issue...
...Reagan...
...In an effort to second-guess the eighteen-month authorization previously given for the marines' stay in Lebanon and unable to agree among themselves on any specific time limit, Democrats in the House concentrated on a resolution calling simply for the "prompt and orderly" withdrawal of the troops, only to table it after the Lebanese prime minister and his Cabinet resigned and new violence broke out...
...According to two national polls conducted by ABC News some weeks ago, almost sixty percent of the American people wanted the marines out of Lebanon...
...California is one of those forty-three states...
...It may well be that troops from either of the superpowers are unsuited for international peace-keeping efforts...
...It is plain that the country is deeply divided on our national course in Lebanon, and it is not even clear that the administration itself is of one mind...
...Reagan's State of the Union proposal for a constitutional amendment that would grant him the executive power he exercised so fondly as governor: "Some forty-three of our fifty states grant their governors the fight to veto individual items in appropriation bills without having to veto the entire bill," he said...
...the Pentagon and the State Department do not see eye to eye on the issue...
...That change has now been ordered, but the question remains: where do we go from here...
...Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Lebanese participants President Amin Gemayel has been unable to shed his image as little more than the head of one faction, as recent events have made painfully clear...
...should have wanted to prop up the weak, pro-Western government in Lebanon...
...The first is to seek a broad reassessment of our goals and policy in Lebanon, calling on the best minds available inside and outside Washington and the Republican party...
...It works in forty-three states ---let's put it to work in Washington, D.C., for all the people...
...President Reagan' s decision to pull the marines back to the ships offshore may temporarily allay public anxiety and even still the Democratic fervor...
...With the marines out of the way, Washington sources say such pressure would take the form of vastly increased naval shelling and aerial bombardment from the United States fleet offshore...
...Single copy, $1.25...
...At the same time, however, he has insisted that the removal of the marines from Beirut "will strengthen our ability to do the job we set out to do...
...Cameron, Monika K. Hellwig, Leonard Swidler, Marianne Sawicla', Cornel West, Dolores Leckey, Martin E. Marry 118 Staff Editor...
...It is too late to undo the errors of the past, but we can at least try to avoid making worse ones in the future...
...Contents Volume CXI, Number 4 Correspondence 100 Editorials 101 Power to the prez: Jeremiah Baruch 102 Cherchez la femme: John Deedy 104 Subversion, IMF style: Steve Ellner 105 Lesson in loyalty: David Bensman &Roberta Lynch 106 Deb'asing"the process: Abigail McCarthy lOS Therapeutic death: Francis Kane 109 An afternoon with an elderly respondent: Katharine Byrne 112 America's nostalgic liberalism: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...As the respected Congressman Paul Simon of Illinois commented, foreign policy cannot be conducted on the basis of day-to-day public opinion polls...
...Even worse, with seven thousand Soviet advisers in Syrian territory, there is a real danger of a head-on confrontation between Russia and the United States...
...Washington report POWER TO THE PREZ LATEST SOLUTION TO THE DEFICIT M ORE POWER to the people...
...Then a great national debate on the issue should take place, in Congress and in the nation...
...Certainly the administration can only profit from a serious effort at self-scrutiny on its policy on Lebanon and indeed on the entire Middle East...
...114 Screen: Jonathan 8aumbach 116 . . . . Art: Nicotaus Mills 117 Books . . . . . . Religious Book Week: Critics' Choices: George G. Higgins, Anne Carr, Stanley Hauerwas, J.M...
...And that, fellow Americans, can be accomplished very simply: just give the item veto power to Ronald Reagan...
...in order to decide where to go, the nation must look squarely at how we got into our present plight...
...bank...
...Secondly, once that top-level review has been concluded, it is essential that Washington's Great Cornmunicator do what he has never done in any systematic way" go before the people, time after time if necessary, to argue the case for whatever Lebanese policy the administration decides on...
...Peter Steinfels Assistant Editor...
...Reagan should do two things immediately...
Vol. 111 • February 1984 • No. 4
