OUR VIEWS

Advising or fighting?

This is a significant step, and one hopes that this operation was better thought out than the method of its announcement.

Last year, 1,300 U.S. troops trained and advised the Filipino army in a successful operation to end Abu Sayyaf's campaign of killings and kidnappings on the island of Basilan. Under the rules of engagement, the American advisers could only fire in self-defense.

Now, the remnants of Abu Sayyaf, about 200 or so, have decamped to Jolo, and the Philippine government has asked for American help in clearing them out of that island, too. The U.S. troops committed to that operation consist of 350 Green Berets, who, the administration says, will go on combat operations; 400 troops in support; and 1,000 Marines on standby aboard ships offshore.

The Jolo operation could well be more difficult than last year's. The island is notoriously lawless, and its largely Muslim population is resentful of the better off, mostly Christian islands. And, according to accounts, there is a lingering resentment of American troops for their suppression of insurrections on Jolo early in the last century.

U.S. military support for the Philippines can be justified on several grounds — as support for a friendly democracy with whom we have long-standing historical ties and as part of a broader war on terrorism. Abu Sayyaf is believed to have ties with al-Qaida through other Islamic extremist groups in Southeast Asia.

However, over the weekend the exact nature of the mission became somewhat complicated when the Philippine government said explicitly that U.S. troops would not be involved in any combat operations. Officials said the Americans would be there purely to work as trainers and advisers. This difference seems more than just a simple matter of missed communications. More than 1,700 soldiers and Marines would seem to constitute a lot of advice.

The Bush administration needs to specify precisely why and under what circumstances we have committed troops to the Philippines. And if the administration in its typically secretive way refuses to say, then Congress should step in and ask the hard questions.

Did her duty

Mike Kanarick called the property audit "just another cheap, orchestrated political attack by Bob Riley and the Republican Party."

No, it's not. New state Auditor Beth Chapman was doing her duty. To suggest otherwise either indicates a lack of understanding of what it means to be accountable for public property or is an attempt to obfuscate the issue.

Such audits should be standard procedure whenever the state's highest elective office changes hands.

Chapman's audit doesn't determine whether the items paid for with the public's money are missing because of a failure to properly account for them when they were lost or disposed of or because the items were inadvertently or deliberately taken by departing members of the Siegelman administration. That determination belongs to others.

Leave the wine alone

That's one reason a boycott of French wine — now being promoted by private as well as public figures — is not so good an idea. There is plentiful justification for being upset with a French government that has made war more likely with its pandering to Saddam Hussein, but it's not just the French government that would be hurt if an American boycott of French wine were successful. It's also a great many French wineries and workers who may or may not support the government policy, as well as a number of Americans involved in the distribution and sale of the wine.

France's political irresponsibility will exact a cost over time; the country's international heft, not so great to begin with, will be reduced as it sinks in just what French leaders have done. In the meantime, the Bush administration must employ an array of diplomatic answers to cope with the breech of faith. Retaliation against wine is not the answer.

YOUR VIEWS

Palestine is undefined but significant

After World War I, the successful nations carved up the Middle East and created hegemonies. Britain ended up with control of Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula and eastward to an area beyond the Jordan River. France got what we now call Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, in effect, the rest of the Middle East. Still, no Palestine. The United Nations, in 1947, divided this critical area to designate a portion for the Jewish people, and a portion for the Arab population, with the latter getting the overwhelming majority of the land. Israel accepted. The Arabs declined and went to war in 1948. Still, no Palestine.

Britain could no longer stomach the problems of governing that area and, under pressure and attack, simply pulled out and abandoned its responsibilities. France, meanwhile, took a different direction. It distributed its holdings into various families, many of them named Hussein. There were Arab princes and sheiks who began to develop their own "countries or nations." One of the great oddities was that France recognized the greatest value in all of that land was an area called "the Lebanon" because that is where the Middle East business was done, and Lebanon became a country, independent, with an interesting fabric. Half the government was Christian, and half was Moslem, alternating. Still, no Palestine.

Jordan, one of the created kingdoms, found itself stuffed full of unwanted Arabs, who made it difficult for King Hussein to govern, and he expelled them, with Arafat as their leader, and pushed them into the area in the West Bank and Gaza. This vacant territory now being heavily populated needed a name; it was called Palestine. It has no borders. It really has no cohesive government. It has no economy. It is grossly underdeveloped. Yet, the solution seems to be, throughout the world, that it needs to be a country, and it needs to be called Palestine, but it needs leadership better than Arafat.

So, the great nations of the world today have given the name Palestine to one of the most miserable pieces of property in the world, and it is expected that it will become a nation among nations. We'll see.

Karl B. Friedman

2311 Highland Ave. S.

Out in left field

Congress is forbidden to establish a state religion by Amendment One of the U.S. Constitution. This, in effect, means Congress is prohibited from establishing an official church, such as England did when it established the Church of England, or before that when Catholicism was the state religion of England. That is all that it means.

This is, and always has been, a Christian nation. We celebrate Christmas, not Ramadan. People are free to be as stupid as they want to be. They can choose to belong to any of the superstitions that they want to belong to. However, this is a Christian nation and was so from the beginning.

Thomas Jefferson, as president, attended Christian worship services regularly in the Capitol building. As head of the schools of the District of Columbia, he ordered that the Bible be used as the primary text book.

The Declaration of Independence acknowledges that our rights come from God. It states God is the creator. The Bible tells us the Lord Jesus Christ is the creator. The Declaration of Independence states God is the provider. The Bible tells us Jesus Christ is the provider. The Constitution acknowledges the Lordship of Jesus Christ with-these words: "in the year of our Lord." Yes, this is a Christian nation, and this has been officially been declared to be so by our U.S. Supreme Court.

We are free, by the First Amendment to express our Christian beliefs, pray and read the Bible anywhere, in public schools and elsewhere. Any ruling to the contrary is null and void by our U.S. Constitution, Amendment One.

The headline on this false column is also erroneous, in that the members of Congress do not desire to force people to embrace Christianity. Nor do they want to force people to be deprived of their rights to give free expression to their Christian faith, as Pastor Evans appears to want to do.

Loyd C. Brannon. M.D.

2585 Old Rocky Ridge Road

Don't worry

"The world consists largely of weak men made and kept free by better men than themselves."
— John Stuart Mill, 1865
Armond "Si" Simmons

104 Wadsworth Lane

Pell City

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