OUR VIEWS

WTO makes poor richer

The protesters represent virtually every kind of cause imaginable — environmentalism, protectionism, socialism, isolationism and workers' rights, for starters. For many of the protesters, it seems, the World Trade Organization is a frightening, globe-straddling capitalist beast that would happily gobble up precious values for the sake of making the rich richer. James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, has been quoted as saying, for instance, that corporate greed comes first with the WTO.

That's nonsense, of course. The WTO, which has grown out of multilateral trade arrangements hammered together after World War II, includes among its 135 member-nations many that are poor. These poor nations have been eager to sign on because they understand that their interests are served by the low tariffs the WTO promotes. Relatively unfettered global trade is a primary means of making the poor richer, even if it simultaneously improves the economies of rich nations, too.

The WTO is meeting because it does in fact face issues of real import, but in large measure these are not the issues the protesters are talking about. For example, Hoffa and many other U.S. labor leaders would like the WTO to make it easier to discriminate against products manufactured under work conditions that fall below those in the industrialized countries. But a chief way for those poor nations to gradually move to higher standards is for them to sell their products abroad.

In the final analysis, the WTO is more benefactor than monster, and if it should consider the arguments of some of the more legitimate protesters, it should mainly aim to free trade still more, thus benefiting billions, as Clinton said.

Serbs now the victims

Speaking to ethnic Albanians, the president was met with silent stares when he pleaded that it was time to forgive their Serbian neighbors and stop punishing them for the terror campaign of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

That silence was replaced with action the very next day when ethnic Albanian gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons on Serbian policemen in a town near the border with Kosovo, seriously wounding two officers.

While the president certainly was correct in his statements that the time for fighting has passed, the history of the region — split over ethnic and religious issues for ages — shows that it is perhaps an elusive goal. Nor does it help that despotic rulers, such as Milosevic, will willingly let their people and their cities be harmed rather than allow basic human rights for all citizens within their boundaries.

The 78-day NATO air attacks against Milosevic's forces sought to return a sense of humanity to strife-torn Kosovo. The balance of power has shifted, but now new reprisals are under way. Orthodox Christian Bishop Artemije pointed out to Clinton that 80 Serbian Orthodox churches have been destroyed in the six months since the NATO air war ended and that revenge attacks against the remaining Serbian minority continue. It is estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo as a result of the revenge attacks.

At least one aspect of Clinton's trip may be that it bolsters Orthodox Christians who often believe that many Western countries tilt against them. As part of his world visit, the president, while in Istanbul, Turkey, also met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of more than 200 million Orthodox Christians.

Clinton's six-nation visit encountered protesters both in Turkey and Greece, and the visit to Greece had to be delayed a week. Much was made of the protests in Athens, and while they were unfortunate, it did not help that Clinton's visit was first scheduled through design or error to coincide with the Nov. 17 anniversary of the day in 1973 when a group of colonels seized power. While in Athens, Clinton apologized for America's failure to support democracy when it backed the military junta during the Cold War.

Overall, the president's international sojourn was upbeat.

And he gave sage advice in saying the time has come to forgive and for people to work together for peace. But realistically Clinton's trip points out that neither bombs nor words will guarantee harmony in this world.

YOUR VIEWS

Peace now rests with Irish Catholics

THE MAIL

The great famine and the callous English reaction to it.

The sharing of Irish brides with the local English lords and landowners.

The inability to vote.

Discrimination in employment, housing, access to capital and every other imaginable human indignity, both in Ireland and in the United States.

So as you grow and learn of your family's history, you cannot help but intoxicate yourself on the truths and fables of your own victimization. You find yourself passing on the tales and songs of a life that you never suffered yet you hold as a breastplate of honor. As the great Irish rebellion song, ''Patriot Games" proclaims:

It's been nearly two years since, I wondered away,
With a local battalion of the bold IRA
I was taught all my 1ife, cruel England's to blame,
So now I'm a part of, the Patriot Game.

So as you grow older, drunk in romanticism, a bold Protestant leader like David Trimble emerges and offers what few politicians ever do ... to defuse his own power in the quest of a final peace settlement. Last week, the British (Protestant) backed Unionists voted (nearly 68 percent) to create a new cabinet in Northern Ireland. This new government promises to share real power with the Catholic minority. In exchange for this new authority, IRA members are required to begin immediately to "decommission" themselves and lay down their arms.

Now the spotlight of world opinion shifts to Gerry Adams and the IRA-affiliated, Sinn Fein political party to make good on their promises to decommission. Up to this point, many conservatives in the United States overlooked the left-leaning fiscal policies of the romantic Sinn Fein, as they appeared to be the only group capable of negotiating with the IRA for a lasting peace. So now it is time to deliver.

Those of us who pride ourselves in the triumph of the Irish story must now demand that we add one more triumph to our history and insist on the disarmament of the IRA under the terms of the Good Friday agreement.

Yes, it is true, the people of Northern Ireland were "occupied" by a foreign oppressor and had some justification of its own militia for self-protection. But under the new Good Friday accords, the rule of law will be far more emancipating than any paramilitary group could ever assure.

The Catholics of Ireland have a great tradition of survival and human dignity. Pray that we will collectively demonstrate that dignity one more time by demanding that this millenium ends with a final settlement in Northern Ireland; a settlement that the world can use as yet another Irish model of human achievement.

Marty Connors, chairman
Birmingham Irish Cultural Society
236 Weatherly Club Drive
Alabaster

Military budget decline is sensible

The budget has been in decline since 1985 for simple reason that during that period we were in the height of Cold War spending. The Cold War has been over for quite some time now and it only makes sense that the budget would reflect that.

Consider this information from the 1998 Statistical Abstract of the United States (Table 574): In 1995 worldwide military expenditures were $865 billion, our military expenditures were $278 billion, or 32.1 percent of the total amount of money the entire world spent on defense. This is hardly the record of a Congress or president that are not doing their duty of providing for a common defense.

Quite a few prominent defense experts agree that if we changed our defense posture to reflect reality and reduced waste, we could cut the defense budget by 15 percent and still remain the world's only superpower. We could do a lot with the savings, rebuild schools, medical research, etc. In 1998, both Russia and China spent around $50 billion each on defense; North Korea spent less than $5 billion; we spent $280 Billion.

John T. Allen
739 Barcelona Court, Apartment K

Appalled

The names of those men were Matthew Shepard and James Byrd. And have you completely forgotten that Billy Jack Gaither was murdered eight months ago? Is it too much to ask that we honor the memory of the dead?

The reduction of human beings to labels and behaviors is exactly what inspires the kind of violence that killed the people you're trying to forget. Back in March you published a letter from us that concluded "Religious people need to stand with those who are systematically oppressed and speak out against violence and discrimination and for equality and inclusion of all people."

Apparently that thought requires repeating.

Barbara Purdom
Christopher Purdom
Interfaith Working Group Coordinators
P.O. Box 11706
Philadelphia

Sad futility

To many, it now appears to have been just another skillful ploy to gain entrenchment of a different power mob, but of the same scandalous ilk. This same degeneration of our leaders' values and integrity permeates our present day "bought and paid for" candidates for political monarchy.

What can we the electorate do about it? Are we too far down the slippery anarchical slope that was the way of Rome? I don't have a clue. Entering the voting booth, no matter the political choices staring back at me, I'll only see "Mafia" vs. "Cosa Nostra."

With coin in hand, I'll vote. Exiting the booth, I'll observe the line of my obedient, subservient and ignorant fellow voters going through the motions of a sad futility.

Bartender! Another double!

Armond "Si" Simmons
104 Wadsworth Lane
Pell City

Bad consequences

Just as it did in the breakup the Bell system, the government claimed its action would benefit the public — a lie. The end result is bad phone service in many areas and the long-distance companies are ripping off the public.

On the evening news, a person made this statement "I hope it will bring down software prices." This person is living in a dream world. Software prices will not go down. Developers invest huge sums of money and deserve a return on their investment. Users want software that will do everything for them (even think) and when they have problems, they want to be able to call someone to get help and all of this for the price of the software. Yes, we have something for nothing computer users.

Software prices are where they are because of Microsoft's standards. Take these away and there will be an eternal fight between software developers for standards. Users will spend a fortune getting software to work. The economy is dependent on computers and the standardization that now exist. We had a good public education system prior to the 1960s, which was based on very good standards. These standards no longer exist and look at the results. Every time the government sticks their nose in our business, we pay a huge price. We can't keep this up and survive as a nation.

Donald Dunlap
1335 Montevallo Road
Irondale

LOOK BACK

50 years ago, Dec. 3, 1949:

New Jersey Republican J. Parnell Thomas resigns from seat in U.S. House of Representatives he held 13 years, after deciding not to fight charges of government payroll padding and kickbacks.

25 years ago, Dec. 3, 1974:

Trans World Airliner crashes on snow-covered mountain 45 miles west of Washington, severing power lines to secret underground U.S. Army base that houses interagency nuclear attack warning center.

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