Foreign Bases
Editor: I think that the German idea of establishing an air base for a Luftwaffe squadron in the United States is a great idea. All the bases the Defense Department wants to close can now be given to those foreign powers which own chunks of our country and our economy, such as the Japanese, for example. That should take care of a few dozen bases right there.
Just think how happy all the local politicians will be when the military bases in their communities can stay open. Should any bases remain on the closure list, well, once we make peace with Iraq we can give the Iraqis one, and if the Kuwaitis, the Saudis, the Syrians and other Arab countries don't mind hanging around with Christians and Jews too much, let's give them some bases, too. We could even save one for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Hey, it could happen.
Alex Diamond.
Baltimore.
Feeling Treed
Editor: As I was jogging around Lake Montebello, I noticed a cluster of newly planted trees on the property adjacent to the lake. In another 10 years, this will be an ideal setting for a drug haven. There are numerous walkers, joggers and bicyclers who enjoy the lake area. Additionally, there are two schools nearby.
I have seen drug dealers stand on streets, waiting for customers in broad daylight. The same situation will occur in another 10 years when the trees mature. It will be a safe hiding place for drug dealers.
As a concerned citizen, I called the mayor's office to file a complaint. I was transferred to the park service department. The man I spoke to sounded as if he had received numerous complaints about these trees. He said that 20 percent of the trees will eventually die. He also said that the park service keeps the trees well trimmed. Additionally, people won't deal drugs because that is a busy intersection.
I would like to take this man to parts of Baltimore where drugs are dealt during the day in public. I would then like to get this man to walk up to drug dealers and explain to them that they should move to another area because it is broad daylight and they should not be near busy intersections. That would be the end of that man along with his argument.
I propose that the park service move and replant some of the trees. The space is available to replant them. In the future, better planning will avoid such problems.
Louis Blank.
Baltimore.
Big Losers
Editor: Jeffrey Record's piece in The Sun, May 16, "The Lessons of Desert Storm," misses the main points.
The greatest losers are the Soviet Union and China. Their military equipment was junk before the battle and soon became junk vTC during it. The ground war, so graphically predicted by the hand wringers in the media and on campuses to be a blood bath for the coalition forces, turned out to be target practice.
Military equipment possessed by the coalition forces, and particularly that of the United States, is much too complicated to be used by hastily trained draftees. Some of our aircraft missions were flown by bird colonels, no less! End the draft. It is obsolete.
The lesson of Desert Storm, that is not lost on the tin-pot dictators of the world, is that naked and unprovoked aggression will not be tolerated. Furthermore, the world has the means and the will to implement that policy.
For the distant future, it will be worse than drawing to an inside straight for any tin-pot dictator to try this again.
Hubert P. Yockey.
Bel Air.
Sour Homecoming
WAR IN THE GULF
Editor: Official Washington is preparing itself for a "U.S. victory parade," a patriotic extravaganza on Saturday, June 8, the likes of which have not been seen, in this country at least, in many years.
The immediate purpose is to welcome home our Desert Storm warriors and this is surely a popular and worthwhile undertaking. But like most military parades, it will serve other state purposes as well.
The parade and jingoistic hoopla will reinforce the desired impression that the war is over, that all important issues have been settled, and that the war was a victory for the United States in which we should all take pride. No matter that Saddam Hussein remains in power, that the future of Iraq's Kurdish and Shia populations remain precarious, that the Kuwaiti and Saudi ruling families are returning to business as usual without regard to democracy or human rights, etc.
The parade will also be the grand homecoming that never occurred following the U.S. interventions in Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada and Panama. Finally, the American people will have an opportunity to feel good about the military and by extension, about themselves. Now, it is hoped, the so-called Vietnam Syndrome can be fully and finally dispelled. Old cautions can be swept away and new latitude won for future military conflicts.
Richard R. Dow.
Crofton.
Pest Management or Genocide?
Editor: Liz Bowie's May 19 story about the Bierly family's health and economic hardship caused by chlordane pesticide poisoning is important, but it leaves the reader believing this is a unique situation.
All of us suffer known and unknown health impacts from the 220 billion pounds of pesticides applied annually in agricultural and non-agricultural settings. A March 1990 GAO report concludes that the "general public's health may be at risk from exposure to these chemicals . . . (lawn & golf course care pesticides)," that no pesticide is "safe" and that "illegal safety claims" continue to be made by distributors and manufacturers.
A 1982 congressional report said that 82-85 percent of all pesticides had not been tested for carcinogenic effect and that chemicals used plentifully in agriculture, on lawns and in highway spray programs, such as 60 million pounds of 2,4-D applied annually, have been linked already to non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Up to 70 percent of our nation's pesticides have not been tested for their ability to cause birth defects; 90-93 percent have not been tested for mutagenicity.
Up to 98 percent of an end-product formula can be afforded trade-secret status. Thus, when bioaccumulated in a victim, who can say if the active chemical, a metabolite or some other degradate or just the way myriad elements interact instigated a problem?
Originating in warfare strategy, the chemical pesticide industry is based on an acceptable-risk policy. Acceptable risk for whom?
Maryland used 7.5 million pounds of active ingredients in 1990. Many of the chemicals are on the drinking hazards list, cited for aquifer, stream and well-water poisoning, such as the 1.8 million pounds of Metalachlor and the 1.17 million pounds of Atrazine, an herbicide used on corn and sorghum and connected with epithelial ovarian cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and respiratory failure.
Of the 80-84 million pounds of Alachlor applied nationally in 1990, Maryland used 569,000 pounds. It's a probable human carcinogen inducing tumors, liver toxicity, irreversible eye lesions and permanent nerve damage. Canada has outlawed its use. Massachusetts tried to ban the sale of Alachlor. Monsanto, which makes $500 million a year selling it, filed suit and forced the state's pesticide board to reclassify rather than outlaw Alachlor. Does the chemical molecule revolve around the dollar sign?
Some 250,000 pounds of Paraquat were applied in Maryland in 1990 though banned in Finland, Sweden and West Germany because of high-risk acute toxicity. A defoliant used in Vietnam, it has no antidote, yet the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates 10-12 million acres in the United States are treated with it annually. Victims, of which Third World farmers rank highest, suffocate to death from nonfunctional lung scar tissue.
Some 345,000 pounds of 2,4-D were used in Maryland in 1990. Four million of the 60 million pounds applied annually are used on lawns. It is associated with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in farmers, breast tumors, malignant blood-cell tumors, is easily absorbed dermally or through inhalation, causing abdominal pain, vomiting, dizziness, rashes, mood swings, peripheral nerve damage, memory loss and toxic injury to liver, kidney, muscle and brain tissue.
When will people be told the truth about the environmental and health impacts associated with the use of chemical poisons on our lawns, in schools, offices, hotels, roads, parks, hospitals, malls and playgrounds? What will the Governor's Pesticide Council do?
Zoh M. Hieronimus.
Baltimore.