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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 27, 1981
Page 13
It is certainly a great privilege to be firing away in the trenches
with our tithes, offerings, and prayers against the ever-persistent
Adversary, as you (Mr. Armstrong) continue to inspire us with your
God-given leadership, along with our faithful and capable ministry
working together. It is more and more exciting, in spite of the
increasingly frightening world we are living in. Also, it is
sobering and comforting to know that we are drawing so close to
the coming of God's Kingdom.
Mr. & Mrs. J.L. Stedham (San Antonio, TX)
--JOE TKACH, MINISTERIAL SERVICES
ON THE WORLD SCENE
GROWING ALLIED DOUBTS ABOUT U.S. POWER POLITICS Whi£e Americans in
general applaud the Reagan's administration's new show of strength in
world affairs, the perspective is quite different among some U.S. allies.
It is in one crucial area--the Middle East/Persian Gulf--that the greatest
doubts persist about the new U.S. "act tough" posture.
Allied foreign policy planners in Europe are said to take the view that
the United States could be more of a threat to Western vital interests in
the oil-rich region than the Soviet Union. They are especially wary of
Washington's desire to deploy forces in or near the Gulf to insure un
interrupted oil supplies. The United States has obtained permission to
use and to upgrade facilities in Somalia, Kenya and Oman. The largest
regional base of all will be a bit further out in the Indian ocean, on
the British island of Diego Garcia.
Another particularly controversial proposal would have the U.S. station
more than 1,000 peace-keeping troops in the buffer zone to be created
in the eastern Sinai when the Israelis complete their withdrawal from
Egyptian territory in April, 1982.
The growing fear in West Europe is that a more visible American presence
could somehow "destabilize" the region. Worst yet, there is the fear that
Washington might use its presence not for the intended purposes (to guar
antee Egyptian-Israel peace in the Sinai plus keeping the Soviets at bay
elsewhere) but might be tempted to intervene indiscriminately in local
issues (such as on the side of the Saudi royal family if it is threatened).
The Sunday Telegraph's Peregrine Worsthorne (acclaimed as Britain's top
journalist in 1980) notes that there is "sober doubt about American
capacity to use conventional armed forces discriminately in an area about
which they know little, without stirring up the sleeping dogs which might
otherwise continue to be dormant."
Adding to doubt over U.S. wisdom is the cold fact of U.S. military defeats
and blunders since the Korean War stalemate: the Bay of Pigs fiasco; the
agonizing defeat in Vietnam; the failure of the rescue operation in Iran.
These failures hardly inspire confidence. Adds Worsthorne: "Precisely
because the stakes are so momentous, mistakes have to be avoided at all
costs.... The Persian Gulf is a vital West European interest, incomparably
more so than Cuba, say, or Vietnam. A Bay of Pigs type blunder there
really would be the end of us. Yet this is the kind of American blunder
which the West Europeans have good reason to fear in the Persian Gulf.