6 — Wednesday, January 23, 1991 - North Shore News . NEWS VIEWPOINT Desert Shield forever? ONG AFTER the last of the Amer- ican Patriot missiles have blasted the last of the Iraq from the sky, and aot much longer after the last of Saddam Hussein have been carpet-bombed to oblivion, the hard question will have to be answered: for the American military adventure in the Middle East? While the world sits transfixed by the technological wonder of precision bomb- ing, precision political intentions are being what next realized. History has shown a U.S. proclivity to harden up its sphere of influence once the explosions have ceased by maintaining mil- itary bases in former theatres of war. Given the the Middle realignment defeated — i Seud missiles ’s desert troops Shield in the has spent its Kuwait. Should an over the next key strategic importance of East — and the political to come once Saddam _ is American strategists must surely be considering the option of re- establishing a reduced version of Desert area once the Desert Storm metal fury over Iraq and Arab country be willing to host the foreigners, as oil reserves dwindle decade, the world’s global police force will be well situated to protect up from the its own continued national slap down any other upstart that might rise interest and region in future years to espouse p2n-Arabic notions. LETTER OF THE DAY Doug represents ‘majority’ Dear Editor: Recently you have printed three letters criticizing Mr. Doug Collins and his right of centre point of view. The letter writers look at life from the left, which they are en- titled to do, but fortunately they do not represent the majority of people in this country. It is a characteristic of the lef- tist minority in all free countries that they are well organized and burst into print, or rent a crowd, with monotonous regularity. The left receives far greater at- tention in the media than is war- ranted by their numbers. The rightists, on the other hand, constitute the ‘silent ma- jority.’ We get no attention in the media because the media have a strong bias to the lef: and because we do not violate the rights of others by blocking roads and other forms of breaking the laws of our country. Now that Les Bewley is unfor- tunately silent, Doug Collins is the only voice in all of the media in the southwest of this province speaking on our behalf; we are drowning in a sea of permissive pap. I wish, however, that he would tone down the vituperation in his writing for two reasons. First, it is totally unnecessary, his facts alone make his point. Second, it permits the leftists to paint him as a racist. Please permit Mr. Collins to keep up the good fight. M.E. Blanchard West Vancouver Publisher Associate Editor Advertising Director Linda Ste Press iia ang astrouted 19 every door on 1 Shore Second Class Mai Registration Nur Supscriotions forth ang West Vancouver, Maing rates aeaiiabie on racuest Si weicome put we cannot accept + uNsocited Matenal nctuding Tanuscnpts af «much should be accompanied by 4 stamped envelope Peter Speck Managing Editor Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright wart ; : SUNDAY + WEDNESDAY + FenOAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C V?M 2H4 59,170 (average. Weanesday Friday & Sunday) S GEES oy reused & SDA DIVISION : Entire contents %. 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Seana aaa perience are Display Advertising 980-0511 north shore. Classified Advertsing 986-6222 ‘ Newsroom 985-2131 news 4 Distripution 986-1337 Subscriptions Fax 986-1337 985-3227 MEMBER North Shore owned and managed Why ‘numbers’ cause Premier no sleep loss: THE NUMBERS game took another beating with the swift collapse of the Socred revolt against Bill Vander Zalm. To 6/49 players that came as no surprise. As a method of predicting polit- ical events and fortunes with any accuracy, today’s various forms of head-counting prior to election 8 day tend to be just about as reli- able as those 49 balls bouncing around in the big glass drum. To any sane observer with a a pocket calculator and a diary it was clear the so-called ‘‘revolt’* would never fly. For a minimum of 15 consti- tuencies each to get 75 per cent of their paid-up members to agree on ANYTHING — let alone dumping their only leader in sight at five minutes to midnight — flew in the face of all the known laws of odds. Even the tiny handful which mustered a leadership review ma- jority well below the needed 75 per cent did so with considerably less than their total membership present — in one case, it was tumored, as few as !5 per cent. Why so many stayed away can be interpreted any way you wish, of course — not forgetting the un- precedented New Year snow storms. Remembering Penticton in 1988 and the two following annual conventions where rumored grassroots ‘‘revolts’’ sputtered briefly before self-extinguishing, the other restless ridings either voted to stay on side or scrubbed their meetings. Meanwhile, with caucus and cabinet apparently firm, Canada’s most telegenic first minister has won a priceless hour of exposure Jan. 29 on all Vancouver TV sta- tions to give voters HIS message in a 15-minute talk and a 45- minute Q-and-A session with journalists. Still with numbers, none of this guarantees the Vander Zalm-led Socreds will survive the upcoming election if the 14 per cent lead given to the NDP by the pollsters is correct. But IS it? In his 1990 book Margin of Er- ror national columnist Claire Hoy, having researched political polls over the last 30 years, paints a damning picture of their inac- curacies and inconsistencies. Among politicians, both jubilant and devastated, who know all about that are Brian Mulroney, whom one Gallup had as a clear Icser in the 1988 elec- tion, and Ontario’s David Peter- son — lured into a 1990 election with a 50 per cent standing in the polls, only to be thrashed by the NDP. Variations in methods, sample he MATCHING ACTION to words! model pirate ship (see column item). Noel Wright HITHER AND YON sizes and question-wording make comparisons of polls on the same subject an apples-and-oranges lot- tery. Even pollsters admit that polls can at best be a snapshot of public opinion at a given point in time. And, as you'd expect, the most accurate palls are invariably those taken three days before the actual election, after most voters’ minds are finally made up. One way or another, when elec- tion night brings the only B.C. numbers that count, watch for several dozen more polls ‘‘accu- rate to four per cent 19 times out of 20”* t+ bite the dust. That’s why Bill Vander Zalm — no mean number-cruncher himself — isn’t losing any sleep yet over the NDP’s ‘14 per cent!’’ TAILPIECES: ‘‘Anything is possible if you work hard and put your mind to it,’’ says Norta Van’s Dimitries Xylinas, who has .a magnificent four-ft.-long model pirate ship to prove it. Working two hours a day for two months, he built it from 15,589 matches! ... The intensive 1869-1926 logging of West Van is the subject at tomorrow’s, Jan. 24, 7 p.m. meeting of West Van Historical Society — a picture presentation by pioneer surveyor George Smith and director Hugh Johnson at Cedardale Centre, 595 Burley. Guests welcome ... And the VSO should be some $5,000 richer fol- lowing Sunday’s sold-out Sym- phony Dinner at Willy and Mar- tha Brueckel’s Ambleside Inn, WRIGHT OR WRONG: Beware of assumptions. They can keep you awake at night. ms ~ elt y m NEWS phot Mike Wakefield . Dimitrios Xylinas and his