Wednesday September 19, 2001

Pacifist opinions hurt us all

I was upset to read all the pacifist opinions in the Daily Wildcat in the last few days. For some reason, writers like Laura Winsky think we need to just sit back and do nothing to those that murdered innocent Americans. Innocent people whose only crime was that they went to work and that they lived in America. It shouldn't matter that many Americans can't find Afghanistan on the map, because our bombs will be able to find bin Laden and his sympathizers.

Why have so many UA professors suddenly decided that it is America's fault that 5,000 innocent people had to die? And that therefore we should sit back and do nothing. No! We should get our guns, our planes and our bombs and go get these murderous monsters who did this to our beautiful nation. It's time for the pacifism and the appeasement to end and for the retaliation to begin!

Seth Frantzman

history senior

I have been reading the letters to the editor with interest for the past several days. To those of you who are taking the position that the United States should commit to "peaceful reflection" rather than retaliation, and that we should "resist militarization," I would say this: History has proven time and time again that appeasement does not work. Chamberlain and Great Britain tried negotiating with Hitler, who summarily broke every agreement he signed and went on to march through Europe and kill millions in death camps. Appeasement has not worked with the Chinese Communists, who still threaten Taiwan, commit human rights abuses against its own citizens and ours, and who knocked one of our unarmed surveillance planes out of the sky and into hostile territory this past spring. Appeasement certainly has not worked for Israel, who has signed treaty after treaty with the Palestinians, only to see Arafat break every one (and yes, it was the Palestinians who are guilty of breaking these treaties, not Israel).

Military action, however, stopped Hitler. Military action by Israel at one time rid Lebanon of the Hezbollah. Military action is slowly creating a more stable situation in the Balkans. And when the U.S. stood militarily strong against the USSR in the 1980s, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Empire collapsed.

Not responding, or merely trying to negotiate an end to these terrorist acts is not the answer. If the U.S. does not respond with military action, these attacks will simply continue. History is full of instances where negotiations gone bad have led to continued aggression. For the sake of all Americans, I hope that we have finally learned from history, because none of us want a repeat of Sept. 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

Gail Helt

political science doctoral student

On Sept. 11, America as a whole experienced the single greatest loss of life ever on its own soil. It will be several weeks until the final body count is known. Since that day, the Wildcat has been flooded with letters saying that the United States should not bomb countries in retaliation for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

I debated for several days as to whether or not to write this, because I didn't know how well it would be received. I finally decided to write it, because I am sick of the United States and its people being a doormat for the world's terrorists. Last year, on Oct. 12, a suicide bomber crashed a boat loaded with explosives into the USS Cole while it was docked in Yemen. Eighteen soldiers were killed, and the United States did nothing. In 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed, and a total of 224 people died, yet once again, the United States did nothing.

If ever there was a time to show the terrorists that the United States of America will not tolerate attacks on our people, this is it. The blood of our fellow Americans has been shed on American soil. I think that it is time to send a message to the terrorists that did this, and to any others who are thinking of this, that America will not allow them to destroy what we have worked so hard to build.

Dustin Chapman

pre-business freshman