Aggressively forcing anti-war views on others disrespectful, not peaceful

Over the last few months, we have all become accustomed to the growing amount of protests in relation to the war in Iraq. However, today I personally saw it reach a new low that truly questions the limits of their "free speech."

As several men and women in uniform peacefully walked by, an activist would approach them and stop them in their tracks, demanding they take a flyer filled with anti-war propaganda. The manner in which this was done was by no means peaceful at all, it was rushed and aggravated, and the poor people were often taken aback. Now, I'm all for freedom of speech, that's one of the many things that makes this country so great. But this incident, which I only witnessed a small portion of, was over the line and an insult to our brave troops dying right now defending rights like freedom of speech. I think it's great to see people expressing their views, just not forcefully. They used to do that in countries like Iraq, which is one reason we went in there.

Also, I would think these protesters would have the common sense to know the difference between true peaceful freedom of speech and flat out harassment.

It simply defeats their purpose. They are lucky they didn't force any of their propaganda on me, because my reaction wouldn't have been so "peaceful."

Joey Matthews
microbiology junior

Letter wrong about nature of troops; forces not responsible for all deaths

Daniel Greenspan's April 23 letter is lacking both in intellectual and logical content. As a self-proclaimed authority of morality who calls the arguments of others fallacious, Mr. Greenspan seems to have committed some of the same grievous errors.

First of all, let's put an end to this notion of making an oath to the Bush administration. The oath is an oath to protect the nation and constitution. Why am I acting in the authority role, you might ask? I took that very oath in 1996 · the same year as SPC Jonathan Hustad. In fact, I served with SPC Hustad on active duty in three different companies. Since you may not have had time to pull away from Nickelodeon that November, it was the beginning of the second term for that fine Clinton fellow that also liked to bomb countries. A casting of the popular electoral voice, and the administration thereby empowered, does not impact the consistency or origin of a soldier's oath.

Secondly, the role of the soldier is not indiscriminate killing. Sure, in war there is killing · it seems to be an unfortunate (yet necessary) function of such action. Todd Arena and Jonathan Hustad are working in a hospital trying to aid others in a medical capacity (hell, their work occasionally saves lives). The role of the soldier is to defend the nation, constitution, and citizens. To say "It is necessary for each soldier to take responsibility for the lives that they have taken in every war · " is idiotic and baseless. I believe you owe each soldier, sailor, airman, and marine a debt of gratitude for protecting your very life. Each service member does not necessarily kill to preserve your freedom, but does his or her job at great personal sacrifice to ensure such preservation is a reality.

Making spiteful and pejorative remarks about an entire group of individuals is irresponsible, particularly if the targeted group dies willingly to preserve your life and freedoms. I understand that you are probably 19 and excited that mom and dad are no longer forming your opinions for you, but it may be best to do a little research before broadcasting your exciting and provocative opinions. That is unless you intend to appear conceptually inadequate. In which case, it will be a long road of finishing off those remaining three years of post-secondary education.

God bless our troops, and best of luck to Hustad, Arena, and the rest of the 7220th at Ft. Sill.

Brandon Hart
psychology senior

Anti-Israel logic can also be applied to Palestinians' suicide bombings

This letter is in response to Kris Brown's letter in yesterday's Wildcat. It is so fallacious and contradictory that it is difficult to know where to begin. Brown first complains about an ad that is "presenting facts out of context," then he goes off for the rest of the letter stating instances of isolated Israeli actions out of context. The only proof presented for these occurrences are Brown's words, "True Story."

Brown then makes the jump from unsubstantiated isolated instances to common practice by stating "Anyone who dares step foot onto their front porch for a cigarette or to quiet a baby is shot (both of these scenarios occurred)." By this logic, America makes constant nuclear attacks against other nations. After all, it happened once. Or more pertinently, one could say, "the PLO is a terrorist organization, and constantly targets civilian populations." Since there have been terrorist actions taken by Arafat and Co., this would be logical thinking according to Brown.

The problem with this argument is it ignores the circular nature of violence. These terrorists, which Brown has the gall to call "those who are willing to sacrifice themselves in the hope of freeing their people from the oppressive Israeli occupation," are having the exact opposite effect. Every attack brings the Israeli grip tighter, causes more curfews, more travel restrictions, and puts more Palestinian civilians at risk.

Before a lasting peace can be reached, the Palestinian people must realize that suicide bombings are the single biggest hindrance in the peace process.

Reuben Goodman
interdisciplinary studies senior

Protesters may be changing world ÷ or might just be Îhanging out'

Quite often, demonstrations preceding, during and following the U.S. military campaign in Iraq were merely cultural phenomena and, no doubt, appeared to many to be just that: images of protesters searching for reasons to protest or, to put it another way, of people shopping around. Many protesters jumped at the chance offered by Bush's spring line to update their wardrobes, as it were, and fancifully accessorize their "anti" look, which, granting its nuances, is an entirely consistent and predictable form of exhibitionism. In turn, what unified "No blood of oil" and "Stop racist imperialism" was frequently neither a shared ideology nor a common end, but rather an overriding style. Results were never honestly expected, so the ever-changing details of the positions and motivations were of secondary importance, if any ÷ different items, same brand.

Presently, some "antis" are to be found on campus, sporting a new slogan almost daily that's meaningful in that it offers a way of superficially differentiating groups of people, but nonsense as anything other than a logo. Be it "Books, not bombs" scrawled on posters or "Life, energy, intelligence" stitched into jeans, the main message being communicated here is that against this consumerist identity-as-fashion backdrop, ideas too have been reduced to their appearances. And what has resulted, among other things, is the degeneration of political activism into political hanging out.

David Buechel
philosophy senior

Feminists for Life show little regard for women's freedom, circumstances

I am disturbed by the recent ads in the Wildcat for the so-called "feminists" for life. I was prompted to visit their Web site and look around, and was even more disturbed. I do appreciate their efforts to help women who would not want to have an abortion find resources to help them in that choice.

However, I was alarmed by the attitude that seemed prevalent in many of their writings: that women are too stupid to make their own choices. Time and time again it creeps up across their pages: these stupid women who have been duped by the "bad feminists."

These stupid women who have been duped by the manufacturers of RU-486.

These stupid women who have been duped by their parents, boyfriends, peers and employers.

Here come the "good feminists" to the rescue.

I thought that feminism was supposed to be about respecting women. That we were supposed to empower women to make thoughtful, intelligent choices, and then support them in whatever choice they made.

What about women who genuinely do not want to have a child?

Or those who were raped, or whose birth control failed, or who do not wish to be a human incubator for nine months?

The pro-choice movement is just that. It recognizes that we can never understand the situation of every woman who has an unwanted pregnancy.

It strives to educate women about all of their options, and to make those options as safe as possible. I admire Feminists for Life for their efforts to improve conditions for women who want to be pregnant and for their support of better contraceptive methods. But I think that their efforts to eliminate choices for women "for their own good" are anti-women, anti-freedom and un-American.

Jennifer Crispin
soil, water and environmental sciences graduate student

Not all Jews agree with Israel ad, likely to promote anti-Semitism

I was astonished by the ad posted on page 20 of Wednesday's edition of the Wildcat. As a Jew, I feel profoundly offended by this kind of hate message, and it makes me feel nothing but shame to see fellow Jews and other people promote such a disservice to society. Is this their way of saying "We want peace"? I think they are doing a great job for the anti-Semitic cause by giving the false impression that most Jews support these prejudiced views.

What is ironic about this ad is that exactly two weeks before it was published, a terrorist bombing was perpetrated by an Israeli group against a school near Jenin, wounding at least 29 children. This will certainly not make these children cherish the Israelis. According to the Israeli press, a radical right-wing Jewish group claimed responsibility for the attack on the school. This was also reported by much of the foreign mainstream media, but strangely enough seemed to go unnoticed by the American news. Several other attacks by Israeli radical right-wing groups have occurred in the past, such as the murder of Itzak Rabin or Baruch Goldstein shooting at a crowd in a mosque that took place while I was in Israel, just to cite a few.

I am certain that most Israelis and most Jews around the world want a true and just peace where the two peoples (Israelis and Palestinians) are given the legitimate right of having their own land, living safely side-by-side. But all these radical groups do is fuel hate. The collective punishment of the Palestinians by the IDF forces also fuels hate. Building settlements on Palestinian land fuels hate. Of course many actions of the Palestinians also fuel hate, but the ones on the Jewish side that claim they want peace must stop justifying Israeli violence too. It is even childish to discuss who started the violence, who kills more people, and so on. This is the way to infinite retaliation. It is obviously not possible to stop violence while terrorizing civil populations, even if motivated by the search for terrorists.

The true enemy of peace is violent action, and this applies to both sides. The true enemy of peace is prejudice. It is seeking any justification of further violence through an allegedly inherent violent tradition of the other culture. And this is precisely what this ad implies.

Martin Makler
visiting research scholar, physics department

Israel supporters must use less explosive messages

I am writing in response to the advertisement, on page 20 in Wednesday's edition of the Wildcat, printed by the group "campustruth." I am generally a supporter of Israel, but it saddens me to see that such blatant use of propaganda is being used in the Wildcat to express the pro-Israeli perspective.

The advertisement itself is not entirely false; it is true that suicide bombers are portrayed as heroes to many Palestinian children. It is also true that one of those Palestinian children might just grow up to be a suicide bomber one day. By the same token, though, one of those Israeli children might just grow up to become a soldier who shoots a Palestinian child for violating curfew. The circle of violence works both ways, which is something that radical supporters of Israel seem to ignore.

I urge fellow supporters of Israel to take a much less radical stance when dealing with the agenda of the pro-Israeli movement. By providing such a blatantly one-sided assessment of the situation, we are only weakening our credibility. We must certainly not resort to propaganda, like this "campustruth" group does, to express our views. We must be able to acknowledge that Israel isn't perfect, and represent the pro-Israeli cause in a manner that does not blatantly and unfairly label all Palestinians as the bad guys. Only then can we achieve the educated level of debate on the issue that we, as a college audience, truly deserve.

Adam Rosenthal
mathematics freshman

Origins of man discussion requires faith on both sides

The real problem with the upcoming debate between evolution and creation is that science was never designed to accommodate faith ÷ nor should it. Yet, simply because the scientific method does not account for faith does not mean that science can ignore its existence. Unbiased science seeks facts and a subsequent explanation for them.

The real debate is whether the facts support an atheistic, evolutionary faith or a faith in creation by design. Any scientist at this university will agree that it takes just as much faith to believe the principles of quantum mechanics or natural selection as it does to believe in the supernatural. How then can Ms. Hall in her column yesterday deny the faith it takes to believe that such scientific complexities are the result of a cosmic blip? Scientific evidence does not "prove" anything; it just supports one faith over another. I challenge Ms. Hall to take a scientific approach to her journalism. If she isn't willing to debate science apart from her faith in evolution, then she should at least acknowledge her bias.

If there is concern over bias in the upcoming debate, perhaps the Wildcat should sponsor a follow-up.

Stefanie L. Harris
chemistry and pre-pharmacy sophomore

Hillel should honor Jewish heritage, not spout hatred

Israeli supporters from the Arizona Israeli Alliance and even from Hillel have adopted the most extreme and rightwing position. While you would never find members of the Islamic Center or any other religious, cultural or educational group on campus attacking another cultural or religious group of people, Hillel distributes flyers and pamphlets (like those by the AIA) that blame either Islam, Arab culture or both for terrorism instead of considering the root causes.

Frankly, I am amazed at the lack of outcry given the type of propaganda that Hillel distributes to "educate" young Jewish students. I have read many of their pamphlets. One lie that is promoted is the idea of the Palestinian "culture of death." This is an idea that was developed by extremist Israelis who want to convince the world that Palestinians like to die. In fact, they have distorted the truth so much that they suggest that Palestinian people send their children to be killed. I guess according to these propagandists, the Palestinian people want to die, so the Israeli military is really doing them a favor.

This baseless and unjustifiable claim that terrorism comes from Palestinian, Arab or Islamic culture is shameful, untrue and very offensive. Terrorism comes from despair and hopelessness. Terrorism is born when a powerful military force like Israel ÷ a military with WMD that with a push of a button could turn every Arab country into a crater ÷ uses that military against a people with no military and no defense.

One such brochure (from the AIA) is titled "Sometimes Things Aren't What They Seem." Ironically, the back reads, "Hate Speech is not Free Speech," while demonizing Arabs. Another brochure that is distributed at Hillel (not from the AIA) is called "On Campus," where there is an article attacking the Muslim Student Union from a New York campus.

Furthermore, what is the purpose of having an organization on campus dedicated to supporting another country? Why shouldn't every country have a "base" on campus to balance out the bias? It should be demanded that Hillel stop being a base for Israeli propaganda and instead an organization to promote and celebrate Jewish culture.

To conclude, I would like to quote an article last week from BBC Online News (http://news.bbc.co.uk). "Some 300 Palestinian minors have been rounded up by the Israeli army over the past year and are being held in crowded lockups, some of them without charges or trial, human rights monitors say. The monitors Îincluding the respected Israeli B'tselem group' say that by treating those detained under 18 as adults, the Israeli army violates the United Nations' Convention on Rights of the Child."

Armand Navabi
computer science senior