Iranian president espouses hatred, not ‘political squabbling’
I find it funny that someone who talks about injections of “stupid juice” thinks himself adequately informed to talk about Israeli-Arab politics. Scott Patterson, in his opinion piece “Fueling the Bush crazy train,” makes it clear that he believes Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s comment about blowing Israel off the face of the earth to be a mere case of political incorrectness. I myself find Patterson’s notions of justified combat unfortunate. If the United States’ war against Saddam Hussein isn’t justified (which, perhaps, it isn’t) how can he find Ahmadinejad’s openly genocidal instincts toward Israel justified?
Patterson, showing his absolute lack of knowledge of Near Eastern history, claims that Israel usurped “someone else’s territory” in 1948. He doesn’t deem it important to mention whose territory it was — the land at the time belonged to Britain, and there was a population of indigenous Jews living in the area. Britain granted Israel the majority of the land it currently possesses; the United Nations gave it its nationhood as a result of (lest we forget) the Holocaust, as well as the intolerance and violence Jews faced in almost every part of the world.
In 1948 most indigenous Arabs chose to leave and were rejected by neighboring Arab countries, effectively creating the refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank. And for this reason Patterson calls President Ahmadinejad’s call to wipe Israel off the map “warranted.” This is unbelievable coming from the pen of an educated college student.
Iran’s president flat-out hates Jews. He wants to annihilate Israel because of religious intolerance, not political squabbling. Frankly, this is just as shocking and no less racist than William Bennett’s comments about black babies and abortion. Calling Iran’s stance towards Israel “dislike” is not only an understatement; it’s in the completely wrong ballpark.
In comparison, Israel does not hate Arabs. A good proportion of democratic Israel’s citizens are Arabs and Muslims. Scott Patterson, please, as an international studies student, educate yourself more about the facts, stop regurgitating what you read on Moveon.org and give yourself a little more intellectual credibility. The world, and our school newspaper, will be all the better for it.
Sarah Conte-Jacobs
anthropology sophomore
Students shouldn’t suffer for UA improvements
I don’t at all understand the rapid raise for both in-state and out-of-state tuition because the UA is doing great as is. As an out-of-state student, if the costs continue to rise I don’t know how much longer I could possibly attend here, as this has been a dream for me to come here for the longest time.
This university is one of the best in the country for cost of tuition and that’s something to be heard of and proud of, so why not try and keep it that way? It just does not make sense to me. With higher costs to tuition, are there going to be bigger and better learning atmospheres and labs that will increase our learning because of them? As far as I know, our university is already well established with education, but we could also strive for improvement.
But should the students and families suffer because of this? Maybe a concern is our buildings, but they look and are already great buildings and many of them are fairly new. Administrators and professors are, I feel, getting paid very well, and that should not change the degree of tuition by any means. I think we as students need an answer for why tuition costs are once again on the rise year after year, so we feel like we are getting a little something more out of why we are indeed doing this.
Grant Becker
pre-business freshman
United Nations’ goals not befitting of global ‘terrorists’
It’s amazing how columnist Kara Karlson refuses to see a difference between the actual United Nations and U.N. peacekeeping (“United Nations: international terrorists”). They are most definitely not one and the same.
It is true that peacekeepers are ordered by U.N. mandate, but it is not the United Nations as a whole that is committing these atrocities. I say atrocities because that is what I truly believe they are: atrocities. And something definitely needs to be done to stop them. However, Ms. Karlson must have selective memory, and loves to use loaded language.
It seems that she forgets that it is most unusual for international terrorists to put an end to smallpox (the WHO eradication program of 1980) or to push for “quality basic education for all, especially girls” (UNICEF) or to develop a “plan of action for sustainable development” (Earth Summit 1992).
In fact, the U.N. has several admirable goals: to keep peace throughout the world, to develop friendly relations between nations and to work together to help people live better lives, to eliminate poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world, to stop environmental destruction and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms.
Are these the goals of international terrorists? Not according to President Bush.
It seems to me that before using such derogatory language about this organization that does so much for humankind, people need to get their facts straight first and practice responsible journalism and not sensationalism.
Alex Gutierrez
microbiology sophomore