Rec Center expansion fee unnecessary

Expanding the Student Recreation Center is a bad idea. Although the facility is sometimes crowded, most of the time it is half empty. For those who insist on working out at peak times, it should not be so terrible to wait in line for 15 minutes, and for those who cannot afford to wait in line, there are 12 hours a day with no lines.

Moreover, expanding the Rec Center will make crowding worse in the short run, as new construction will surely result in partial facility closures (not to mention traffic congestion and permanent loss of parking). Finally, a larger Rec Center will cost more to operate, not just to build, and there is no guarantee students won't be asked for even more money in the future.

The student union's financial woes, and the related proposed mandatory fees, should be a warning here. A vote to extend the Rec Center fee is a vote for more dust, more crowding and less parking for yourself, as well as unnecessary fees for future students.

Lee Shepski
philosophy graduate student

U.N. peacekeepers acting as a 'stabilizing force'

I read with interest Kara Karlson's column about sexual crimes committed by U.N. peacekeepers ("United Nations: international terrorists"). I agree with her that such crimes are not acceptable and should be rooted out from the United Nations. I agree that accountability of armed personnel on U.N. peacekeeping should be strengthened so that those committing crimes are prosecuted.

However, it is important to balance this view with the important role that the current U.N. peacekeeping force MONUC is having on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although much smaller than it needs to be, it is acting as an important stabilizing force in that country, particularly in the east. It is helping to give the people of the Congo the breathing space they need to build a democratic future. In particular it is helping the women and children in the Congo to be free from the rape and sexual crimes they experienced from the many militias that were roaming that country during its devastating civil war.

One hundred fifty sexual crimes committed by U.N. staff are 150 too many, but this is nothing compared to the more than 50,000 or so sexual crimes committed by the militias in the war. These crimes are horrendous. Just reading the case stories make my blood run cold.

Things are not perfect with the U.N. force, far from it, but they are a lot better now than if the U.S. and other donors pulled their tax dollars out of the United Nations, MONUC was removed and the people of the Congo were left to sink back into the living hell they have been experiencing.

I am the pastor of a church that has long links with the Congo and know that there are many good people in the Congo who wish to build a future for their country and are grateful for the presence of the United Nations, despite all its faults. Please don't undermine their future and hope.

Mark McCaghrey
Suffolk, England

Rec Center vote doesn't eliminate biases

As an individual graduate student, I voted against the extension of the Rec Center fee. Basically, I didn't think that the modest use that I have made of the Rec Center justified for the $250 in Rec Center fees that I have paid over the past five years. My vote was a personal choice, and I am respectful of others who have different opinions or make better use of the facilities.

Quite independent of my personal views about this fee, I am disturbed about the way the vote on the fee has been conducted. I feel that there has been a pattern of forces working for a positive vote. And these forces may not reflect the will or interests of UA students. The most disturbing factor is the presence of polling stations in the Rec Center lobby, combined with a relatively low voter turnout. With low turnout, the bias introduced by these polling stations is too extreme.

The language of the ballot question may also introduce a bias. It concerns me that the text of the question speaks as though it is a fact that there will be a fee. This will create the impression in the minds of some students that it is forgone that there will be a fee, and this may increase the likelihood that individuals will vote in favor of the item.

The ASUA Senate called for this vote, but they have not made sufficient efforts to advertise the vote or eliminate bias. The only advertisements for the vote that I saw prior to this week were at the Rec Center.

Lastly, I think that the idea of present students voting to levy a fee on future students (in 2012) is problematic, since there is little incentive for students who oppose such fees to actually vote.

Paul Thorn
philosophy graduate student

Palestinians forced from land, subject to Israeli 'atrocities'

Iranian President Ahmadinejad's bigotry and hatred doesn't excuse writers like Sarah Conte-Jacobs for spreading sugar-coated, oversimplified history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in her letter "Iranian president espouses hated, not 'political squabbling.'"

The "indigenous" (Palestinian) people simply chose to leave? That's a nice way of saying they were forced out. More than 300,000 Palestinians were made refugees in 1948. Trying to suggest these people simply abandoned their communities of multiple generations because the newly established United Nations gave the OK is incredibly naive.

Israel has defied countless U.N. resolutions aimed for peace, including the U.N. partition plan, which limits the land Israel could "occupy." Additionally, the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993, designed to give Palestinians an eventual state of their own, were ignored and forgotten.

One could write a book on the under-reported atrocities being committed against Palestinian civilians. Israel's efforts to excuse such actions by pointing fingers at the incompetence of the late Yasser Arafat and the unjustifiable suicide bombings doesn't cut it.

Israel loves Arabs, you say? I suppose you think American blacks were really granted their liberties as citizens by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, too. It said that in the news at the time so it must be true, right? Wrong. The fact is Arab-Israelis are looked at as second-class citizens and are treated as such. This is true both demographically and socially, not even considering the Arabs in Gaza or the West Bank.

I spoke to several Jewish-Israelis on different occasions, many ex-military, and most admitted that they would rather just "kill them all (Palestinians)." The bigotry is widely shared on both sides of the spectrum. Comments from people like President Ahmadinejad are counterproductive to the peace process, and so is kissing up to Israel's flaky claims of equality.

We as Americans need to start thinking beyond the scope of Fox News and what appears on this semester's Near Eastern studies syllabus if we truly want to understand this highly complex conflict.

Kareem Hassounah
pre-communication junior