4A - The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 21, 2001 OP/ED olbIE lwtrbiogatrn ailg 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 daily.letters@umich.edu EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 GEOFFREY GAGNON Editor in Chief MICHAEL GRASS NICHOLAS WOOMER Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE n , ~ If I see someone come in and he's got a > diaper on his head and a fan belt around the diaperxu on his head, that guy. * needs to be pulled over and checked." - U.S. Rep. James Cooksey (R-La.) in a radio interview on the Louisiana Network. He apologized for the comment yesterday. What are we afraid of? REBECCA ISENBERG ONE TURNTBLE AND A MICROPHONE 've always had a fear of flying. I hate the feeling of being out of control, so high up in the air with no way out. I've always been a little scared of going to the top of tall buildings - nervous that on my way to the top something terrible may happen. There was no particular cause for these fears - I had con- vinced myself that they were rational. But today, more than a week after the terrorist attacks on the United States, these fears have been validated and along with them come a new sense of dread. One that has overcome my peers, my family, the entire nation surrounding all of us as we sit glued to CNN, scrambling for newspapers, waiting for answers. Are we wait- ing for a signal that is going to tell us not be afraid of going to work, flying home to our fam- ilies, getting on with our lives? I keep asking myself over and over "what's next?" and when can I resume having little fears instead of the greatest fear of all -- the unknown? The attacks on Sept. 11 have affected us all because.not only did they bring down our nation's symbols of strength and power, they brought down with them the sense of security that we all had before that fateful day. Being from New York, I never thought that I would look at images on the television of my bustling city looking like a battle zone I. would only see in images of countries far from the U.S. I never thought that I would have to worry about my father going to work each day, passing through landmarks like Grand Central Station, working at Madison Square Garden. But now, like so many of us I find myself trying to deter- mine what the next target will be. This sense of insecurity about what is to come and where it will come from leaves us all afraid. When I see the images of the hijackers on television, calmly walking onto their flight under the watchful eye of security cameras, photos of them at their local health clubs - where they supposedly learned how to fight hand to hand combat - I keep thinking how "normal" these people looked. I can see how they could have slipped through the cracks of loose security at an airport, or how they could have infiltrated themselves into our society with ease: We've been told by all the experts that there are more people like this living among us. But this new unknown enemy will not be easy to find. We can't commit ourselves to a new kind of racial profiling and we can't second guess everyone we come in contact with. Is our new lifestyle going to be one where we con- stantly have to be looking over our shoulders? Americans everywhere are waiting for our nation to strike back. But as we wait for the next step we have to come to terms with the fact that this will be a new war. It won't be like the wars we've learned about in our history class, or. heard our parents discuss. We aren't fighting against an enemy who will be playing by the rules, as we have already seen by the first acts of evil. This plunge into a new era that will undoubtedly change our sense of freedom as a nation is scary because to me it is incomprehen- sible. I can sense the fear in everyone's voice when they talk about what has happened or what is to come. I can hear it in the students who sit around me as I study at Starbucks, or the girls in back of me in my lecture hall, I can sense it when I talk to my family, as they try to explain the unexplainable to their "little girl" far away from home. I saw it when I watched David Letterman's first television broadcast since after the attacks - his voice cracking as he commended the brave rescue workers and citizens helping in New York and around the country. And I saw that every human's emotion has been touched by this incident as I watched Dan Rather, on that very same broadcast break down in tears - twice. It's almost impossible not to show signs of sadness, fear, anger - emotions that have hit us all because those who we lost in the attacks are people just like us. And we all may be thinking - could I be next? It's hard to even know what to say at this point, only a short while after this upheaval of our lives has begun. We all have to wait and see what happens next. But there is no doubt that things that may have seemed important in our personal lives, our political culture, and the soci- ety we are so used to may not deem as signifi- cant today as we wait for the next step in what is sure to be a long series of answering the ques- tion: "What's next?" Rebecca Isenberg can be reached via e-mail at risenber@umich.edu. Y LETTERS TO THE EDITOR V VIEWPOINT It's time to put partisan politics aside, stand behind United States Adrian and Conrad Stoll rest on the steps of the Grad during yesterday's Diag protest. '60s peace activist: Stop protesting By ERIC FELDMAN AND JULIE MARCAL Normally we can't stand each other. We don't agree on taxes, on abortion, on the envi- ronment, on anything. But today, more than a week since the terrorist bombings on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon we need each other more than ever. Democrats and Republi- cans in Washington and around the country stand unified in our opposition to international terrorism and the regimes that aid them. For decades the standard was that politics ceased at the water's edge. The common atti- tude was that no matter how divided we were on domestic issues, America would stand uni- fied in foreign policy. That stance has decayed in the decades since the Vietnam War, but now it has a new meaning our newest war has begun on our own soil. Combating terrorism is now not only our top foreign policy priority, it is also our number one domestic priority as well. Some have expressed the view that America deserved the devastation we witnessed on live TV on Tuesday last week. Some have criticized the administration for vowing justice through retaliation. Even our own newspaper has warned against hysteria and stating that we are not at war. The United States Congress respectfully dis- agrees, granting authority for the use of military action and appropriation of the necessary funds by a nearly unanimous margin. Authorization of the use of force in the Gulf War passed by very slim margins. This threat is more complex, far more pressing to American interests, and more difficult to combat. More Americans died in Sept. 11 's travesty than on any single day since the Civil War. To be certain, there are still stark differences between Democrats and Republicans. They had disagreements on the resolution authorizing the use of force; we still disagree on a broad range of domestic issues. But governing is about pri- oritizing, and the security of our citizens, the preservation of our democracy and our way of life, comes before anything. We are a proud nation, who did not deserve and did not provoke the terrorism, which has devastated our nation. We are proud Americans, deep patriots, who stand against those who would question the merits of our nation and the strength of our democracy. These dissenters are certainly entitled to their opinion, but so are we. We feel that their attacks on the democratically elected govern- ment of our nation are naive and misguided. At times in our past, our nation has needed to defi- antly take arms to defend our way of life. At times we have had to support our politi- cal opponents to destroy our common enemies. At times our patriotism is the deepest, strongest, clearest ideal. This is one of those times, one of those moments that define us as a nation, as individuals, as Americans. We invite all patriots to join our common crusade in defending America by any means necessary, in a time when that fearful phrase must unfortunately finally be used. May God bless and protect the United States of America in our most trying hour. Feldman is chair of the College Democrats. Marcal is president of the College Republicans. TO THE DAILY: I am outraged that University students have their heads so far up their ivory tower that they had an anti-war demonstration yes- terday. I was part of the Peace Movement in the '60s. I put my life where my ideology was. I served with the Red Cross in Vietnam. I listened to "Gooooood morning Viet- nam!" every day on the radio. I saw the casu- alties we took. I also saw Vietnamese military hiding in the villages while our troops were fighting. The "innocent" civilians harbored the Viet Cong, threw hand grenades into our vehicles, and blew up anything they could. I lived in a tent surrounded by barbed wire. I dove under the desk when I heard explosions in the street. I sat in a bunker at 2:00 a.m. and listened to artillery shells flying overhead. I dropped to the ground behind a sand bag wall at noon on Christmas Day when a sniper fired two rounds at me. As anti-war protests grew stronger, Ameri- ca lost it's will to fight. Eventually we decided it wasn't worth it. We tucked our tail between our legs and ran. The enemy took over. Now, 35 years later, we are not facing an enemy on the other side of the world. Now we have had, not a few bombs in night clubs, but a massive assault on the United States itself. Didn't we learn anything in Vietnam? We used to say, "It takes two to make a war. If one side refuses to fight, wars will stop." The opposite is true. It takes one to fight. If someone attacks you and you refuse to fight, you die. I dare say plenty of students will rise up and attack me for my opinion. You will fight my opinion, but you won't fight a real, flesh and blood enemy. If we don't fight, we will be reduced to the life I lived in Vietnam, if we live. We will live behind barbed wire, dive under the desk peri- odically, and sleep in bunkers at night. Ban- ning over-flights of Michigan Stadium is the beginning. After that, if we don't win, we will live under the rule of our conquerors. They shoot protesters. Stop the protests, while you still have the choice. Give blood to the Red Cross instead. JOAN PUFFER KOTCHER Alumnus Attacks on Arabs, Muslims overblown To THE DAILY: The U.S. response to the terrorist attacks has been beautifully restrained and just thus far. The anti-Arab backlash has been almost non-existent and the few reported cases have just been a result of the media-microscope on the case. I bet if you compared the number of cases that have occurred since the attack it is probably pretty close to the normal number of crimes against a given group in a given week. USA Today backs me up on this, "In the days since the Bush administration labeled Osama bin Laden the prime suspect in the attacks and ordered Afghanistan's ruling Taliban government to turn him over, Afghans here say that remarkably few incidents of hate and harassment have tamished their relations with other Americans." Related to this is the "stop the racist scapegoating rhetoric." The United States thus far has been a pillar of jus- tice and has gone to the ends of the earth to demonstrate that this is not a matter of race or reli- gion. As far as scapegoating, it's not scapegoating when you have direct evidence of who is respon- sible. The Daily gives liberals a bad name and hurt our reputation when it immediately bashes America without evidence. America has been a pillar of justice and love since these attacks and most likely it will continue with a response that targets only the guilty parties. As for innocents dying, many people forget that these terrorist cells hide out in deserts and mountains. What are inno- cent people doing in the desert training for jihad? NICK OcCHIPINTI LSA senior Woomer not a traitor, but misses point TO THE DAILY: Nick Woomer's column ("Building an inclu- sive peace movement," 9/19/01) omits to consider that the student protest movements against the Vietnam War was a result of the draft - the anti- war movement all but evaporated when Nixon suspended it. While many objected to fighting and dying in a morally ambiguous campaign in South- east Asia a generation ago, a sustained effort to rid the world of Osama bin Laden and company is a justified response to actions that fall outside the boundaries of civilization. Viewing all military action through the lens of Holden Caufield will not bring back Abbie Hoffman and the New Left, and it will not ultimately benefit this country. Woomer's David and Goliath take on class oft..nial is in nnnrnnrin.tol~y tron crriri i ato liast a 0 Warning: U.S. forces threatened in Pakistan TO THE EDITOR: Here is a sample of collection of para- phrased sentences made by Pakistanis after the terrible kamikaze air strikes in the United States: - This is a punishment from Allah. -- I will kill Presidlent Bush with my own States. - I will become the second Osama for America. It looks like the chicken have come home to roost. After the 1980s, the Pakistani intel- ligence and military conceived the idea of using Islamic fundamentalism to create Tal- iban. This was done to control Afghanistan in order to obtain strategic depth for Pak- istan. It resulted in the Islamization of the professional military, and caused the crimi- nalization of Pakistani society which became 6