V w V'w w w 'IW w w w 8 - The Michigan Daily - FOOTBALL SATURDAY - Friday, September 21, 2001 Friday, September 21, 2001- FooTB (iht 1Mirbigttnx iaiI 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 daily.letters@umich.edu NOTABLE QUOTABLES HOUSE OF PAIN LL If the Americans go to war, I pity those boys. I pity their mothers and sisters and brothers. It will be 10 times worse than Vietnam. Vietnam will be a picnic by comparison. Here they will get it in the teeth. Oh, they will get it Wolverines fall to Hi EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 GEOFFREY GAGNON Editor in Chief MICHAEL GRASS NICHOLAS WOOMER Editorial Page Editors good." - Former Soviet colonel and Afghanistan veteran Yuri Shamanov in Tuesday's London Evening Standard. 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. ' The first 'victims' of America's self-avowed global war against terrorism have fallen. Not in the rugged lawless wilderness of Talibanised Afghanistan, but in the eminently civilised ambiance of mainland America itself." - Tuesday's staff editorial in the Times ofIndia, reacting to the murder of a Sikh businessman in Mesa, Arizona earlier this week. 'toughts on building an inclusive peace movement NICK WOOMER BACK TO THE WOOM By Jon Schwartz- Daily Sports Editor SEATTLE - If Michigan could erase one minute from its game against Washington, the team could have con- ceivably escaped Husky Stadium with a hard-fought win. After all, the fifteenth-ranked Wolverines played 59 minutes of exem- plary football, good enough for an 21- 9 victory. But as the Wolverines learned, all 60 minutes are taken into account when the final score is tallied. And because of that, Michigan suffered a 23-18 loss to No. 10 Washington. From late in the first half until the middle of the fourth quarter, Michigan appeared to have developed control of the game. But a blocked field goal that Washington's Roc Alexander returned 77 yards for a touchdown, and an inter-. ception return for a touchdown three plays later shifted control - and the lead - to the Huskies. The whole swing took 51 seconds. "I'm tremendously disappointed because we expected to win and we could have won but we didn't," Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said. One dominating factor in the game were the small breaks that the Huskies got in several key points. At the end of the first quay Michigan's Marquise Walker bloc Derek McLaughlin's punt from the yard line. But, as Carr pointed Walker may have blocked the kick a too well. The ball bounced out of back of the endzone for a Michi safety. The two points that the t< received could have just as easily l: seven, critical in a game that en with a five point difference in score "Whether we got the six points or two points probably would have mad difference there at the end," Wa said. Also, with Washington driving I clinging to a 20-12 lead, the Wolver made the stop around midfi Salvaging the situation as best possi Michigan was going to receive the p with about five minutes left. But safety Cato June was called f questionable roughing the pas penalty on the play, giving the Husk 15 yards, and a few plays later, insurance field goal, the third on day by Washington's kicker Jc Anderson. Anderson's three field goals v Washington's only offensive points the afternoon. "There are three things that need this col- umn - that's what a lot of Americans would say anyway. Others might just call me a naive jerk. Why? Because I oppose, unequivocally, the massivepmili- tary response to the Sept. 11 tragedy the Bush administration is trying to sell to this country. One would think that, in the wake of all the death the nation endured last week, it would be hard to convince U.S. citizens that much more blood - foreign and American - ought to be shed. Fortunately for the war hawks and defense contractors, an utterly complacent corporate media has worked tirelessly to render absurd any suggestion that we should think twice before we restart the killing machine. Instead, the public is bom- barded with stories of retail stores selling out of American flags, of previously apathetic youth now invigorated with patriotism, and spontaneous eruptions of "God Bless America." Certainly, all these "patriots" are not necessari- ly militant nationalists - for many, the United States' diversity alone is enough to evoke a deep love for this country. But the venom spewed last week by opin- ion-makers like Jerry "The ACLU Did It" Falwell and Ann "Kill Their Leaders and Convert Them to Christianity" Coulter is proof that, at least for the post-Sept. 11 jingoist right, "patriotism" has become a synonym for "blood- lust." Once again, the United States needs a strong, broad-based anti- war movement to bring everyone back to their senses. And in my estimation, the students at the renowned, large public universi- ties in Berkeley, Madison and Ann Arbor are the best hope to initiate a process that will ulti- mately produce such a movement. These three cities are historically predisposed towards fostering political dissent and probably have the largest concentrations of progressives who are particularly skeptical of the American propa- ganda machine. Already in Ann Arbor, some students and com- munity members are organizing against our government's seem- ingly imminent war. As they plot their strategies, I respectfully sub- mit a few thoughts on how to best proceed: It is imperative that when the anti-war movement speaks, its message reverberates around the country, and the only way to do this is to get noticed by the national media. Given Ann Arbor's unique place in the histo- ry of student activism, anti-war activists here are particularly for- tunate in that they can play up the Vietnam-era nostalgia factor for reporters. But nostalgia will only take a cause so far - the key to building any sustainable grass- roots movement is to get as many people as possible out to demon- strations, marches and rallies - and the only way to do that is to narrow the message so that the movement is as inclusive as possi- ble. The biggest challenge for"any progressive movement is to stay on-message. The left, being com- posed of people with an acute appreciation of the complex inter- relationships between seemingly separate forces, is prone to split itself into factions that each sup- port specific political agendas. We can't do that. But that is what we're doing. At a Monday night coordinating meeting for tomorrow's anti-war rally on the Diag, the discussion meandered around. "What should be the precise wording of the rally's plank against racial scape- goating?" "Why aren't we dis- cussing the origins of the impend- ing war in the context of U.S. for- eign policy?" "What should we say about preserving civil liber- ties?" These are all important issues that are worthy of discus- sion in themselves, but they are also tangential to what ought to be the primary focus of an anti-war movement -stopping the U.S. government from starting a mili- tary conflict that will only result in the destruction of even more innocent human beings. Integrating any peripheral issues into a call for peace and reason only makes an already difficult public relations job even harder. A surefire way to alienate people who otherwise support peace (and allow media spinsters to distort the fundamental mes- sage) is to draft up some sort of multi-plank agenda - no matter how basic those planks seem to be. One of the most notable things about last Tuesday's vigil on the Diag was that it brought together students who would otherwise have nothing to do with each other: Students who stand with Israel and students who want to free Palestine, socialists and liber- tarians, atheists and religious fun- damentalists. Only a movement with a singular, uncompromising plank - stop the imminent war - will be maximally effective at bringing people into the anti-war movement. The war hawks have already had one week to urge Americans to "put aside their differences" and whip-up popular support for a war that promises to produce death on a massive scale and make the world a more dangerous place. A new peace movement will have to take the nationalist "unity" rhetoric to heart to pre- vent even more horror. Nick Woomer can be reached via e-mail at nwoomer@umich.edu. This column orinally ran on Wednesday. JESSICA JOHNSON/DUail Running back Willie Hurst and Washington didn't need much offensive production to defeat Michigan last Saturday. Va. Tech Pummels We stem, 31-0 BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - Virginia Tech's running game could- n't be healthier despite losing star tailback Lee Suggs. Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer reverted to his old philosophy of let- ting his defense take charge of the game and getting some good special teams play. And the Hokies looked fantastic in those two phases of the game. The Hokies blocked another kick, and the defense shut Western Michigan down. It must have been disturbing for Beamer that his offense was unable to punch the ball into the end zone in the first quarter. They had a fourth down and were turned away at the goal line. He had no Lee Suggs to get into the end zone. Beamer used about five different running backs, trying to get some players experience. He will continue to do that for the next month because he has time. His schedule is soft enough where he can work players into the game AP PHOTO Keith Burnell showed Western Michigan that the injured Lee Suggs isn't the only stud running back in Virginia Tech's arsenal. and figure out who is the best. Will it be Keith Burnell or Kevin Jones? Who can carry the load? He may decide to give each one 10-12 carries a week. Fullback Jarrett Ferguson seemed to touch the ball more in critical sit- uations than normal. At least that was the impression. Beamer is test- ing the offense, looking around to see what it can do. It was a sound approach. The Hokies' offense is clearly not where it needs to be to ,take on Miami later in the year. The ninth-ranked Hokies (2-0) handed the ball to six backs, pound- ing out 271 yards on the ground in a 31-0 victory over Western Michigan in the first meeting between the teams. Keith Burnell ran for 74 yards and a touchdown in his first career start. Kevin Jones and Wayne Ward com- bined for 125 yards, and fullback Jarrett Ferguson added 35 yards and a TD against the Broncos (1-1). "As a team, we really got out there," Burnell said. "I was very sat- isfied that coach gave me the ball to show what I can do to help carry this team - but I can't do it by myself."