4 --The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, September 25, 2001 OP/ED tbe lfiri gu a id 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, M148109 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 NOTABLE QUOTABLE We hope that these brothers will be the first martyrs in the battle of Islam in this era against the new Jewish and Christian crusader campaign that is led by the Chief Crusader Bush under the banner of the cross." - From afax sent to the Qatari- based news station Al Jazeera regarding the killing of three anti-U.S. demonstrators in Pakistan and attributed to Osama bin Laden. 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. QtN' /Kl ! tint 1SP"E?! I Giving war a chance PETER CUNNIFFE ONE FOR THE ROAD 4 W hile most of the nation supports the "war on terrorism" that our leaders have declared, there are some, especially around here, who couldn't wait for the first shot to be fired before they started second guessing this course of action. I understand why some people are uncomfortable with the "war" we'll soon be embarking upon. Wars are dangerous and costly things where people who don't deserve to get hurt always do. In past con- flicts, the United States has certainly proven it can fail to distinguishing between combatants and civilians, govern- ments and innocent bystanders. And lis- tening to our unelected president tell us with a straight face that we are doing this for democracy makes me want to wretch. But whatever one thinks of our history or the legitimacy of our leaders, it could not be more clear that our coming fight against terrorism is a just and necessary one. What we face in the fanatics we are hunting is a group of people who want to, destroy all of us, peacenik and warmonger alike. Almost every nation on earth will overtly support us or not lift a finger to stop us because they understand that Osama bin Laden and those like him pose a threat to everyone. They know that unless they all want to live in terror, there is little choice but war. Some ask why, if this was perpetrated by only a small group, we should contem- plate doing something as drastic as a large scale bombing of another nation. Simple: Because the nation in question,. Afghanistan, is complicit in what hap- pened in New York and Washington. They have allowed a wanted terrorist, whose ' previous crimes (bombing our embassies) have been proven in courts, to operate ter- rorist training camps to teach people how to kill Americans and anyone else they dislike. And when asked to turn over a man who, with his followers, had orches- trated mass murder, their responses was "we can't hand bin Laden over to non- Muslims," followed by "we'll ask him to leave by himself" and now, "sorry, can't find him." 'Extradition of members of a group that has killed thousands of our citizens and has every intention of doing so again is a perfectly reasonable request that there shouldn't be much need for negotiation on. We have made that request through several channels and we have given them time. The United States made pretty clear on Sept. 11, who we thought was responsible and Afghanistan has now had two weeks to turn them over for this crime, to say nothing of the crimes (the African embassy bombings) that Afghanistan should have turned them over for years ago anyway. But, of course, by Afghanistan, .I mean the Taliban, the gang of thugs who run most of the country. We have every reason to attack and remove them from power. What terrorists did to us is nothing com- pared to what the Taliban have done to their own people and whether the events of Sept. had happened or not, we would be fully justified in liberating the Afghans from them. What bothers some, as it should, is the fact that innocent people in Afghanistan will die in our now almost certain attacks. I'm sure we can expect the Taliban to follow the lead of Saddam Hus- sein and herd civilians into every area they think we'd go after to try to inflame senti- ment against us. It's probably an unsatisfying answer, but we'll just have to try our best to avoid killing civilians and accept that some will die whether because of our mistakes or the Taliban's intentions. That sounds cold to some, but the price of doing nothing is our own civilian deaths on a much larger scale. If things keep going the way they are, eventually a terrorist group will get hold of a chemical, biological or perhaps even a nuclear weapon and as they have shown, they will only be too eager to kill the innocent. Six thousand slaughtered people is child's play compared to what they would and so eagerly desire to do to us. There are those in this country who believe American deaths and insecurity are our just deserts for our own misdeeds. The rightness or wrongness of elements of our foreign policy is debatable, but the wrong- fulness of terrorism is not. Anyone whose response to what happened two weeks ago was, "that's too bad, but we deserved it," is a moral degenerate. To intentionally kill thousands of innocent people is, to employ the overused but accurate term, evil. This is not some conflict where we can argue about the merits of one side or the other and good people can disagree about who is right or wrong. We were wronged. So what do we do? Everyone must know that doing nothing is not an accept- able response. Even worse would be'to pull back from our international commit- ments and abandon our friends and inter- ests in an area that a small band of extremists.has declared off limits to us. Bowing to the demands of terrorists would only invite them to demand.more. We should also remember that people of bin Laden's ilk don't want peace and prosperi- ty for the societies they claim to be pro- tecting, they want more Afghanistans. They want uneducated women, armed chil- dren, death squads, and compulsory reli- gion. Their idea of paradise is hell on earth and we are doing all the world a favor by fighting them. War is horrible and messy and usually, especially for powerful coun- tries, a political act. But this time it isn't. There's no political goal here, no acquisi- tion of territory, no protecting of resources or opening of trade. Our coming war is about self-defense. We have known that the terrorist groups being harbored in Afghanistan and other countries were out to get us for a long time. They have said it constantly and have already attacked our interests and people overseas. But, unsure if they would really strike us here, we waited for the them to attack us at home before deciding to go after them with all the seriousness we should have. Well now we know we are all in danger. That regard- less of our ethnicity, religion or support of our government, they would kill each of us if given the chance. As we keep hearing, this war won't be like any other, but a war it is, with all the attendant uncertainty, danger and tragedy. I don't want to see our nation embroiled in conflicts around the world, but on Sept. 11, we saw the price of avoiding the fight against terrorism. And our nation is right to take up that fight now. Peter Cunniffe can be reached via e-mail atpcunniff@umich.edu. Homosexuality from the (my) hetero perspective DUSTIN J. SEIBERT THE MANIFESTo ome people listen to or read my unorthodox per- sonal viewpoints and assume froTh jump that I am probably a morally bankrupt individual. On the contrary, much of what I believe is based upon my basic compassion for other peo- ple. I believe that people in our society walk around with the illusion that we are so much more accepting of others than we actually are, but most of us have no prob- lem condemning an entire group of people without thinking twice about why. Simply put, I make it a point to ask the all too often ignored question, "Do people's beliefs or actions make any logical fucking sense whatsoever?" Homosexuals seem still to have the hardest road to travel in a society that appears to be gradually more understand- ing all the time. If the recent events in our country have shown us anything, it is that we love to mindlessly point the finger of blame ... the one which gays are typically on the receiving end of. A definitive understanding of homosex- uality must be established, as there seems to be confusion as to what the lifestyle entails. It's called homosexual, not homo- physical - just because a man finds quali- ties attractive on another man does not mean that he wants to jump his bones; I think that it is simply the sexual, intimate attraction that separates the sexualities. Women tend to identify their attraction or admiration of other women quite expres- sively. Needless to say, men are naturally son I have ever spoken to has told me that they knew that they were "different" since they were very young, and that it was not an outside influence that made them that way. You would imagine that, with the hazards that accompany such a lifestyle, no one would choose to want to be this way. Hell, there are gays that try their damnedest to "go straight" to no avail, often resulting in much mental frustration and anguish. Why? Simply because we as a society will not accept them otherwise. Put yourself in their shoes ... if someone asked you to stop being a heterosexual and cease the attraction that you have towards the opposite sex, do you think for one second that it would be an achievable goal? Of course not ... you are attracted to whom you are attracted to! People have such a myriad of reasons not to accept homosexuality, the least of them certainly not being religion. The Holy Bible is widely interpreted as con- demning gays for their lifestyle, basically screwing them over in the hearts, of a pre- dominantly Christian society (and we all know that if the Good Book says it, it must be true, right?). Many non-Christians iden- tify it as unnatural and filthy, and there- fore wrong. Excuse me, but what exactly entails being "natural?" Is that bleached hairdo on your dome "natural?" Is making love with the use of condoms "natural?" I think of a Catholic co-worker of mine this summer who claimed to regularly partici- pate in anal sex with women, but tried to convince me that it was "unnatural" when men did it with each other. People, humans as a race ceased being "natural" long before we were brought into the iunrld an on oc nmnv nf vxc are horn ti beeause of the uncontrollable color of their skin, as gays are shunned due to their uncontrollable sexual preferences, and finally, blacks didn't harm our country by being black, and gays aren't causing a national ruckus by being gay! The same hypocrites that will lobby for equal rights for all will turn around and shit on homo- sexuals in the same breath. Where is the logic in that? In the end, past the church and past color and culture, aren't we all human beings? I can smell the brains of the sparse- minded cooking already: "Duuhhh, well if he is defending homos like that,.then he must be one!" I hate to disappoint you, but no ... I am quite comfortable in my hetero- sexuality, despite my frequent tendency to defend homosexuality. I have no problem admitting that I crack the occasional "fag" joke that your average gay person may take offense to, but I am an equal-opportu- nity shit-talker - I clown on everyone. And the honest truth is that I am quite turned off by the sight of two men engaged in sensual physical contact. I am sure that most heterosexuals are in the same boat as I, but there are many things that we find optically displeasing ... that doesn't make them "wrong," does it? Your child is not going to become gay by having a gay math teacher. You won't become gay by watching Will & Grace on a weekly basis. I firmly believe that if there exists any curiosity about a person's sexuality, then it always existed, and the only thing that can control the "end result," if you will, is the strength of the individual's convictions. I also doubt that we live in a Clockwork Orange style soci- etvy wxherep .vte~n uvp crnditi cnin can 4 14 1