4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 OPINION 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE SAM BUTLER Tigi SOAPBOX EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JORDAN SCHRADER Editor in Chief JASON Z. PESICK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. 4 GIf you look at Senator Clinton's voting record on this issue, it's like Planned Parenthood's condoms - it's defective." Q . CA N MAKE x-r F'ZT - 01 t. - Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, reacting to Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) recent speech on abortion, as reported yesterday by The New York Times. .owu_ .. ... .-.- A._.. ..-... ~ Death by a thousand cuts DANIEL ADAMS H)RSESHOES AND HANDGRENADES Funny, aren't Republi- cans supposed to be better at this whole commander-in- chief thing? After eight years of hearing from them how bad Clinton was at it, you'd cer- tainly think so. They called him a draft-dodger. They said he underfunded and overdeployed the armed forces. They talked about sagging morale and poor readiness. But five years later, the army that Clinton had underfunded and overdeployed proved more than capable of destroying the Taliban regime and the Iraqi armed forces. The trial-and-error leadership of President Bush, however, is proving much more difficult for our armed forces to survive. Last week, in a rare display of honest reflection, Bush apologized for his remarks two years ago, in which he, in reference to a growing insurgency in Iraq, said "Bring em' on." "Sometimes," he said, "words have consequences you don't intend them to mean." Budding statesmen and women among you take note: When the president of the United States defi- antly asks an armed insurgency to bring it on, the aforementioned insurgency will likely respond by: a) Backing down b) Bringing it on. If you answered "b," then congratulations: You needed one less try than President Bush to get it right. But back in 2000, running the army sounded just neato to G.W. and Dick. They were going to come in with a new vision: Right the wrongs of the previous administration. In a 2000 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," then-vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney got right to it: "What the Clinton/Gore administration has done is to short- change the military, continue to impose significant burdens on them and not made the kind of invest- ments that need to be made." Fast-forward to today. Shortchange the military? Try proposing $900- million cuts in veterans benefits in the middle of a war - a proposal that the Commander-in-Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars early last year called "a disgrace and a sham." Significant burdens? How about deposing two regimes, maintaining a credible threat over at least two more, both defending the nation against ter- rorism while chasing the terrorists themselves across the globe, helping the tsunami-ravaged areas of Asia/Africa and backing up Bush when he runs off his mouth to a group of reporters, dar- ing a confident and aggressive insurgency to bring it on? Not make the kind of investments that need to be made? After in-house experts like Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki estimated that it would take "several hundred thousand troops" to secure a post-war Iraq, Defense Secretary Don- ald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz fired the experts, sent a much smaller force regardless and sent it without enough body armor and properly armored vehicles. I wonder: How many soldiers have died thus far because the greatest military machine in the world didn't go to war with enough flak jackets? The point of this isn't to say that Clinton would have performed any better after Sept. 11 than the Bush/Cheney team - though I have my suspi- cions, such exercises are pointless. Nor is it to say that Clinton's defense record was particularly stel- lar - it was not. But Clinton did leave the office as he found it - with a manageable foreign policy and an entirely capable military. The way things are going now, it does not appear that Bush will leave his successor with the same. Both the National Guard and Army Reserve are reporting some difficulty meeting the demands of the war on terror. Earlier this month, the chief of the army reserve reported that due to the policies of the Bush administra- tion, the Reserve was "degenerating into a 'bro- ken' force." Saturday, The Detroit Free Press ran a story on the current conditions in Iraq. The news isn't good. Despite some recent success against the insurgents in the Fallujah campaign, U.S. military deaths and injuries due to hostile acts, insurgent attacks and mass-casualty bombings are all on the rise. Domestic support for the war is falling. Make no mistake, we are losing this war. It's time to start asking ourselves: How much longer are we willing to stay? Given current condi- tions, what is the best scenario that we can reason- ably expect to achieve in Iraq? I'm no expert, but I can only see another year in Iraq yielding one of two things: 1) An embarrassing, meaningless, painful vic- tory 2) Or defeat by a thousand cuts Quite frankly, I'm not comfortable asking our volunteer army to sacrifice for that. One thing is certain - while Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz take their sweet time learning how to run a war, this nation and its soldiers are in it deep. 40 Adams can be reached at dnadams@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Columnist's rhetoric hides nature of tyranny TO THE DAILY: Jasmine Clair's article America's paradox: selling democracy for tyranny (01/25/2005) was so full of inaccuracies and glaring failures in reasoning that I find it shameful that it made it to print. Her most egregious error comes in her defense of absolutist governments. Apparently, we have been "brainwashed to despise absolutist tyranni- cal governments." Clair seems to be making the case that absolutist tyrannical governments are things not to be despised. To my utter amaze- ment, she went on to cite Adolf Hitler him- self as an instrument of our brainwashing into thinking absolutist governments are negative things because of their "seemingly oppressive and immoral natures." I would argue that there was nothing seemingly oppressive or immoral about the Third Reich, and that instead, it may be history's most instructive example of the actual abusive and dangerous nature of abso- lutist governments. After these baffling (and to many, offensive) statements, Clair concludes her paragraph with the statement that tyranny is in fact the sibling of democracy, which then leads one to ponder the identity of the progeni- tor of these disparate offspring. I truly hope that the strange conclusions one can draw from Clair's argument are the result of a failure to articulate her point clearly, and not reflective of her actual views. Whatever the case, I think that this is the single worst paragraph in journalism that I have ever read and am disappointed that it made it to print. In addition to the aforementioned abomina- tion, she also paints suicide bombers as valiant freedom fighters, "strapping themselves up with explosives...hoping that one day they will be free and able to handle their own affairs." My question is, free how? Free as in enjoying freedom of press, speech and self government? This sounds like democracy to me. Assert- ing that the suicide bombers are dying for the cause of freedom (and not deluded religious fanaticism, desperation and a hatred of democ- racy) demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of the political situation. I think it would do Clair well to spend more time thinking her statements through before committing them to paper, and it would do the Daily editors well to more closely monitor the quality of the work that they publish. Andrew Pytiak versity, it seems logical the writers would be overjoyed with the prospect of an black and a Latino in Bush's cabinet. This is in addi- tion to Alphonso Jackson, the black secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Elaine Chao, the Asian American secretary of Labor and Norman Mineta, the Asian American sec- retary of Transportation. And this is after two blacks, Colin Powell and Rod Paige, stepped down from their positions as secretary of state and secretary of education. The way I look at it, Bush is trying to create "diversity" in his administration just as the University's admis- sions policies are supposed to create "diver- sity" in the classroom. It's funny how the Daily can't accept Bush's "diverse" cabinet! There might not be a "diversity of ideas" at the top positions of our government, but there is certainly the type of "diversity" the University and the Daily have championed for years. It actually mirrors the University if you think about it! There's many different skin colors, but there's not much "diversity of thought." You may think this sounds ridiculous, but just imagine how conservative students feel when this institution says there's "diversity" on this campus. Until the University appoints a few more conservatives to administrative and faculty positions, or lectures are taught in an unbiased manner, the Daily should lay off this subject before it gets tied up in blatant double standards. Michael Vasell LSA senior Society finally turning against abortion TO THE DAILY: Monday marked the 32nd year that men and women from around the country par- ticipated in the March for Life in Washington D.C. Because coverage of the event did not appear in the Daily, I decided that a reminder was in order. Since 1973, our legal system has turned a blind eye to the protection of the most innocent and helpless members of our society - the unborn. Instead of debating the funda- mental issue at hand - the status of the fetus - we pat ourselves on the back over the rep- rehensible "freedom to choose" that is avail- able here in the United States. We equivocate about "recognized medical procedures" to assuage the guilt of ending the lives of these a blight on our society. I can only hope that, in the near future, the U.S. Supreme Court will do the same. Michael Saltsman LSA senior 0I Stadium renovation would split student section TO THE DAILY: Reading the proposed plans to transform Michigan Stadium, I joined the growing surge of alumni in outrage, disappointment and disgust. Home football games are emblematic of the Michigan experience and should remain so. As a school that celebrates diversity and equal- izing opportunities for students, our football games function as an occasion to come togeth- er as a community with one common interest. The stadium plays favorites to nobody - each seat similar to the next, no unnecessary frills, unique yet equal views. Michigan Stadium is a strong foundation for our football tradition and the spirit of the University as a whole. Not only is equality so clearly demonstrated, but so is cohesion and togetherness. How will the wave work with lux- ury boxes? What about the opposing chant of "Go!" and "Blue!"? Will spoiled students seg- regate themselves from scholarship students? Current and future University students should be able to reflect on their times in Mich- igan Stadium with the same fondness as those before them. I urge the athletic department to continue embracing the essence of the Univer- sity by leaving Michigan Stadium alone. Richard P. Mumby Alum OPINIONATED? WANT TO WRITE FOR THE LARGEST PUBLICATION ON CAMPUS? WE'RE LOOKING FOR NlW. COLUMNISTS 0 0 -;