4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, September 26, 2005 OPINION c be £i[4rbtigtwn ltaig JASON Z. PESICK Editor in Chief SUHAEL MOMIN SAM SINGER Editorial Page Editors ALISON GO Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE Make levees, not war. - A sign held by one of more than 100,000 anti-war protestors gathered in Washington Saturday, as reported yesterday by The New York Times. MICHELLE BIEN THE BEAN ARCHIVESa WHAT Do YOu T HINK DoN*T YOUTHINK WE t ANi A SEAUIIAN. SROUL MMRIM A "T E ."lm tu _LOVE w.-TuE MOKE .. .,. KIM 3U5 TRe .AT-rPhrtVE ? WAY HE ts. r rs.\ (" Making the National Guard ... national CHRIS ZBROZEK BORN IN THE U.S.A. tanding in a tic disturbances. It has resulted in Guard to fight overseas. The force could even serve New Orleans units doing combat duty in Iraq without as a useful base for recruiting volunteers still partially appropriate training or equipment. And it for humanitarian missions overseas that flooded more than has brought hardship to Guard members are now often staffed by a mix of National two weeks after Hur- and their families who signed up regarding Guard and active-duty military. ricane Katrina, Pres- the prospect of overseas duty as a distant The National Guard, so constituted, would ident Bush finally possibility. have one great advantage over its current admitted that the fed- Meanwhile, the military seems hardly able form: it could draw on patriotic Americans eral response to the to take on the additional challenge of serv- who want to serve their country but aren't catastrophe had been ing as the nation's first responders in cases of willing to see combat. This isn't entirely a flawed. In his prime- grave emergency. Its forces are stretched thin hypothetical proposition for me. I protested time speech, he proposed relying more fighting a nebulous war on terrorism and a the president's decision to go to war in Iraq, heavily on the military for disaster relief. persistent insurgency in Iraq. Despite massive and I'm not going to volunteer to fight in a war The nation would be better served, howev- anti-war protests this weekend, the war in Iraq I don't believe should have been started. But er, by refocusing the National Guard toward - and its effect on military recruiting - will given the chance to serve in a National Guard its core mission - protecting Americans at continue for some time. Both the Army and that wouldn't call on me to be an active-duty home. the Marines have missed their recruiting goals soldier overseas, I'd enlist tomorrow. Being in the National Guard, as we've all for several months during this year. Other Americans must have thoughts learned through constant advertising, is sup- Soldiers, furthermore, simply might not be similar to mine. By recruiting such people, posed to require one weekend a month and two the best choice to lead disaster relief efforts. the National Guard could build an effective weeks' training in the summer. Now, however, Much of the debate regarding Bush's propos- relief and recovery force and free the mili- the Guard is hardly distinguishable from the al has concerned the Posse Comitatus Act, tary to do the sort of work it does best. Army Reserve. About 80,000 of its members the law prohibiting soldiers from assuming Other kinks would have to be worked out; are currently on overseas missions, mainly domestic law enforcement duties. Legal schol- the National Guard, traditionally under the in Iraq. Many Guard units are having trouble ars and civil libertarians can continue to ques- authority of state governors, would need to filling their ranks, as potential recruits realize tion the wisdom of making soldiers into cops, be better integrated into a federal chain of0 that the life of a citizen-soldier includes a lot of but more fundamental issues remain. Soldiers' command for effective disaster relief, for soldiering these days. primary job is combat. They are trained to cre- instance. And certainly our disaster response Contrary to popular belief, deployment of ate corpses, not recover them; they are skilled should be streamlined to take advantage of the National Guard overseas is nothing new: in destroying, but - as the slow reconstruc- military units available to help that were Guard units saw action in both world wars. tion of Iraq has shown - not necessarily the sometimes sidelined during Katrina. What is new, however, is our nation's reliance best at rebuilding. But the net result of a shift toward a on the National Guard for even the most mun- A National Guard focused on action at more national National Guard would be dane military actions. Both of our wars in Iraq home and specifically trained for restoring more Americans trained and able to help in have involved fairly small forces, historically order and recovering from disasters would a serious emergency. That's a more effec- speaking, yet have contained high proportions be a better option. Such a force could draw tive plan for emergency preparedness than of Guard units. Even our operations in Kosovo on the existing skills of its civilian mem- plastic sheeting and duct tape, and it's have relied on the National Guard. bers and train raw recruits less in combat something the Bush administration ought This trend toward lengthy, overseas. and more in disaster relief. While its mem- to consider. deployments has little relation to the pop- bers might serve in combat in the unlikely ular conception of a National Guard that event America were directly invaded, they Zbrozek can be reached serves mostly in natural disasters or domes- would otherwise be exempt from being sent at zbro@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Criminals deserve to be repelled with deadly force To THE DAILY: Do you actually believe, as per your editorial on Friday (A Duty to Retreat, 09/23/2005), that decent, law-abiding peo- ple should just retreat in the face of an attack by the criminals? And why? Because the "poor" criminal might get hurt? Give me a break. Criminals don't deserve the back of a retreating victim; they deserve a smoking Colt .45! Besides, no criminal who is out to steal or assault or even kill his victim is going to simply walk away because the vic- tim turned his back and retreated. On the other hand, the victim is only going be at a tactical disadvantage when retreating. I would have been ambiguous about this before this past summer, but working a night- shift job, where I traveled alone at midnight, made me realize the importance of legally protecting the self-defense rights of those who might need to defend themselves. Thus, the legislation allowing people to retaliate against an attack deserves support. The question is not one of politics, but of principle. It is not good, but evil that must be made to retreat in a confrontation. As Edmund Burke's famous quote goes, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Thus, I say, do not retreat in the face of a crimi- nal attack, but chase them away with high- speed lead! Sudhaunshu Kulkarni LSA senior LGBT community faces hatred, conservatives don't To THE DAILY: "Coming out" and identifying yourself as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is an extremely personal and arduous process. Clearly the College Republicans do not claim they are in a hostile environment? They need to raise awareness? Conserva- tive Pride? Shame on the Republicans. If the Republicans want to be respected and have their voice heard, perhaps they shouldn't trivialize something so impor- tant to people on campus and in the com- munity. Kirk Burkhart University researcher Fan doesn't have the same feelings for Lloyd anymore To THE DALY: Breaking up is never easy to do, but some- times it has to be done. Before you go think- ing this is like all the other times we've had rough times in this relationship, it's not. Things started off great between us. We first got together, and it was wonderful. We even went to a national championship together. But that was then, and during the last four years, we've gotten into a rut. How do you think it makes us feel when you've barely shown up to the last four Notre Dame, Ohio State and bowl games? Our friends and fam- ily just make fun of us and tell us how much better we can do. We're too good for this and deserve better. OSU's coach treats them well and is constantly getting them nice things like road and bowl wins. We know we're way better than OSU and should have some- one who treats us as such. This happens every year. You let us down in a nonconference game and the first road game and then go on to make up for it by rattling off a bunch of great wins, and we forgive you, but come November and Janu- ary, you just let us down again. Not this year. Not again. Don't get us wrong, we've had some great times during the last few years. The big comeback in Minnesota in 2003 and last year against State were won- derful, but it's simply not enough. Trust us, it's not you, it's us. We might just be better seeing other people. There's a guy at Cal I know the Michigan faithful will clamor that we haven't had a losing season in his tenure and that we haven't had a whiff of an NCAA violation, but enough is enough. Some of you may think that I don't have school spirit. You're wrong. I'm not a sorority girl on my cell phone, and I follow recruiting and the football team more than anyone that I know. With this being said, let's look at the facts. Michigan is 0-6 in the first road game the past six years. In the past four years, he is 1- 3 against Ohio State University, 1-3 against Notre Dame and 1-3 in bowl games. ow, optimists will point out that the bowls have been against good teams, but if you look at the past couple years of Michigan football, it is readily apparent that our football team is slipping under Carr. The main reason why any team is 2-6 against its chief rivals and 1-3 in bowl games and 0-6 in the first games on the road is simple: It's coaching. The team is obvi- ously not ready to play games, and it is readily apparent that this is not the fault of the players. It is the fault of the coaching. How many times have we had a clear firsts half lead (like this weekend and last year against Notre Dame) and then have just blown it in the second half and played it soft? How many times have the other teams made defen- sive and offensive adjustments after half time while our coaches have done NOTHING? We have three plays that we run now. Between the tackles, three-step drop and the home run ball. What happened to the bal- anced offense? What happened to playing with the talent that your team has and not with a restricted playbook that Saint Lloyd has? I'm tired of this, I'm tired of 9-3 seasons and I'm tired of Conservative Carr It is time for a non-Michigan Man to lead this team. It is time for Athletic Director Bill Martin to go outside of the University to hire a head coach. The game has passed you by, Coach Carr. Do the University, its fans and the players a favor, and do the right thing: Become assistant athletic director. Jason Bourgeois LSA junior Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Amanda Burns, Whitney Dibo, Jesse For- ester, Mara Gay, Jared Goldberg, Eric Jackson, Theresa Kennelly, Rajiv Prabhakar, Matt Rose, David Russell, Dan Skowronski, Brian Slade, Lauren Slough, John Stiglich,