Iraq War is not the same as Vietnam conflict

Dear Editor:

A letter to the editor from Monday blasted so called “anti-war doves” for supporting a pullout of the troops in Iraq. I believe that there are several problems with the points presented in that letter. First, the author claims that we should not pull out our troops because, after we retreated from Vietnam, the North Vietnamese continued to kill the South Vietnamese, and we were not there to protect them. This is sad and unfortunate, but completely unrelated to the Iraq war. There are no Northern Iraqis and Southern Iraqis. There was no conflict in Iraq until we stepped in.

In addition, the author said, “[W]e are not the terrorists over in Iraq . . . We are not setting up roadside bombs to kill innocent people.” No, we simply drop our bombs on those same people from bombers thousands of feet in the air. After one of the U.S. bombs struck a Red Cross hospital, did the government curtail its bombing runs? No! We have killed just as many civilians as the insurgents have. This is another fallacious argument.

The final problem with this letter is the constant identification of the Iraq insurgents (who are simply civilians who want the Americans to leave their country) as terrorists. This is a result of President Bush’s systematic and consistent lies to the American people. The al-Qaida terrorists had no operations that anyone has uncovered in Iraq. Experts on the matter say that Osama and Saddam were ideologically opposed, and would not have worked with each other under any circumstances. Despite overwhelming evidence supporting the above, President Bush has consistently insinuated that Saddam was tied in with the 9/11 attacks in order to gain support for the Iraq war by playing on the nation’s grief over those events.

I try to judge every political candidate or official on their own merits, and not by the party that they affiliate themselves with. Although I identify myself as a Republican, I fail to see any merits for President Bush’s administration. I look forward to 2008.

Marshall Haning

Junior Music Education major

Reader doesn’t see humor in hurricane

Dear Editor:

I was shocked to read the editorial about how the recent hurricane was caused by gays. Not only is it offensive to the gay community, but to those who support it. I know everyone has the right to their own opinion, but to disregard science is crazy. Nowadays we have so much technology that we knew this hurricane was on its way and where it would hit.

When you live on the coast, such as New Orleans, you are in “hurricane valley,” so to speak. And for that matter, New Orleans sits six feet below sea level. If they didn’t think that someday their town was going to flood like it did then, “Wow” is all I have to say about that. And if the gays cause of this hurricane, what about the terrible hurricanes that hit Florida and Alabama last year? Who caused those? Maybe Mother Nature? And why doesn’t God punish the gays out in California? Or anywhere for that matter? There are homosexuals all over the world and God chose New Orleans to punish them? And the fact that the hurricane supposedly looked like a human fetus, come on. Now you are just looking for more people to blame. You can’t blame anyone for what happened down south besides Mother Nature. So let’s move on from playing the blame game and look at what is more important here – helping those in a time of need. So instead of blaming someone, help!

Tracy Johnson

Sophomore fashion design major

Editor’s note: The aforementioned editorial, “Satire: Blame the gays for Katrina,” appeared in Wednesday’s paper.