Dems misunderstand North Korean situation

Dear Editor:

I am writing in response to Mike McLaughlin’s column about North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons that appeared in the paper on Feb. 15. I never really thought Democrats understood the war on terrorism, and his article pretty much proved it. I also thought you Dems out there were quite finished talking about Kim-Jong Il, but I guess I was wrong.

North Korea isn’t an Islamofacist state. Unlike Saddam, Kim doesn’t openly support terrorism. They don’t strap bombs to themselves to kill others. They don’t hijack planes to crash them into our buildings. Oh, and about WMDs, Saddam was gassing Kurds long before Kim-Jong Il ever knew the smell of uranium. If Saddam was able to get more WMDs, you can bet he would have sold or given them to terrorists. Kim will make no such deal — he needs nuclear weapons so the world will take his haircut seriously.

As I am sure you know, this nuclear problem with North Korea didn’t happen overnight. Clinton’s meager contributions to humanity will never cease to amaze (amuse) me. After all, it was under the Clinton administration that North Korea obtained nuclear material. Little did old Kimmy boy know that if he would have made a large enough campaign contribution to Clinton (like China), Clinton would have sent uranium over himself or at least he would of “accidentally” Xeroxed some classified documents that explain how to build a nuke.

As far as fixing this quagmire, we are still resorting to diplomacy. Interestingly, George W. Bush is still relying on diplomacy first and war as a last resort. Democrats seem to still be pushing for bilateral talks with North Korea. I thought they wanted the world, more specifically the United Nations, to be involved in our foreign policy making. Confusing little rascals, aren’t they? Perhaps John Kerry can take enough sides of enough policies to appease Democrats — oh wait, he already did that, and it seems most Americans are still smart enough to vote for the right choice. It seems the right course of action is for America to follow George W. Bush.

Michael Mardis

Sophomore justice studies major

Whites want to celebrate their ethnicity, too

 Dear Editor:

I am responding to Aman Ali’s view, “Being white is all right.” Ali stated that he wants whites to embrace their “whiteness” and stop claiming to be “‘one-eighth Cherokee, one-fourth Italian …’” He believes the reason that we do is because we are ashamed of who we are, that we do this in order to hide behind the fact that whites were responsible for horrible historical tragedies, “i.e. Europeans massacring other civilizations, U.S. slavery, etc.” This may be true, but I do not believe that fear is the main factor in Americans claiming ethnicity.

When did an Englishman become an Englishman? When he immigrated there? When it became a country? After five generations? Who can say for sure, but eventually, he was able to forget his African origins and proudly say without any doubt that he and his ancestors are English. America is not yet at this stage. It may take thousands of years to be able to forget that less than a few generations ago our families were from somewhere else. This is the reason we give detailed lists of our history — not because we are hiding behind a white screen.

A person explaining his or her origins is not an act of fear of learning about other cultures. It is a celebration of them. So while Ali is right that certain people have a fear of race, he is wrong to say that expression of ethnicity is a defense mechanism. They are a reminder of our past and expressed because we have not yet forgotten that some of our ancestors did not always live on this continent. It’s still the new world, and we are becoming Americans.

Kelly Foxworthy

Junior archaeology major