Editor:
After attending the anti-war rally at the Price Center on Thursday, I felt, in the spirit of dissent, that a few things needed to be mentioned. There is little need to rebut the member of the International Socialist Organization, whose goals may be equality but whose means are bigger government, thought control and restriction on liberty and individual choice. Likewise, there is little to be said in response to the young man who was simply regurgitating Rage Against the Machine lyrics and citing conspiracies by the media, corporations and government as the source of all the evils in the world, although his laughable confusion over the purpose, method of delivery and impacts of depleted uranium (which is not to be confused with enriched plutonium) is worth mentioning. Neither speaker offered much to the “”debate”” over war in Iraq aside from ideas that history has proven to be, at best, worth ignoring.
Lecturer Thomas Cardoza of Eleanor Roosevelt College, though, offered the oft-heard reasons not to support war: the apparent hypocrisy in our support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, the lack of support for war from France and Germany and the ulterior motives of the Bush administration involving oil and industry. While decent criticisms, they do not justify prevention of disarming and displacing the world’s current version of Stalin, Hitler or Mao. Even worse, the lecturer ignorantly declared that because the president and the members of Congress did not have any children serving in the military, they had nothing to lose. What utter garbage. Must there be a parental relationship to mourn the loss of American (or any other) life? No commander in chief wants to lose a single person in battle, and every military leader takes the loss of one of his/her soldiers, sailors or airmen very seriously, as if it were their child.
In declaring the “”cowardice”” of the students who tore down the signs promoting the anti-war rally, he somehow implied that the U.S. Marine Corps was composed of less enlightened people who merely wanted to “”kick Iraqi ass.”” The young men and women who choose to serve in the Marines become a part of the world’s finest fighting force and do so to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They fight for the person next to them, and they will continue to win wars because of the pride and honor they feel in serving a nation seemingly full of ingrates. They don’t fight to “”kick Iraqi ass”” — that is just the by-product of superior training.
Cardoza suggested that it took “”real courage”” to attend the rally. Here is something to think about, Cardoza: It does not take courage to come to the Price Center for lunch, bask in the gorgeous La Jolla weather, wave a sign and wear a T-shirt that says “”Fuck Bush.”” It takes courage to put on a gas mask and a charcoal suit, pick up a rifle, fly half-way around the world and sit in an Iraqi desert risking life and limb under the threat of biological and chemical warfare to defend your brothers and sisters in arms. Real courage is risking your life and sacrificing the things that we college students take for granted.
If you want to be a “”courageous”” war protester, become a human shield; at least that takes real courage (and a lot of stupidity). But don’t pretend a single lecture hall worth of students (if that many) are showing true courage, or even truly critical thought, by waving a sign and feigning sophistication.
— United States Marine Corps Cpl. Evan Rowley
Earl Warren College junior
UCSD favors multiple transit options
Editor:
I’d like to clarify the perception (“”Critics Reject Trolley,”” Jan. 16 issue of the Guardian) that UCSD prefers bus rapid transit service to the exclusion of the long-planned trolley service. Actually, we need and want both.
UCSD has worked successfully with Metropolitan Transit Development Board on light rail transit alignments and is participating in the current Mid-Coast Transit First Study. Our goal is to assure that effective rapid transit service is provided to the campus and nearby communities in a timely manner.
If LRT service will not be available before 2012, the campus and the community need something before then. BRT has the potential to fill the gap as campus growth occurs. If the Mid-Coast study indicates that BRT is the best long-term solution, then that service can be expanded to provide local and regional transit. If LRT is chosen, then BRT service can provide both short-term connections to the remainder of the region’s light rail system, as well as local community service (the planned Super Loop).
BRT is flexible, can be implemented incrementally and can provide much-needed service before the trolley. Whether it’s BRT or LRT in the long run, we need more transit opportunities now and in the future.
— Milton Phegley
UCSD Campus Community Planner