I would like to commend the many writers of the Daily who have called for a non-military response to America’s current crisis. There are, however, many who still demand military action.

Andy Gonzales recently wrote, “The United States must unleash a fury never before seen in history. We must be prepared as a nation for a full-out invasion by our forces.” Even that guy in the Oval Office calls our situation a “war” much more than I am comfortable hearing. I think all of us, especially our generation, need a reality check about what war means.

Gonzales may envision a nice little Desert Storm, or our firing of cruise missiles at Baghdad or Belgrade. So what if we killed thousands of Arabs and destroyed the homes of tens of thousands more?

So what if we destroyed the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, depriving an already impoverished country of half their much needed medical supply, leading to the slow deaths of many thousands more?

Where was the candlelight vigil for the thousands bin Laden killed in Afghanistan after our American CIA trained him in terrorism? (All these facts are easily accessible in any mainstream media.)

Well, that might sound like fun, but rest assured that the war Gonzales and Bush talk about would be on our own soil as well.

We bomb an Afghanistan hideout, someone drops a canister of anthrax in a New York subway. We launch missiles at weapons factories, the Sears Tower or Rose Bowl is bombed.

Our trillions of dollars we have pumped into fighter-bombers instead of social programs can not stop a suicidal terrorist armed with a 50-cent box cutter or homemade car bombs.

So please, stop talking about a war. We have had enough destruction and death.

Paul Hattan

Junior

Mechanical Engineering