Think and you’re dead

Jake Brott

In response to James O’Donnell’s column, I have a few questions, namely: “What are you smokin’?”

Trying to wade through O’Donnell’s usual cesspool of blatantly liberal views, I encountered some things that forced me to put on my boots and come up for air.

O’Donnell attempts to paint a pretty picture of Clinton’s involvement in Kosovo, saying “We genuinely wish to save thousands of innocent people from a brutal dictator and prevent a wider conflict.”

This would have been OK with me, except he attacked George Bush’s goals during the Gulf War. “As American ships sailed off into the sunset, having secured higher prices per barrel for poor, American oil companies.”

Haven’t oil prices gone down since the Gulf War? I don’t recall a time when gas cost 88 cents per gallon until recently, do you?

He calls our bombing campaign careless because of a recent, unfortunate incident where civilian casualties were caused by NATO jets. To this I say, get real. Decisions in war are made in fractions of a second.

As Maverick said in “Top Gun,” “you don’t have time to think. You think, and you’re dead.” Military action carries the risk of civilian casualties. It can’t be avoided, except by not fighting at all, which I’m sure Mr. O’Donnell would suggest.

Until you’ve been in a situation where you have a split second to make a decision that could determine whether you live or die, don’t dishonor NATO airmen who have been.

How dare you call George Bush amoral and Bill Clinton moral in the same sentence? Which one was the draft-dodging, pot-smoking, womanizing liar? I forget. It must be all that pot I smoked but didn’t inhale.


Jake Brott

Freshman

Journalism and mass communication