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Letters to the Editor
Seek to translate
Last weekend, I discussed the S&B article "Wanted: American Students" (Sep 22, 2006) with some of my American friends. I found out that American students are also facing similar difficulties [to international students] in interacting with American students.
In fact, while some international students felt uneasy among domestic students because they lack topics of conversation, domestic students also felt that international students often talk about cultural things that they don't understand. Sometimes, they thought that Far East students always exclude themselves from others and are hard to approach. In addition, while we blame Americans for their lack of interest, my domestic friends said that instead, they were afraid to bombard us with "stupid questions" that we have to answer all the time.
Therefore, it is my understanding now that integration of domestic and international student communities on campus requires a mutual effort and communication is necessary; and thus, when the president of ASIA boldly claimed that "Unless [international students] are like them, [and] are Americanized; [domestic students] are just not interested," I felt that her claim was not justifiable because she is blaming Americans students alone and discounted that we international students are also part of the Grinnell community and bears responsibility to the harmony on campus.
Now, the campus should widen the road to domestic and international integration. Multicultural groups on campus have to organize more activities where, in addition to drinks and cookies, students can enjoy a cultural experience through cultural sharing, and I think one of the most feasible ways would be to include short presentations by international students during ISO/ASIA study breaks. International students, in turn, would have to invite their American peers to participate and to produce a welcoming environment for them.
After all, all Grinnellians want to become educated global citizens, and neither side can achieve this goal by excluding themselves from the other.
-Phoebe Leung '09
Going eye for eye
President Bush and his extreme right-wing apologists defend the use of extreme interrogation methods (torture if you please) by wheeling out a straw man. This is an evil-doer terrorist that has secret knowledge that if forced from him (they are not yet prepared to say "her") will save millions upon millions of our fellow citizens from a horrible death from some catastrophically destructive act.
I propose a simple solution to this hypothetical situation ("hypothetical" being the word that President Bush used in his press conference to disparage any probing questions). Congress should enact a law that, in the above suggested situation, authorizes the president to sanction the use of any means, torture included, to secure information that will save the day-so to speak.
To ensure that it is only used in such a situation, the law should further state that after such torture has been administered, it will be the responsibility of the president to demonstrate-beyond a shadow of a doubt-that millions of lives have indeed been saved because he has authorized this kind of treatment of a human being.
The law should further provide that if the president is unable to provide such proof, he and his most trusted advisors will be subjected to the exact same methods and duration of torture that has been used on the suspected terrorist. You know, sort of an eye for an eye.
Since President Bush is so courageously certain about the saving value of "necessary" means, I am certain he will agree to this compromise.
-Sam Osborne
West Branch, IA
Pro-Israel absurd
After reading Alex Muller's keen observations on the state of affairs in the Middle East, I was prompted to write a letter in the interest of highlighting some of the absurdities of his proposal. Basically, Mr. Muller's argument deviates little from the hawkish chauvinism of the ol' "might makes right" school of foreign policy.
In this case, if Israel had not acquiesced (presumably as the result of American pressure) and withdrawn from territories it had been illegally occupying (in violation of UN Resolutions 242 and 425), the problems facing US troops in Iraq would be either non-existent or at least inconsequential.
Not only is this rather simplistic argument false historically, but by its very nature emphasizes a foreign policy based on a notion of "might makes right," regardless of the moral ambiguities of its application.
If Israel had not withdrawn from the Sinai Peninsula in 1979, peace with Egypt would have been impossible; hostilities would have likely continued and escalated into a much larger conflict involving the whole of the Middle East, if not the rest of the world. Instead of peace with Egypt-albeit a "cold" one-Mr. Muller would have liked Menachem Begin to rebuff Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat at Camp David, ostensibly because more than a quarter of a century later a strong military presence illegally occupying the Sinai Peninsula would somehow thwart the nefarious activities of insurgents in war-torn Iraq.
To posit such a simplistic causal relation as the explanation for such complex problems-the sectarian violence plaguing American forces in Iraq and the growing tensions between Hezbollah and Israel-betrays an ignorance of the fundamental historical factors that led to the development of these problems.
American troops are being killed in Iraq not because Israel withdrew from the Sinai in 1979 and from southern Lebanon in 2000. American casualties and sectarian violence are the unfortunate result of, among other things, the destruction and destabilization of Iraq endemic to almost four years of morally reprehensible occupation by the United States Armed Forces.
Moreover, Mr. Muller reduces the rationale behind American pressure of Israel to withdraw from illegally occupied territories to an emasculating appeasement of "Arab and Muslim rage," as if this "rage" was of a fundamentally irrational nature, warranting little attention.
In doing so, Muller trivializes the legitimate grievances held by the sovereign nations adversely affected by the illegal occupation of their territory by another military power. The United States did not pressure Israel in 1979 to appease "Arab and Muslim rage"; pressure was put on Israel in the interest of promoting a just and lasting peace with Egypt, a peace founded on a cessation of hostilities and the mutual recognition of international borders.
Ultimately, Mr. Muller's valiant proposal for a foreign policy "that places security above popularity" reveals nothing more than the conscious privileging of American and Israeli lives at the obvious expense of all others. And he wonders why America spends so much time appeasing "Arab and Muslim rage".
-Daniel Letchinger '07
A brief apology
My sincere apologies to those of you who went to see The DaVinci Code last Friday night. I'm afraid the projector was misaligned, and we could not fix it. I'm sorry that I did not have a back-up copy of the film and was forced to show another film in place of what was originally scheduled. Michael Sims and I are doing are best to keep the projector in order. Thank you for your understanding and keep enjoying films.
-Jeff Sinick '09 SGA Films Chair
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