Opinion
 

Letters to the Editor

Call it courage?

To the editor:

This is in reference to Richard Lutz's Tuesday column, "Courage or cowardice? You decide" (Opinion), in which he contrasts the United States to people who stand idly by and let someone get assaulted. He then says that it was justified to go in and take out Saddam since he was abusing innocent civilians. I believe his argument fails in several ways.

The government went to war to get rid of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, not because he was abusing civilians. Or was I the only one who heard Colin Powell tell the people of the United States that attacks on them were imminent? Now that no weapons have been found, the government cannot change its stance as to why it went to war in the first place.

Lutz's comparison of America to the people helping the assault victim does not work since, in that case, it is one or two people foregoing their own safety for the victim's sake, with no innocent bystanders getting hurt. This is obviously not the case in Iraq, where hundreds of people who had nothing to do with the resistance have been killed.

The United States thought it was doing the right thing when it went into Vietnam. Let us hope it does not take a disaster of that scale for the country to realize that, once again, it has made a mistake.

Mohammad Asim Malik, 
biology senior

Insensitive cartoon

To the editor:

I am writing to express my feelings about Thursday's editorial cartoon in The Daily Cougar. Just what message the cartoon meant is trying to depict, I can't say. But I feel a paper like The Daily Cougar should avoid falling into the same stereotyping as the mainstream media, especially involving our government's foreign policy. We should remember that the war in Iraq has seen casualties not only from the American side, but also innocent Iraqis who suffered under Saddam and have not seen any peace even after his toppling.

Deji Bello, 
computer science graduate
 

Letters to the editor are welcome from all members of the UH community and should focus on issues, not personalities. Letters must be typed and must include the author's name, telephone number and affiliation with the University. Anonymous letters will not be published. Letters are subject to editing for clarity, language and space. Letters may be delivered in person to Room 151, Communication; e-mailed to dclettrs@mail.uh.edu ; or faxed to (713) 743-5384.Send comments to dccampus@mail.uh.edu