Letter to the Editor

More sides needed on anti”‘war rally

I am writing in regard to the article featured on the front page Monday (“Students protest in anti-war solidarity,” News, Nov. 19).

The article that highlighted the anti-war rally that took place last Friday was extremely one-sided and did not portray multiple opinions of the rally. Although I do realize the article was intended to report on the rally itself and not opinions of the war, there are those who support the war and found the rally to be a mockery.

The article quotes only students who participated in organizing the event.

Organizers, clearly, will support their own cause and will have nothing negative to say about their own event.

There are students on this campus, however, who felt the rally was offensive and the method of protest rude.

The protestors participated in a “die-in,” which was referred to in the article only as a “moment of silence for fallen soldiers.” The “die-in,” originally the main portion of the event, is the source of frustration for many students.

A member of the U.S. Army, for example, posted on the event message board: “The idea of a die-in makes me sick. … A protest sure, but reminding many of the soldiers of what they faced over there is just disgusting. I fully support your right to protest the Iraq War and what it has caused, but there are better ways to do that.”

As for the money “needlessly spent” on the war, money which could be spent on lowering tuition for middle-class American citizens, simply ask Omar, a student whose family lives in Iraq.

Telling a story about his mother and sister, he finishes with “I can’t imagine what would have happened to them ““ their attackers just left; they ran because they heard the Americans coming. They’re safe because the Americans came.”

Yet another student, who lost a cousin to the war, argues that if we pull out now, only then would the deaths of soldiers become needless.

As for me, my boyfriend was killed in Ramadi, Iraq, in February.

I’ve pictured him dying so many times ““ he was shot, he wasn’t killed in a fire or by an improvised explosive device. I’ve already seen it in my head so many times.

I visited his grave at the Los Angeles National Cemetery on Veterans Day. Then, four days after that I walked down Bruin Walk.

Opinions of the war itself aside, the method of protest was insensitive, the reporting of the event one-sided.

Stephanie Be

Second-year, bioengineering

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