LETTER: Time to build up love and forgiveness

Editor,

I, a Korean international student, am holding a pen after reading The Utah Statesman’s articles about war.

These opinions astonish me. Americans have not had a war fought in their cities, until the Sept. 11 attacks. Because of this historical fact, many Americans seem to not know what is war and quick to accept war.

Sept. 11 took many innocent lives. Watching the horrible disaster, Americans should have realized these disasters don’t have to happen again. But in starting a new war, Americans would be showing more anger. The Bush government now rushes to attack Iraq. Some articles in The Utah Statesman argue that we stand by Bush. Do you know the action will be followed by more horrible disasters than we saw on Sept. 11?

Americans seem to turn their sorrow into resentment, to want revenge on the people who brought them the sadness.

Do you really want to write 21st century’s history with blood and anger?

To my eye, born and grown in Korea, there is little difference between the innocent victims of the missiles that will kill innocent Islamic people, and the planes that killed the innocent in the World Trade Towers.

Over decades, innocent people in Korea have suffered in the same way at the hands of the world powers. The U.S. military has gone everywhere for wars for many years, but Americans have not seen their own land soaked with blood.

Americans have watched through not their own eyes, but through the window of mass media. Especially watching TV, you have seen what happens in war, but without a spot of blood. Wars on TV have been like video games.

Americans lack an understating what war is. War is not that simple. It is far more horrible than you think. We stand at risk of war again at the beginning of the 21st century. Each one of us should make every effort to stop it, and to build instead love and forgiveness on the gruesome ruin.

Shang Hun Lee