COLUMN: In our humble defense
War. There’s that word again. It brings fear into the hearts of many. There is a very real possibility war will grace the world’s stage in the Middle Eastern theater.
It has been said in war there are no real winners. People perish on both sides of the conflict. Families are left fatherless and brotherless – torn apart by following the mandates of each nation’s leaders.
It’s true, the majority of students at Utah State University, including the editorial board members of The Utah Statesman, haven’t experienced war. For the most part, we haven’t had friends not come back from the battlefront. We haven’t seen the maimed. We haven’t seen brutality.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t sometimes necessary to fight.
How would it be, a little down the road, to have to deal with a nuclear, biological or chemical weapons attack on the United States?
How would it be to have to turn to each other and say, “We should have attacked first?”
A journalist’s job is to question, to doubt. No one should stand idly by and allow the president to mount an attack without at least asking, “Are you sure?” But sometimes you have to make a stand.
We recognize there are compelling arguments on both sides of the war debate.
Do we risk the lives of our soldiers to take out Saddam Hussein and possibly incur the great cost of more terrorist attacks?
But we would rather stand behind the president since he knows much more about this issue than anyone on campus.
Deciding which stand to take on attacking Iraq was by no means easy, but we stand by the man we elected to lead.
Comments may be sent to editor@statesman.usu.edu