You all seem to care more about a captured terrorist's rights and dignity than the people slaughtered by roadside bombs and hijacked airplanes. You even try to paint them as "innocent" and as having previously lived "peaceful lives."

Excuse me while I try and regain my composure after having just hit the ground in a fit of uncontrollable, spasmodic laughter.

Do you really think the U.S. military is out rounding up random civilians for no reason whatsoever? I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure you don't just end up in Guantanamo for no reason. You even go so far as to compare the situation to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

There is one tiny difference: the Japanese that were interned were citizens living in the United States and were rounded up out of paranoia.

The people at Guantanamo are not U.S. citizens, but rather people who were captured on the battlefield trying to kill Americans and others.

Many of these detainees would kill you without hesitation, yet you can't seem to find enough ways to try and rationalize their "plight" ' even to the point of portraying U.S. soldiers as more evil than the terrorists they are fighting to protect you and I from.

Every minute that Guantanamo detainees "suffer" is another minute a terrorist attack is prevented.

Tom Kuehn
mechanical engineering graduate student

Editing editorials
I understand the Daily's need to edit opinion columns, but my column "Intelligent Design? Meh," which was printed Feb. 20, was not accurately represented.

In the Daily's editing of my column, the meaning of a few lines was altered drastically. If this is the quality of the Daily's editing, I would prefer to keep my opinions to myself. I do not take kindly to being misrepresented.

As the Daily printed my column, it said, "Darwin's theory is neither gospel nor scientific theory." In the original version of my column I stated, "Darwin's theory is not (fundamentally) gospel, nor is any scientific theory."

I would like to make it clear that I was not discrediting Darwin's theory as scientific, but showing that scientific theories are open to being expanded and they can be altered.

On another occasion in my column there were two complete sentences removed. Why?

Though they did mention foreign and ancient religions, I do not put those things past the understanding of the Daily's audience.

It made the paragraph the sentences were removed from appear from nowhere and removed all context.

The omission of these sentences could not have been due to a word limit since I was well under the 850-word maximum.

I may give the Daily another chance, but if the editing continues in such a manner I will be considerably disappointed.

Correcting grammar is fine; changing the meaning of opinion columns (or parts of) is not.

William Martin
University student

Offensive columnist
The Daily has been infected with a virus known as John Hoff. Apparently the Daily is not aware the virus has infected its paper. 

A previous launch of the Hoff virus can be referenced in The Dakota Student, the newspaper of the University of North Dakota.

The main manifestation of this virus is that it creates offensive and absurd articles that are published in the local newspaper.

The articles attack the state and people of North Dakota without provocation, but can be found to contain drivel about a wide range of other mundane topics.

The initial launch of this virus can be traced back to some sour grapes when a transplanted Seattle politician from Grand Forks, N.D., was recalled from the city council by the local voters for wielding his power in unsavory fashion and not representing the people of his ward with grace and dignity.

 I am writing this letter to warn the Daily staff that they are hosting this virus and to ask them to run the latest version of Symantec AntiVirus to remove it and its abusive comments from their system.

Erling Kurtti
University staff member

Find another venue
I was dismayed by the Feb. 10 Daily article "You're invited to fight a marriage ban," by Emma Carew.

The political bias of this highly controversial topic was entirely unattended to.

I found the showy graphics and inappropriate heading unbecoming of this newspaper.

These missteps lend themselves to the promotion of a cause or social agenda, without any regard for opposing viewpoints.

While I applaud Carew for her thorough report, our campus expects and deserves more objective journalism.

Daniel Ferrara
University undergraduate