Soldiers and the war
In Monday's letter entitled "Support the troops and the mission," the author makes the case that the Iraq War is not in vain. With all due respect to Dan Hennen, whom I respect greatly for his service to our country, I strongly disagree with his opinion. I ask this question:

What exactly is the "mission" of this war? What exactly did President George W. Bush declare accomplished in 2003? After this blunder, Bush announced his "five point plan to achieve freedom and democracy in Iraq" in May 2004. I advise all that are interested to read up on them at whitehouse.gov and judge for yourself whether or not each point has been accomplished or is clearly never going to work with our continued military presence.

What happened to disarm and remove Saddam Hussein from power and liberate the Iraqi people? The war has been so poorly managed that the administration has been rewriting the original goals to undermine the fact that we are losing this war.

Hussein is gone, there are no weapons of mass destruction, and to claim that Iraq is the "forefront" of the war on terror simply ignores the fact that we turned it into that. I find it appalling that over 84,000 people (Americans and Iraqis, what a concept eh?) have died in a war that does not have a clearly defined mission. What needs to be accomplished in order to leave?

The reasons why we went in have been questioned enough, but now that we're there, our reasons for staying are not. We face a moral qualm when deciding whether or not pulling out is irresponsible, but our administration has let us fall into this tragic catch-22. Love the soldier, hate the war.

Ian Byrne
University student

Abortion display in Coffman Union
Regarding the tasteless panorama in front of Coffman today I would like to ask: Where were the free condoms and information about birth control? If abortion is as pandemic as genocide (like in Darfur for instance) shouldn't a practical, even-handed and effective method of preventing the issue be the priority?

Why instead an eager deferral to flooding the senses with (as with any surgical procedure) a swatch of blood and gore, with its images then reduced by artless juxtaposition to the level of a slyly played Hitler Card? I suspect this is another thinly veiled, faith-based attempt to vilify sex as sinful abomination without regard to what's practical and more than evident.

One might suggest that this group's antiquated philosophies about souls in zygotes along with other iron-age medical ethics serve neither the public, nor do any service to ending what is really an issue of awareness, preparedness and prevention. People are having (apparently limitless) sex, and a few profane graphics seems a silly. ham-handed way to improve the outcomes of a complex problem.

Christopher Howe
University student

I do not consider myself a pro-life University Student or a pro-choice University Student. What I believe about abortion is irrelevant to my complaint about the demonstration.

The demonstration allowed pictures of aborted fetuses alongside pictures of genocide, alonw with several posters claiming these events were all genocide. It is this part of the demonstration I have serious issue with. I feel it is the duty of an institution to educate, not propagate falsehoods.

Lemkin's Law, more commonly known as the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (signed in 1948 and ratified in 1951), states that genocide is "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group ..."

Abortion covers every ethnic, racial, and religious group. Aborted fetuses are hardly a national group. Under the UN, and national law, abortion is not genocide.

The very fact that some at this institution would approve a demonstration that seeks only to propagate and presents falsehoods fills me with a great sense of shame about this institution.

I hope in the future such demonstrations will be given more scrutiny before they are allowed on the University campus.

Hannah Heidt
University student