In my one-and-a-half years here, the following things (among others, I'm sure) have been under construction: Chamberlin Hall, Johnson Street, Bacteriology, Babcock Street, Cole and Sullivan Halls, the Crew House, Lakeshore Path, Camp Randall and Charter Street. In the coming decades, that list will apparently include Observatory Drive, new Lakeshore dorms, new Southeast dorms, Ogg Hall, University Square, Humanities, Van Hise, Union South, Psychology and the Physical Plant, the Medical College, Eagle Heights and probably Charter Street a few more times.
North Hall has stood for maybe 150 years; Ogg Hall about 30. What is so wrong with Van Hise (37 years old) that it needs to be torn down completely?
Is the goal just to completely rebuild the campus every 40 years? I want a campus, not a permanent construction zone.
Matt Bayer
UW-Madison Sophomore
History and Physics
In response \Crying wolf over WMDs justified"" by Harlen L. Johnston (Opinion, Jan. 25), it is abundantly clear that weapons of mass destruction pose a very serious threat to humans. However, a nation's mere possession of, or capability to produce, such instruments of death does not itself justify an invasion. Ever since World War II, advanced weaponry has been manufactured to provide the creators with the ultimate insurance plan: the total annihilation of anyone crazy enough to attack them.
That said, countries with the funds and technological capability to produce weapons of mass destruction have done so to provide themselves with this protection. Yet, although we here in the U.S. have known of the existence of WMDs in numerous nations, including some hostile towards Americans, only Iraq has been invaded. The issue of invasion then seems to revolve around the possibility of use of WMD's, not just their mere existence.
Assuming that Iraq did have this capacity, it would be worthwhile to judge if it was likely to deploy its weapons in an attack on the U.S. If this were the case, then it would seem that provoking such an attack by attempting an invasion would not be a logical course of action.
A more sensible approach was taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which both U.S. President Kennedy and Soviet Chair Nikita Krushchev remembered the human cost of nuclear war and the horrific devastation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Their example should be followed because for them the importance of preventing a nuclear holocaust was not to avoid a catastrophic event unlike the world had ever seen, but rather to prevent one from happening again.
Brian O'Gara
UW-Madison senior
Molecular Biology
