Iraq speaker stretches the truth
I attended the event ""War Talk: Iraq on Campus"" at Chazen Museum Thursday evening. First, it is not the ""Iraqi"" War, but rather the Iraq War. Frankly, the event was falsely promoted. Advertisements read ""How to talk about the Iraq War on campus."" More accurate wording would have been ""How to talk about antiwar sentiment on campus.""
The opening speaker, Jason Moon, set the tone for an evening of negativity. He opened his talk about his experience in Iraq saying he served eight years in the National Guard, and after Sept. 11th, he felt compelled to rejoin.
In your article he supposedly rejoined ""under the auspices he would remain home in the event of another attack."" Additionally he said he was ordered to ""run over children"" that got in his way.
In my two trips to Iraq, my travels throughout the country, in all of the pre-convoy briefings I was required to attend—or conduct—I was never ordered to run over children. I believe Moon is stretching the truth and perhaps it bolsters his underlying agenda.
Also, anyone who joined the all volunteer military after 9/11 and expected their duty would be to guard America is lying. None of us wanted to go to war and not all of us who did believe the reasons given or the timing were best. War is horrible; lives are lost so no one wins. However, most Iraqis are glad we came. They have something they never knew under the former regime: hope.
Kelly Luster
UW-Madison Grad Student
Journalism and mass communication
Global warming about ethics, not politics
Laurie David presented many inspiring but disturbing facts in her global warming lecture on Wednesday. An example: If each home in the United States changed five regular light bulbs to compact fluorescents, the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would be equivalent to taking eight million cars off the road.
If this one simple change could do so much, imagine the impact we could have on this campus. However, we are doing almost nothing to ""green"" our campus, even with global warming an imminent threat.
We must contact administrators and protest against the coal-fired power plant that runs our university, the waste generated in our dorms, and the energy wasted lighting empty buildings each day.
As Laurie David told a packed house in her Wednesday lecture, global warming is ""not about politics, it is about ethics."" This ethical issue needs to be addressed with much more urgency on campus. Here at UW-Madison, we have an incredible opportunity. Now let us seize that opportunity and change ourselves and our way of life, and catalyze a change in society as a whole.
Lauren Crane
UW-Madison Freshman
Biological aspects of conservation
