Editor,
I've been away for almost two months now, and Wednesday was the first time I read the Daily Lobo since my departure. I wanted to say a few things about the perspective that I see on the news from Germany.
For starters, based on conversations with friends and family in the United States, I have determined that the whole free speech and free press thing is a strange creature.
As far as I can tell, all that the media covers is pro-revenge propaganda.
There is a pervasive sense of "poor us, how could anyone have done anything so horrible, we must fight back."
The media have conveniently chosen to ignore the background, intentions and reality of the terrorists. Rather than taking responsibility, most Americans have taken the easy way out and played dumb.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
An Air Force veteran wrote in his letter Wednesday, this attack was the most vile and horrific thing that has ever happened.
To me that is nothing but lousy patriotic lies.
For someone to honestly make that statement, that person needs to have been completely oblivious to the world for oh, say, 70 years. It would be easy to fill a book with a list of atrocities from around the world that are either equal or worse than the Sept. 11 attacks.
While the Sept. 11 attacks were sad and tragic and surprising, they were nothing new. The claims that these attacks are the purest of evil - the vilest ever - and the most ruthless actions has a fundamental requirement that the life of a human being living in the United States is basically more significant than the life of a human being living anywhere else. It also illustrates complete ignorance of history and the role of the United States in world events, politics and history.
Try not to get so swept up in the emotions of the day and take a reasonable look at the situation. Oh yeah, also think before you do something ridiculous like put a flag on your car, house, dog, backpack, door and underwear. It's rather silly looking. And one more thing . Berthold is funny.
Adam Collingsworth
Undergraduate student
