February 28, 2008
College Democrats president responds to Shevlin’s questions
Every day I walk into the Liberal Arts building, grab the day’s issue of the Kaimin, and open right to the opinion section to see what kind of crazy things people have to say. I was intrigued to find an LTE in Thursday’s issue titled “Liberals too passive when it comes to terrorism.” As president of the College Democrats, I feel it is my responsibility to answer Mr. Shevlin’s ignorant rant with an intelligent response.
First, I must point out how dangerous ignorance like Mr. Shevlin’s is. He confuses and interchanges the words liberal and terrorist as if they were one in the same. I suppose I can understand how scary an opposing view can be to such close-minded individuals, so maybe Mr. Shevlin actually views us progressives as terrorists. But I don’t recall a single “liberal” calling our own people “evil American Imperialist Military invaders,” but I have continually heard through Al-Jazeera a number of al-Qaida leaders referring to our troops as such. I won’t speculate how someone so interested in facts could screw that one up.
But more important than any of that is that Mr. Shevlin makes some of the progressive arguments for pulling out of Iraq for us. He points out that the majority of the violence in Iraq is targeted at each other, for the most part, and continues to demonstrate this fact by observing that the violence in the region comes as a result of centuries of religious and cultural differences. All of which is true, but it begs the question of why are we there then? Why must the United States commit our young men and women to combat in a region that is unstable and made more unstable by our presence? If a U.S. presence in Iraq is SO beneficial, why hasn’t the violence ceased? Or at least been minimized? Instead, our very presence has excited more violence and creates an atmosphere conducive to breeding more terrorists. Not to mention the fact that our presence in the Middle East is what brought al-Qaida into existence in the first place.
All of that aside, allow me to answer the questions posed to us “liberals” by Mr. Shevlin. First, the question of “why would [the terrorists] continue to target fellow innocent Iraqi Muslims?” The answer to this is quite simple actually; it now has little to do with our presence in Iraq and has become a war between the Islamic religious factions in Iraq. So really, we may have caused the destabilization, but whom the violence is directed at has now become a separate issue.
The next question posed was “when do you suppose…N.O.W. (National Organization for Women) is going to say one word against” the women of the “Islamic World?” Well, I suppose you could say that Mr. Shevlin is correct, they haven’t just said ONE word, they have said countless on the oppression and abuse of women in the Islamic world. I’d encourage you to visit their website at http://www.now.org where they outline their international efforts to end the oppression of women in the Middle East and around the rest of the world.
And Mr. Shevlin’s final question was basically where are the Democratic Presidential candidates on these issues and why haven’t they come out in strong opposition to the inhumane treatment of women in the Islamic World? Actually both have talked at length about this very important issue, and you don’t have to look far to discover that much. Senator Clinton prides herself on her tireless efforts when she was First Lady to combat the oppression of women throughout the world. And Senator Obama’s record on human rights is just as convincing in terms of his own public service. And both have indeed spoken out against the oppression of women in the Middle East. I won’t ask why the Republican candidates have stayed silent about the issue.
The point I want to make is how dangerous ignorance and the misrepresentation of facts can be for anyone on either side of this very important issue. Mr. Shevlin’s points just simply have no validity or merit, and are based solely on the fear mongering of the radical right wing of the political spectrum. I’d encourage everyone to have an open mind when discussing the issues during this historic election cycle; you might actually learn something new, as I hope Daniel Shevlin will (but I won’t hold my breath).
Scott Martin
President, College Democrats UM Chapter
