[1300] in peace2
response to The Consequences of Objection
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Daniel Feldman)
Sun Dec 9 14:36:29 2001
Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.2.20011209141530.00b538f0@hesiod>
Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 14:36:24 -0500
To: webnews@washingtonpost.com
From: Daniel Feldman <dfeldman@MIT.EDU>
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This email is in response to the Washington Post article "The Consequences
of Objection" found in Sunday, December 9's paper from the URL
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14157-2001Dec8.html
I am delighted to read that there is support and solidarity in the peace
movement and I am equally delighted that the Washington Post is publishing
that fact for all to see. Being a university student at MIT, I saw
first-hand the two different faces of America. On the one hand, a
significant number of Americans were calling for blood in response to the
September 11 incidents. However, in the university setting, the numbers
were quite different. The support for the war in Afghanistan was and
continues to be exceedingly low at MIT, even among various members of
ROTC. MIT participated in nationwide campus rallies for peace in
conjunction with the organization A.N.S.W.E.R (Act Now to Stop War and End
Racism) and the school newspaper was filled with editorials denouncing the
blindingly-obvious hypocrisy of fighting terrorism by bombing a country
loosely associated with the supposed culprits. So I congratulate the
Washington Post for broaching the subject.
However, I am concerned that this is essentially the second time that the
Washington Post has even discussed the idea of dissent since September
11. In the first few days after the attacks, there was a small bit of the
paper devoted to looking at the underlying causes of these extraordinary
events, but once the bombings started, I was shocked and upset at the
wartime propaganda that was splashed over the front page. The Washington
Post displayed tremendous jingoism for almost 2 months and it was very
disturbing that this newspaper never discussed serious issues such as
describing the roots of terrorism, talking about the links that Osama bin
Laden had to CIA, and explaining the incursions made on the Constitution by
way of the PATRIOT act and the ordering of military tribunals for
noncitizens.
I hope that the reporting done by the Washington Post for the past two
months was a fluke and that the paper will continue in the future as it had
in the past (before September 11) in presenting both sides of the news and
not fomenting blood-fervor.
Sincerely,
Daniel Feldman
MIT Class of 2002
