Show hat By Shiloh Winder Staff Writer Last week the United States States began began air attacks on oh military ary strongholds strongholds strongholds strong strong- holds and terro terrorist c camps throughout the nation of Afghanistan Any use of military force will arouse controversy within our nation So with this weeks week's s 's opinion poll we examine student support for th the way we we have used our military in response to terrorist st attacks and how students feel the attacks will effect the I likelihood likelihood d of terrorism in iri the future Here are the the poll results as of Oct October b r 17 7 i Do y you u agree gree with our n nations nation's tion's at ackson the j I 1 Vi Yes Yes- es- es 87 0 No No V Undecided- Undecided 3 0 7 y I yDo Do 00 you feel these actions wi will Ii begin to reduce t terrorist acts around the world rr w I tf- tf t J 3 n v Yes Yes- les- les 18 0 v J. J r r- r 76 N 0 0 f Undecided- Undecided 6 The results of these two questions reveals a peculiar majority 5 5 Students have haye an overwhelming feeling we are in the right This y is not surprising considering the nature of the US U.S. offensive From a public public relations perspective it seems it-seems seems weve we've done all the right things The most deadly foreign attack ever on American soil helped our nation to understand perfectly just how dangerous these rogue groups and the nations which harbor them are Furthermore the anger incited by the tragedies of September i 11 II i gives public license to measures which could be construed d as retaliatory This brings us to the part of the poll results that are a little strange The he feeling that the attacks will not reduce terrorism Given pur our country's peacemaking nature using the military for retaliatory purposes is quite out of the ordinary If youve you've forgotten our peacemaking nature with our enemies then please think of the Honda or Volkswagen you drove to school today So it doesn't stand to reason we would be using our force just to gratify our urge for revenge Our President whom we obviously trust judging from his record-breaking record approval rating has assured us these attacks are on terrorism ter- ter ter terrorism terrorism and nothing more We are going to smoke the terrorists out of their caves no matter how long it takes is a quote President Bush uses ses regularly So the greatest fighting force in world history is focusing all its power on attacking a military which couldn't take Canada and a band of oppressive radical cave men Nearly 80 of us dont don't feel these actions will begin begin to to reduce terrorism much less eradicate it So we overwhelmingly support attacking terrorists but we have virtually ly no confidence the threat will even be reduced The above percentages can easily be interpreted as anger and bitterness Moreover r this poll has revealed a deeper insecurity that Americans are feeling about battling a new kind of enemy and fighting a anew anew anew new kind of war If the task at hand was to storm a beach wed we'd all feel ready for battle but as our president has made clear to us this one isn't going to be as simple Cutting down all the trees frees in the forest is one thing digging all the squirrels out of their holes is quite another nother especially especially especially espe espe- if those squirrels are infected with anthrax The sad fact is we have a large measure of uncertainty regarding what we can do to combat an enemy who lives among us and preys on our innocent where they are most vulnerable The silver lining of this cloud is this certainty though we may maybe maybe maybe be fighting an unfamiliar battle we are more united than we have been in ina a generation and the cause that has un united ted us is s not fear as the terrorists would hope Rather it is the unyielding American resolve to defend our freedom A |