Editor, Daily Nexus,

Gloria Ross’ article (“UC Bankrolling a Nuclear Fallout,” Daily Nexus, Oct. 11) does prove a point: Everything is interconnected. However, saying that the UC system “must be demilitarized” is a bit of a stretch. By the reasoning that the UC system plays a role in military weapons research, one could also say that by having political science classes we are promoting people to be actively interested in politics, and then they someday may become president (the commander in chief of the military), so cut that department out too, right?

What was not present in the article is that the laboratories named also research many other things: deep space travel, fiber optics, nanoscience, solutions to environmental problems. Also, within a few months the UC will have outdone Japan’s Earth Simulator in creating a more advanced supercomputer. The website Ross suggested visiting, www.ucnuclearfree.org, fails to mention that and has no links to the laboratories’ websites.

Who is to say that what they are doing at the labs is good or evil? None of us. They create things that have the ability to destroy, create and also to improve the quality of life and what we are capable of doing. Not only do the labs employ thousands of people (including students), help our professors become Nobel laureates and create revenue for the UC system; the efforts of the researchers and scientists furthers our understanding of science and helps us to see how far we, as humans, can go. The research is done in the name of science; the users of the products are the ones who do so in the name of good or evil. Blame them but not the school for doing what is in our best interests as students.