Editor, Daily Nexus,

In Courtney Stevens’ column (“Liberty Belle: Protesters Convey Mixed Messages,” Daily Nexus, Feb. 20), she refers to students who attended the strike as idiots who just wasted Mommy and Daddy’s tuition money. I’m sick of this hypocritical and pompous self-righteousness. Honestly Gauchos, how many of you out there have skipped class for being too hung over, too lazy or just too tired? I know I have. Where is Stevens’ smug indignation over all those kids who decided to ditch their 8 a.m. history class?

Critics of the strike seem to have difficulty in understanding what exactly it was about. It wasn’t just an excuse to ditch class, although I’m sure there were some who only did it for that reason. Rather, it sends a strong symbolic message that enough people want to end the war in Iraq that they’re willing to stop their everyday habits and routine for one day to bring attention to the issue.

She also slams the protesters for being unpatriotic. Stevens calls those that are against the war as defeatist cowards. In a Feb. 26, 2006 Zogby International poll, 72 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq claimed they want to leave Iraq within a year. I guess al-Qaeda sympathizers decided to join the Army en masse during the last couple years, right Courtney? Even the former National Security Agency director under Ronald Reagan, retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, has concluded that staying the course or worse yet, surging, can no longer achieve victory in Iraq. I bet Stevens would have the nerve to call Gen. Odom a Manchurian Candidate sent by bin Laden. Stevens doesn’t realize the plain reality that the anti-war movement is not made up of just a bunch of radical Che-loving leftists and hippie college professors. It’s the majority of the American people, both in and out of uniform.

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