The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

Go home, you hippies

On Saturday, the first weekend in April, I was driving home around noon with my windows rolled down. It was a beautiful spring day, and I was enjoying the weather and the drive home Σ until I saw those sign carrying, anti-war protesting, hipster doofuses by the railroad tracks in Carbondale.

Do these people (all eight of them) have nothing better to do than bother their fellow citizens, who are only trying to enjoy their weekend without being accosted by radical political viewpoints?

Do the protesters not realize they accomplish nothing with their pretentious display? People who hate Bush will continue to hate Bush; people who love Bush will continue to hate the protesters; and the rest of Americans, who just want to enjoy their Saturday afternoon, will continue to think the protesters are whacko.

What I find absolutely incomprehensible is the fact these protesters "just want peace, not war." So how are we supposed to accomplish this? Are anti-war protesters so naïve as to believe if the USA (and the rest of the world) just quits fighting the war on terrorism terrorists will just go away?

Such appeasement has never worked in the history of the world. Ask anyone who lived through World War II if Hitler was content with annexing Austria.

But it seems history, as always, is doomed to repeat itself.

After the horrific train bombings that claimed the lives of 200 Spaniards and injured another 1,500, the Spanish responded by electing a vehemently anti-war socialist as their new prime minister. And his first act as prime minister will be to appease the terrorists by removing troops from Iraq, exactly what they wanted. In essence, Zapatero gave al Qaeda (and all other terrorists) a loud and clear message: Terrorism works.

So, the terrorists should be happy now, and all will be well in Neverland (I mean, Europe), right? Nope. On April 3, three terrorists blew away an apartment building in Madrid, killing a police officer and injuring 11 others. The day before, Spanish officials discovered a bomb underneath the bullet train track leading from Madrid to Seville.

France has also had its brush with terrorism. On Christmas Eve, 1994, Algerian terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 8969 to Paris, with the intention of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. Lacking any semblance of humanity or decency, the terrorists executed three of the passengers on board the plane. Luckily, the French fooled the terrorists into landing the plane for re-fueling, at which point Special Forces boarded and killed the terrorists.

But the French never learned their lesson about the nature of terrorists. Unconscionably, the French have blockaded American efforts to fight the war on terrorism, from preventing the U.S. from using its airspace to receiving oil kickbacks Saddam Hussein.

A country so opposed to fighting terrorists should have nothing to fear from them, right? Again, no. Recently, the French government received threats they would again be the victims of terrorism. Presumably, this is because the French passed a law banning all religious clothing from public schools. In the minds of terrorists, the French deserve to die for this. Indeed, bombs have already been found on railroad tracks inside the country.

Will Spain and France ever learn their lessons on terrorism? How many more innocent people have to die before the Europeans understand terrorists will kill anybody they want and will find any reason to do it?

More disturbingly, especially after the deaths of 3,000 Americans, when will our own anti-war protesters learn that appeasing terrorists accomplishes nothing? When will they realize America must take the war to THEM, before they take the war to US?

Probably never. And that is why the best advice for our Saturday morning, anti-war know-nothings is to, "Go home, you hippies."

Instead of meaningless political noise from naïve sign-toting hipsters, go see a real discourse on politics when best-selling author David Horowitz addresses the campus on Wednesday, April 21 at 7 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom D.

Alex is a senior in microbiology. Political hot zone appears every Thursday. These views do not necessarily reflect those of the DAILY EGYPTIAN.

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