Refugees will return to stable Iraq

I am confused by “”The dangers of an Iraqi diaspora”” (Sept. 5). Is the author suggesting an open-door policy for Iraqis to come to the United States? What would such a policy look like? Although, Tucson’s climate is somewhat like theirs.

The U.S. strategy has been (and will be) to stabilize the country so that the 40 percent of wealth held by refugees will return to Iraq. I think nearly everyone expects the refugees to return once the government stabilizes and the sectarian violence lessens, i.e., soon, if the U.S. meets its commitments. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the change in strategy from “”top down”” to “”bottom up”” is having very stabilizing effects. Also, there is a push from the United States to build bridges, infrastructure and other necessary buildings. It just doesn’t make the news when hospitals are raised, only when they are razed. Or, better still, raided.

I hope those who have left Iraq decide to return. However, the beauty of a market economy, particularly one catalyzed by globalization, is that it allows Iraqis to create their own wealth within Iraq. It might not be the U.S. that learns the lessons of diaspora. Instead, it will be those Iraqis who left their brethren to forge a free Iraq. And perhaps the author of “”The dangers … of diaspora.””

-Matthew Harwood
nutritional sciences junior

Financial aid office not Burger King

OK, Sam, so you had a bad experience with the financial aid office and wrote the Wildcat to rant about it and other stuff that gets you all impatient (“”Financial aid a nightmare … “” Sept. 4). To disabuse the student population of your take on that office, I’ll share my recent experience. Like you, I had to visit it more times than I would have presumed necessary. Sure, the lines were long at times – not the office’s fault – but the automated numbering system recently added is wonderful: it gives me a good sense of how long I’ll need to wait, and what better time to indulge in a little reading – we’re here to study and learn, right? – instead of huffing and puffing in frustration.

Likewise, I also had many questions, yet I always got answers. Moreover, when I asked any of the various friendly people working the stations for assistance in understanding the processes of receiving and applying for aid, I got it. Maybe the reason “”everyone [working there] seems to be put out by each question as if it were a calculus test”” is because you were as “”put out”” to be there as a student failing a calculus test would be exuding it. As for the analogy that the office “”is becoming like the DMV,”” hardly – the DMV could learn much about organization, friendliness, helpfulness and clarity of expression from the financial aid office and its overworked staff. To elicit a “”positive result,”” next time try to remember that these people are there to help you, not serve you as if you are “”ordering a Big Mac at the Burger King in the union.””

-Greg Grewell
doctoral student in rhetoric, composition
and the teaching of English

Bearing arms needed to protect liberty

Alyson Hill’s response Monday to Time magazine’s report of America having 90 firearms per capita (“”Diss-course: A chicken in every pot, a gun in every hand””) was defiantly ignorant of American principles: Hill dismissed the right to bear arms as a rationale for firearm ownership without displaying a sufficient understanding of that right formalized in the U.S. Constitution and most state constitutions. To be fair, this is a common blunder, but the columnist seemed to be more inclined to give the same paranoid and corny rant about the government and the media indoctrinating us to become terrified and violent than to support her dismissal of gun rights with a logical explanation of why her assertion is correct.

Truly, I’d like to know where Hill was raised if she was brought up to defend herself primarily via bravado and secondarily via violence. I surely wasn’t raised like that, and most people I know weren’t, either. Perhaps Hill’s blame should be on her parents rather than America’s culture; not coincidentally, the friends I have who own firearms are also the ones who were raised to defend themselves calmly and rationally, only using firearms when it is necessary and legal.

Does Hill sincerely believe that Americans own firearms in order to anger and kill immigrants, homosexuals and feminists? Who’s really become a brainwashed pawn of politicians and the media? It’s far more straightforward and rational to learn our history and understand that the right to bear arms was central in making Americans independent, and it continues to be central in maintaining our liberty.

-Daniel Greenberg
political science sophomore