Being 'Just Moderate' Avoids Moral Questions

To the editors:

The recent Comment by Nikki B. Usher ’03 (“Just Moderates,” March 21) makes a confused distinction between the pro-war position and a so-called “moderate” one. Moderates, according to Usher, are frightened and saddened by the war in Iraq but support it nonetheless as the only way to dismantle an intolerable global threat. In fact, however, this is precisely the pro-war position. No one on this campus wants war for the sake of war, no matter how strongly they may display their approval of the current campaign.

I’m glad that Usher’s own “moderate” opinion is actually a pro-war one, because, despite the results of The Crimson’s Friday poll, the question of war really shouldn’t allow for in-betweens. We can’t “somewhat” send our troops into battle. When so many lives are at stake, every citizen has a responsibility to take a stand. This doesn’t mean that we all should choose sides and line up for a battle of the bullhorns in Harvard Yard—as long as the Iraq war has the support of our government and a substantial majority of the American people, I don’t feel the need to demonstrate for war in the streets. My support for our troops in Iraq, however, isn’t half-hearted. To be “just moderate” on the issue of war is to avoid the difficult and vital moral questions that each of us has a duty to face.

Reed L. Collins ’04

March 22, 2003