The cover story of the Sept. 14 issue of the Guilfordian had a quote about halfway into the article, which went like this, “I think that (George) Bush is going to be arrogant about wanting to blame someone else and that our actions towards other countries could have precipitated this.” When I read that, the first thing that popped into my head was, “Okay…so we deserved this?” While I am almost positive that no rational person could say America deserved what happened on Sept 11, it still confuses me. While I am certainly not blind to the fact that our government handles foreign policy sometimes in ways that are not appropriate and often times self-serving to our own interests, the point being made is not justifiable here.

The part in the quote about wanting to blame someone else seems particularly ridiculous to me for the sheer fact that of course Bush is going to blame someone else because this is not America’s fault. The people that perpetrated these types of crimes against America are evil and this is their fault, not ours. The blood is on their hands, not on the hands of our government.

I understand that many people do not trust the government and I am one of them. I believe that any man or woman that trusts the government is a fool, but in this case, the government is not the enemy.

With that being said, to imply that American foreign policy was the reason behind these attacks is wrong. The people that did this hate the United States because we give women equal rights, because our country supports Israel, because they view our society as immoral and against God’s will, among other things. These attacks were not only against what they see as a world-wide American imperialism, but to destroy a culture they deem full of sin and immorality.

Again, while the United States is not perfect when it comes to international affairs, it still, for example, gives over $76 million in a program to feed 3.5 million people in Afghanistan through March, 2002. Also, before the attacks, our government had also pledged 100,000 tons of food in addition to the 65,000 tons currently being sent to poverty-stricken Afghans (source: www.cnn.com).

There is nothing wrong with looking at how we as a country can improve our foreign policy. It is true that America has grown out of favor across the globe in many areas. However, there is no reason that could possible dignify the attacks on America.

This column not meant to single out groups of people with different views, but I don’t want to see Americans turning against its country when this country needs all Americans to come together. We are not evil, the people that did these horrible acts are.