IU political leaders react

The heated Washington debate of weeks past -- on issues ranging from Arctic drilling to social security -- was set aside last Tuesday in the face of the deadliest terrorist attack in United States history. The millions of Americans glued in shock and horror to their TVs following the attack witnessed members of Congress, standing together on the Capitol steps, singing "God Bless America."\nOne week later and some 650 miles from Washington, leaders of IU's campus and community political groups reflected on the tragedy, expressing a common call for justice and accountability on the part of the terrorists but urging the U.S. to proceed carefully. \nJunior Sarah Milligan, external vice president of College Republicans, said she was watching NBC's "Today Show" the morning of the attack when the program was interrupted with news of the first twin tower crash.\n"It seemed like a horrible accident until the second one hit," Milligan said. "When the plane hit the Pentagon was when things started to sink in."\nNow, she said, the United States must take care to target and retaliate against both the perpetrators of the attacks and countries that may have harbored them.\n"I think the primary purpose of the federal government is to keep people safe, (and) we are not safe right now," Milligan stated.\nGraduate students Chris Stafford and Chris Sapp of IUB College Greens said that those persons who committed such a "crime against humanity" must be found and locked away, but asserted that large-scale attacks on any one country are immoral and would not solve the world's terrorism problems.\n"This process of generalizing from a group of extremists to an entire population, most of whom are innocent, would put us in the same league as the terrorists," Stafford said, in reference to the possibility of an attack on Afghanistan. \nStafford said if the United States were to bomb Afghanistan, "the blood of innocent people would be on our hands."\nDan O'Neill, president of IU College Democrats, also expressed concern that retaliation against an entire country would serve only to provoke more anti-U.S. terrorism.\n"I think it would be a big mistake to simply bomb Afghanistan," O'Neill said. The civilian deaths that would result from such an attack, he said, must be avoided at all cost.