Despite the terrorist threat on Christmas day in Detroit, many students say they do not feel threatened by terrorism in America.
The Obama administration has faced criticism from the Republican party for their methods of combating terrorism.
In the latest weekly Republican address, posted Jan. 30, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said President Obama did not handle the threat correctly.
“How did the Obama administration decide to treat a foreign terrorist, who had tried to murder hundreds of people, as if he were a common criminal?” Collins said. “Foreign terrorists are enemy combatants and they must be treated as such. The safety of the American people depends on it.”
However, students like Nathaniel Hedman, a 21-year-old junior chemistry major, said he thinks that terrorism is virtually unpreventable.
“There’s bound to be events even in perfect terror prevention,” Hedman said. “We’re fighting a war on a concept. We haven’t made progress against drugs or poverty either.”
Michael Andrews, a 19-year-old freshman aerospace engineering major, said that he thinks the Obama administration is trying.
“I feel perfectly safe,” Andrews said. “I think they’re doing the best they can. Just keep people in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
According to the whitehouse.gov, President Obama plans to remove all troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. Starting this September, troops in Iraq will take responsibility for training Iraqi Security Forces.
As for Afghanistan, Obama said in a March 2009 speech that sending more troops is the answer.
“I’ve already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops that had been requested by General McKiernan for many months,” Obama said.
In wartime, calls for increased troops impact the type of students who join the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at CU.
“Events like 9/11 have mixed responses,” said Lt. Jonathan Lanning, who works with the Golden Buffalo Battalion. “Some have a patriotic calling, which generates an interest; being in a war at the same time, it also generates people to not join.”
According to icasualties.org, the death toll in Afghanistan continues rising, with 317 deaths in 2009 alone and of a total 983 U.S. deaths.
Jennie Kim, a 20-year-old junior biochemistry major, said she did not expect this long or violent of a war on terror.
“It’s just been going on for almost a decade,” Kim said. “I thought the way we handled it was going to be more peaceful.”
Hedman said he has no doubts the war will continue.
“The war of terror seemed indeterminate when it started too,” Hedman said. “We can withdraw from Afghanistan in two or three years, relatively soon, but our attempts to vanquish similar regimes, like Somalia, will continue indefinitely.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Jennifer Retter at Jennifer.retter@colorado.EDU.
