To the Editor:

Regarding the column by Meghan Clyne ’03 (“The hypocrisy of the left in its campaign against war,” 10/30), I believe that Clyne makes two critical errors in her argument. The first is her inaccurate assumption that every individual who is against war in Iraq is automatically both a member of the left and a strident supporter of “pet leftist causes.” One does not have to be a liberal to oppose military action, just as one does not have to be on the right to support it. Her implication that campus liberal activism is a monolithic group in which every member advocates the same positions is not only inaccurate, it is insulting. Secondly, the author writes that alleviating the plight of the Iraqi people is the prime motivating factor for war. This line of reasoning logically extends to not only advocating military intervention in every other dictatorship in the world, but providing massive economic assistance for the billions of people worldwide who subsist on less than what we would consider pocket change. If this is indeed Clyne’s position, I question whether her column should not be renamed “Left Side Up.”

Aryeh Cohen-Wade ’05

October 30, 2002