Since Sept. 11, everyone’s had his or her own opinions about how the United States should react to the terrorist bombings on New York and Washington, D.C.

Here at NIU, those feelings are widespread as well.

On Friday, several NIU and DeKalb-area organizations gathered in the King Memorial Commons to show their desire for a non-violent response to terrorist attacks. The event coincided with anti-war protests in Washington, D.C.

But Friday afternoon’s solidarity sit-in is a bit premature.

First of all, President George W. Bush is trying to take his time in deciding what the best reaction to the attacks should be. He’s talking with international officials and various sources in Afghanistan about what measures our military should take.

As we approach the three-week mark since the attacks, the U.S. government needs to respond to the horrendous incidents of Sept. 11 before the rest of the country becomes complacent.

Secondly, if people don’t agree with launching a military attack, they should provide quality alternatives for the government to consider. Protesting a counterattack just for the sake of protesting defeats the reasoning behind the action.

Achieving global peace by dismantling the Taliban regime would involve the United States sticking its nose further into the lives of Afghani people. Is it really our duty to make every country just like us?

“… I fear that we are going to see many more deaths and many more tragedies and we feel that violence, like mass murder, is never justified no matter whose soil it’s on,” Dove Coalition vice-president Melissa Prentice told the Northern Star on Thursday.

Peace only can take the U.S. government so far. Even if we did capture Osama bin Laden, what would we do with him? If it’s anything like some of the e-mail forwards most of us probably have received, the death penalty is the least of his worries.

A column printed in Friday’s Star from the Northern Coalition for Peace and Justice said this: “We should re-evaluate our foreign policy so that our nation discourages violent regimes and encourages steps toward democracy.”

These types of events make the government re-evaluate the foreign policy, and that’s what Bush is trying to do.

But set in U.S. history is a war of rebellion, a war fought for democracy. If we wouldn’t have broken loose from England to form our own government, we never would have established human rights. We just can’t cast aside the option of war to defend those rights today.