'Undecided': the wisest war stance?

I've started several different versions of this editorial — well, not so much versions as introductory paragraphs for editorials on all sorts of issues not relating to the war. All such efforts have proven futile, so I've decided to cave this once and write on the war, like everyone else. However, I'm not going to try to sell you my opinion. You've heard enough from people who are far better informed than I and likely even more from people not informed at all. Instead I'd like to comment on the dialogue between those who are antiwar and those who are pro-war, as I've seen it both on the Princeton campus and in the "real world."

Both sides make the ridiculous assumption that their opinion is entirely right and that the opposite side is not just entirely wrong, but also stupid and sheep-like as they flock beneath a banner that sounds appealing at first but is really utter nonsense. The few such opponents who aren't sheep are simply evil. Indeed, what I find most disturbing about both camps is their apparent total lack of doubt or second thoughts — as though forming an opinion on the war is an irreversible process.

War is a grownup issue — for adult audiences only, to use the television lingo that seems so appropriate given the media's prepackaged approach to the war effort, including slogans such as a favorite introduced to me by a friend who is antiwar: Operation Iraq Liberation. I don't want to quote slogans and trite ideas — we've all heard them. I'll just say I think most of them are too clever and clean cut for something that involves human suffering and death. Such profundities deserve more than convenient, made-for-television labels.

Members of both sides of the war politics, pro and con, are guilty of the trap I refer to here, that of underestimating the other side's validity. I've been saddened and slightly disgusted of late to hear people I respect (and on both sides of the issue), condemning their ideological opponents as "just stupid." They don't even seem to see the need to examine the opposition's arguments. Apparently, once they make up their minds, they are serious at keeping the same decision even at the cost of closing their minds and hearts to even the hint of an alternative.

Such a stance is the most immature one anyone can assume in an argument — absolute close mindedness and a refusal to grant one's opponent enough credit to even feel the need to defend one's own arguments. Certainly, no one should be so impervious to questioning from peers — particularly at a center of learning like Princeton. This is a university after all, and we should all be interested in engaging in discussion, particularly when it gives us the opportunity to defend our own beliefs.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. For example, I know a fair number of people who are staunchly undecided. Though people on either side of the war issue might be inclined to condemn people who refuse to make a decision or those who simply can't be bothered to find out enough to make a decision, I commend the wise choice of recognizing one's limitations rather than covering them with a bad choice. Undecided's are the only ones really wise enough to know that they have no good way of evaluating the truthfulness of either side's claims. It's a perfectly legitimate concern to wonder whether the United States has an accurate tally of the number of Saddam lookalikes in Iraq, let alone a working knowledge of Iraqi military installments.

So I'd just ask before it goes too far that Princetonians keep themselves above the sillier part of the fray associated with the politics of this war. There are rational reasons on both sides of the argument for and against the way, and there are plenty of intelligent, non-evil people on both sides of the issue. Let's try not to fall to the level of children, and "No, you're stupid."

Aileen Nielsen is a sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y.