Students expressed varying degrees of surprise and concern in reaction to yesterday's bombings of targets in Afghanistan by American and British forces.
To most, the attacks did not come as a great surprise, given the steady buildup of American and allied military forces over the past weeks and the Taliban's refusal to accede to U.S. demands.
"I thought they were inevitable," Ben Gebre-Medhin '02 said of the bombings.
Jennifer Cho '03 agreed, though she felt that the precise timing of the attack was unanticipated.
"I guess I kind of expected it, but I didn't think they were going to be quite so soon," she said.
Though some sort of military action against Afghanistan seemed unavoidable to most respondents, students were not nearly as united in their support of the bombings.
Many cited fears of retaliation from terrorist groups, while others were concerned that a clear victory might be difficult to obtain in an campaign with such vague objectives. Still others supported the action as a step necessitated by the Taliban's continuing refusal to acquiesce to American demands.
"I'm very much in favor of what's going on right now," Mark Perez '02 said. "We were trying to negotiate a deal, and now that those negotiations have failed, we are taking the necessary steps to eliminate terrorism and to protect the country."
One '02 who wished to remain anonymous sounded a cautious note, agreeing with the bombings while acknowledging the difficulty of gaining a victory against such elusive opponents.
"I know that we have to do something," he said, but he thought that "air strikes against some unseen enemy" were unlikely to achieve their objective.
"I don't know how we can truly root out terrorism, so I don't know what the best reaction is," he said.
Cho was opposed to the bombings on the grounds of their potential to cause loss of innocent lives.
"I know we gave them time, but I don't think they should have taken the action to bomb," she said. "I'm sure there was some sort of effect on the civilian population."
Should the attack result in large-scale loss of civilian life, Cho thought that "then we are doing the same exact thing that they did to us."
Volker Zimmermann, an exchange student who is enrolled as a junior at the University of Erfurt in Germany, was restrained in his support of military action.
"I am very skeptical of [the bombings]," he said. "You have seen in the Balkans that you can't expect people to turn against their government if you bomb them."
Many respondents feared further terrorist retaliation in the wake of the bombings.
"I feel the Taliban is not going to go down without striking in another direction," said Gebre-Medhin.
Kofi Mills '05 hoped that bombings would be restricted to military targets only to avoid angering Muslim allies, who might be the potential source of such terrorist retaliation.
"I was just hoping that there wouldn't be a mistake, that it wouldn't be a pharmacy or an apartment that they hit," he said.
Still, he endorsed the bombings, emphasizing that negotiations with the Taliban would not have proven a viable resolution to the crisis.
"I think diplomacy alone wouldn't have been enough, though we'd all like to think we can come to a peaceful solution."
An anonymous '02 felt that the war, though unclear in its objectives, couldn't be avoided.
"I really don't know exactly what type of war this is ... it's very indistinct but very necessary at the same time."
