Editor,
As a two-time UNM graduate, I send condolences to my alma mater for gross misjudgment, amorality and nuclear madness. All of my immediate family went to UNM, but we will not be going down that path again and recommend that other parents choose schools with a more solid ethical base.
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the law of the land since before my children were born, states we will build no more nuclear weapons and will disarm the ones already built. Yet UNM plans to join Sandia National Laboratories not only in hosting a panel discussion about a whole new generation of nuclear weapons
- despite the misleading name of reliable replacement warheads - but also in recruiting students to train as technicians for the new bomb factory slated for Los Alamos. Why not ask your own sociology department how we can build a whole new round of nuclear weapons and not expect much of the rest of the world to follow suit?
At a time when retired U.S. generals call for replacing the secretary of defense because the misguided Iraq war has become a recruitment boon for our enemies, UNM jumps aboard the boat that will stay the course even as its hull is about to be splintered on the rocks ahead.
Rather than coming to its senses, as many are beginning to do, UNM acknowledges following the money rather than common sense, as Robert Anderson's letter in Monday's Daily Lobo reported. Students go to college to gain skills, experience and wisdom, but these are clearly not the basis on which UNM plans to build a relationship with Sandia National Laboratories, as both scoff at and break international law.
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Although Congress may have stopped the bunker buster, it clearly has not put an end to the folly of nuclear weapons, all of which are actually culture busters. As an institution of higher learning, UNM should be exercising wise leadership in pursuit of a sustainable world instead of signing on to the dumbest idea in history.
I invite current and former students to join Friday's meeting in the SUB and shine some light on this very dark subject.
Astrid Webster
UNM alumnus
