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CounterPunch
March 21,
2003
Why Are We So Passive?
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
By BRIAN J. FOLEY
A few days ago I wondered what to do if war started.
Wear a black armband? Hold a teach-in? Join students nationwide
who plan to walk out of class? The suggestion to protest by skipping
school made up my mind.
I won't join them. I am teaching my classes,
and I am teaching what is in the syllabus.
Why? Because as a law professor, I train
people to think and question -- activities that might have led
us to better alternatives than war. At the least, serious inquiry
should have preceded such a momentous decision.
Congress, the institution designed for
the robust debate that could have enlightened us, fell down on
the job. Our representatives appear paralyzed, unable to question
a questionable war for fear of looking "unpatriotic."
Such fear insults our intelligence.
Yet we, too, have failed to demand answers
to a horde of questions that reasonable people would ask.
We have not questioned why Bush officials
will wage war despite failing to prove to any reasonable degree
that Saddam Hussein threatens the U.S., that UN weapons inspections
were not working, or that inspections could not work if given
a chance. The Bush Administration has failed to overcome the
logic that Saddam Hussein would never attack or blackmail us,
directly or through terrorists, unless backed into a corner,
because to do so would result in his own annihilation.
We have not questioned the contradiction
between President Bush's claim that he will "protect innocent
life" and the Pentagon's claim that, once war starts, "there
will not be a safe place in Baghdad." The Bush Administration
announced it will "shock and awe" Iraqis with the most
devastating bombardment in history.
We have not pinned down the price of
war and rebuilding. It appeared nowhere in Bush's recent budget
proposal. On March 6, President Bush simply told reporters that
he would submit "a supplemental budget request" when
appropriate, and we would learn the amount then.
We have not demanded to know the specific
plans for post-war Iraq. Last month, the Pentagon's Doug Feith
refused to tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which
countries, if any, have pledged to help us rebuild after American
and Iraqi blood stops flowing.
We have not questioned the contradiction
between the Bush Administration's claim that this war will "spread
democracy" throughout the Middle East and the reality that,
if Iraqis voted, a majority would probably pick a Shia Muslim
theocracy like that in Iran. Or why the same democracy-trumpeting
Administration ignores the overwhelming majorities of people
in nations worldwide who oppose this war, as well as the majority
of Americans who oppose war without UN approval.
We have not listened to allies France,
Germany and Russia, or neighbors Canada and Mexico. Instead of
dialogue, our politicians rename French fries "freedom fries"
in the Congressional bistro. We have not asked the Bush Administration
why it has rejected pleas by practically all of the world's religious
leaders, who condemn this war as immoral, unnecessary and unjust.
We have not asked how our soldiers will
be protected from another "Gulf War Syndrome," the
illness that has debilitated thousands of young veterans. We
have not asked how sending our military into conflicts where
it will be shot at and exposed to radiation from U.S. depleted
uranium weapons constitutes "supporting our troops."
We have not asked our leaders how they
will safeguard us from the terrorist attacks that CIA Director
George Tenet warned will be inevitable if we invade Iraq. Why
invade a country in the name of our security when the invasion
itself will increase terrorism?
These questions simply reflect common
sense. The lack of answers should have stopped this war dead
in its tracks. Why are we so passive?
Out of curiosity, when President Bush
and his war council spoke from the Azores last Sunday, I flipped
channels. Every network but CNN doled out motor racing, basketball,
info-mercials, movies. Apparently, these things are more important
to us.
We need better "job training"
as citizens. We need education. History books will flog us for
doing so little to understand the world. We have had unprecedented,
enormous opportunities to learn and inquire.
I will teach my class as the bombs kill
and maim innocent people in Baghdad. I will teach my class in
the hope that the skills my students learn will make them better
citizens, who will ask questions and demand answers before they
let their country be led into war.
It's the most patriotic protest I can
make.
Brian J. Foley
is a professor at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington,
Delaware. He can be reached at Brian.J.Foley@law.widener.edu.
Yesterday's
Features
Jo Wilding
From
Waiting to War: a Day and a Night in Baghdad
Stephen Banko
I Was
a Soldier Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did
We Become an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert
Jensen
Myths
and Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come
On Democrats, Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch
from Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
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