Profs, students speak out against war

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Chronicle Staff Writer

The majority of the world's people surveyed in international opinion polls think America, not Iraq, is the greatest threat to world peace, Montana State University students heard at Tuesday's anti-war teach-in.

A dozen professors spoke out against President Bush's planned war on Iraq. The crowd of students listening fluctuated between 40 and 100 during the first few hours of the 10-hour event in the Strand Union Building. Hundreds more students ate lunch, studied or socialized, oblivious to the teach-in. Still, it was a rare happening on a campus known for political apathy and conservatism.

Franke Wilmer, political science department chair, and Billy Smith, historian, both spoke in favor of France's proposed alternative to war -- flooding Iraq with hundreds more United Nations inspectors to root out Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

"I oppose the current administration's policy of unilateralism and the use of force without exhausting other options," Wilmer said.

Americans like to think of themselves as peaceful people, but the list of U.S. wars and military interventions over the last 220 years goes on for pages, with 19 since World War II, Smith said.

Americans have thought of themselves as the good guys fighting evil ever since the Puritans, who massacred Pequot Indians they viewed as devils and seized their lands, Smith said. The results have often been tragic, he said. Today our motivation isn't land, but oil.

Callie Blackwood, a chemical engineering student, said she felt "a sense of helplessness" because America's leaders don't seem to care what Americans think, even after hundreds of thousands of people marched in anti-war protests over the weekend.

Daniel Glenn, associate professor of architecture and one of the teach-in organizers, said he planned to speak on civil disobedience, a duty described by Henry David Thoreau more than 150 years ago.

"If the government is taking an action -- in this case, a preemptive military strike, which is considered a war crime -- the citizens have an obligation to respond, whether with public protest or some form a civil disobedience," Glenn said.

Charlotte Trolinger, associate professor of media and theatre arts, said a handful of corporations control the news that reaches most Americans. She urged people to seek out independent news sources, such as The Nation, Mother Jones, the international press and nightly BBC broadcasts on National Public Radio and public television.

Robert Bennett, an English professor, said the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned of 40 years ago has grown like it's on steroids. "These corporations are really what's driving these wars," Bennett said.

James Monds, a physics student, said politicians and corporations count on the American people to be asleep. "The real responsibility of Americans is to wake up," Monds said.

Max Deibert, chemical engineering associate professor, argued a preemptive war doesn't fit Jesus' teachings. America should figure out why people hate us enough to inflict terrorist attacks like Sept. 11th, he said.

Reader Comments