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Opinion
The Battalion
Page 5B • Thursday, January 30
Europe shouldn't criticize U.S. war
Germany and France want U.N. weapons inspectors to be given more time
A s President George W.
Bush escalates the
war on terror to
include an imminent attack
on the current Iraqi regime,
Germany and France, accord
ing to published reports from
The Associated Press, have
allied themselves against any
further military operations in
Iraq. Publicly, the two nations
cite
that the U.N. weapons
inspectors should be given
more time. However, just as
time is up for Iraq, time is up
for Germany, France and the
rest of Europe to lecture the
United States about war.
The discipline of history
may not be as trendy or as
popular as business or bio
medical sciences, but surely it has
not degraded so far as to become
irrelevant in the minds of the masses,
especially the enlightened masses as
Europeans like to style themselves.
Unfortunately, it seems the leaders of
France and Germany are either igno
rant of their own histories or have
chosen to forget about them.
It was European countries, the
very same ones that today criticize
the United States, that created World
War I. Their sense of politics facili
tated a system of alliances so inter
twined that the assassination of one
man — a man whom the vast majori
ty of people could not even name
today, Franz Ferdinand — instigated
a global conflict. France and
Germany lecture America about the
value of waiting. Yet, within one
month of the assassination of
Ferdinand, Europe was at war.
According to Emory University sta
tistics, this “Great War” left nearly
10 million dead.
Myopic Europe learned nothing
from WWI and the result was a sec
ond world war 20 years later. Insane
reparations placed on Germany cou
pled with globally contagious eco
nomic depression threw the country
into economic ruin. It was out of
these economic shambles that a
young Adolf Hitler emerged as a
deceitful leader who offered as
scapegoats Jews, Catholics and other
minorities.
Erroneously, Europe waited.
France and England hesitated as
Hitler steadily increased his power.
His grabs for land were met with lit
tle resistance. For Europe, no price
was too high to avoid another war.
Hitler’s ultimate aims were realized
with his invasion of Poland and with
in six years, 50 million were dead.
The indecisiveness and lack of intes
tinal fortitude on the part of
European leadership, as well as its
desire to avoid war, caused the deaths
of tens of millions.
So now one turns to this incessant
lecture on the price of war and the
pragmatism of waiting that Europe so
loves to present to the United States.
The rhetoric of Europe on this issue
is worthless pulp on the international
stage. The sins of Europe may be 60
years removed from the present, and
though history might never repeat
itself, one can be sure that it will
often appear similar.
The United States wants to
remove one tyrannical regime led by
one man in one country that few
could name 12 years ago. This mili
tary action will not result in the
deaths of 60 million precisely
because the United States is under
taking this operation now, and not,
for instance, after a catastrophic .
nuclear attack or smallpox epidemic.
The United States cannot wait any
longer to remove the oppressive
regime of Saddam Hussein. For the
past 12 years, the United States has
been in a de facto state of war with
Iraq. Saddam has routinely thwarted
the cease-fire resolution ending the
first Gulf War.
Whether Saddam has weapons of
mass destruction is irrelevant when
juxtaposed with the knowledge that
he will try to obtain them if he cur
rently does not, and that he will sup
port any nation or organization with
those capabilities. Saddam is a can
cer that eats away at the security of
the United States and thus the securi
ty of the world.
Saddam’s removal will provoke
nothing but economic growth and the
spread of democracy for liberated
Iraqis. Unlike Europe, the United *
States is not so narrow minded as to
not realize the necessity in con
fronting enemies quickly. Unlike
Europe, the United States has not the
albatross of 60 million dead.
America must act swiftly and
decisively to assure that this world is
safe not just for Americans but for all
people. Saddam must go.
Michael Ward is a senior
history major.
igreement.
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Democrats must stop Political correctness
dealing race card oppresses free speech
JERAD
NAJVAR
?. While supplies W
i
r stores
A t the dawn of a
new year and a
new Congress,
one might have hoped
the ongoing debate
about race relations
would be elevated to a
higher level, character
ized by greater integri
ty and good faith on
both sides. Once again,
Democrats and liberals have
rendered that hope piteously
naive.
Of course, they really had
no other option. Still recuperat
ing from a near-criminal defeat
in the recent midterm elections,
congressional Democrats have
reverted to their tried-and-true
strategy: dealing the race card
with absolutely no sense of
shame.
With President George W.
Bush’s renomination of Judge
Charles Pickering Sr., the
smear campaign resumed.
Basing their criticisms on a
single, misunderstood case,
Democrats branded Pickering a
racist. Fox News reported that
the chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus,
Elijah Cummings, called
Pickering “hostile” towards
civil rights, and several
Democratic senators are plan
ning to filibuster his nomina
tion (a move practically
unheard of in the process of
judicial approval). Never mind
that; according to the Wall
Street Journal, Pickering has
always fought for improved
race relations, as a judge and as
a person. He helped black busi
nesses secure loans and helped
direct federal funds to pro
grams that helped blacks. As
county attorney in Mississippi,
he lost re-election for testifying
against the KKK, and was later
supported by two-thirds
of the blacks in his dis
trict when he won a
state Senate seat. The
Journal also reports that
a former Democratic
governor called him
“one of the state’s most
dedicated and effective
voices for breaking
down racial barriers.”
Instances such as this
abound in today’s politically
correct culture, when the base
less claims of individuals or
groups produce a knee-jerk
reaction from Democrats and
others, resulting in the unde
served persecution of those
accused as throwback racists
from the segregated past. For
an example that may be a little
closer to home at A&M, one
need only look at the adminis
tration’s preemptive strike
against Walton Hall residents
for the proposed “ghetto party.”
The Battalion reported that
pointed letters were sent to
Walton Hall advisers and sensi
tivity training was prescribed.
What these two examples
teach us is that we live in a
society in which some hyper
sensitive individuals or groups
provide fuel for self-interested
race-baiters, setting off a chain
reaction in which the truth is
less important than the rhetoric
and good people find a scarlet
“R” emblazoned on their shirts.
A continuing theme of the
Democratic and liberal strategy
has been to use any opportunity
to smear Republicans and oth
ers as outrageous bigots who
long for a return to the “good
old days” before the Civil War.
The worst part is that many
minorities play into this propa
ganda and hold back progress
in race relations. The fact is
that America has progressed
light years in racial harmony in
just a few decades. While some
prejudiced individuals will
always remain, institutionalized
racism has been definitively
squashed, and people of any
racial background have the
opportunity to accomplish pret
ty much whatever they set their
minds to. The disparities in
opportunity that may remain
are small, and the sensational
ism and exaggeration aimed at
stamping these remnants out
are more harmful than helpful.
However, when any little
instance that may or may not
have been racially motivated is
turned into a call to arms by
certain self-interested groups,
when the reputations and
careers of good people are sys
tematically destroyed before
the facts are known, and when
the society of a nation can no
longer conduct a coherent and
reasoned discussion aimed at
improving racial harmony,
progress becomes impossible.
The boy who cried wolf even
tually lost his audience when it
mattered the most.
To come together as a socie
ty and eradicate the last traces
of racism in our nation, the
irresponsible and sensational
tactics of liberals and
Democrats must end. If these
groups want an attentive ear,
they must stop labeling as
racist anyone and everything
that is not in accordance with
certain preferred policies.
Americans of all backgrounds
should demand an end to the
sad era of racial McCarthyism,
once and for all.
Jerad Najvar is a senior
political science major.
T he words of the late activist
Emma Goldman have once
again caused controversy.
Goldman, a Russian-born anarchist,
was deported to Russia in 1919
because of her outspoken call to
refuse conscription, to organize labor,
and for women's rights and free
speech.
The Emma Goldman Papers
Project has been housed at the
University of California-Berkeley for the past
23 years. UC-Berkeley quoted the activist in
its fund-raising appeal for the project. The
administration at the university did not allow
the use of two quotes from the fund-raising
letter. The administrator felt the quotes could
be construed as the university stance on pres
ent-day problems and were too political.
Later, the university rescinded its decision.
The chilling fact remains that even on the
most political and liberal campuses in the
country, like that of Berkeley, the effects of
political correctness exceed normal bounds
and create an oppressive atmosphere for free
speech and opposition to government actions.
The first quote used in the appeal comes
from Goldman in 1915, when she called on
people “not yet overcome by war-madness to
raise their voice in protest, to call the atten
tion of the people to the crime and outrage
which are about to be perpetrated on them,”
according to The New York Times. Berkeley
officials felt the use of this quote would be
seen as the university's stance on the war
with Iraq. “Associate Vice Chancellor Robert
Price removed the quotes because he saw
them as 'expressing a political point of view'
and was concerned that they might be con
strued as university opposition to Bush
administration plans for war in Iraq,” said
campus spokeswoman Marie Felde in a San
Francisco Chronicle article. The university
overstepped its bounds when it censored the
two quotes, even if they did express a politi
cal point of view. The viewpoint was not that
of the university, but that of Goldman and the
staff of the project, including Candace S.
Falk, the director of the project.
The second quote struck down by the uni
versity echoes an irony of the decision.
“In the second quotation used by Falk,
Goldman in 1902 warned that free speech
proponents shall soon be obliged to meet in
BRIEANNE
PORTER
cellars, or in darkened rooms with
closed doors, and speak in whispers
lest our neighbors should hear that
free-born citizens dare not speak in
the open,” according to an article by
The Associated Press. The university
argues it was not oppression of free
speech but a question of the appropri
ateness of the use of such quotations.
However, it is clear that the uni
versity did not want to stand by the
idea of free speech in place of political cor
rectness of supporting the Bush administra
tion. At least until there was press coverage
and a petition by the faculty to “condemn
administration suppression of free speech,”
according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Other professors expressed concern about
other projects and the administration's possi
ble censorship of other materials. “If
provocative quotations from individuals are
censored in university-sponsored materials,
tlie result will be nothing but views that com
ply with the cautious fund-raising sensibili
ties of university administrators. It's a com
plete mockery of the ideas of free speech and
the ideas of academic freedom,” said David
Kairys, a civil rights lawyer who teaches at
Temple University School of Law in a San
Francisco Chronicle article.
The university issued a statement in which
it regrets its decision to delete the quotations.
“(Berkeley Chancellor Robert) Berdahl said
he does not think that a supervisor editing a
fund-raising letter amounts to an abridgement
of free speech. However, he said deleting the
quotes was an 'error in judgment,”’ according
to The Associated Press.
While the university reversed its decision,
it will remain a poignant reminder that free
speech is not secure anywhere even in the
places one would expect its protection. The
university was wrong in censoring the letter
in fear of possibly portraying a political view
and it should take this action as an error that
will not happen again. With the current state
of the world and possible future actions in
places such as Iraq, free speech should
become valued and protected. It is in the
opposition that true American democracy and
values such as free speech are seen clearly.
Brieanne Porter is a senior
political science major.