The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 1991 Page: 4 of 16
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4 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1991 THE RICE THRESHER
Opposition to war rooted in opposition to hatred and murder
Guest Column
by John S. Hutchinson
I am opposed to this war. I am
opposed to our participation in this
war. I do not accept the rationale
which we have been given for our
participation in this war. And I do not
expect that anything positive will
come from it
These are not popular statements
in these early days of fighting.
Already, failure to support our
position has been falsely associated
with a failure to support the brave
men and women in our military
forces. Correspondingly, anti-war
positions are already identified as
unpatriotic. An editorial cartoon in
the Houston Post last week depicted
anti-war protesters in "linkage" with
Saddam Hussein in burning the
American flag.
How then can I make these
statements and
expect to be heard
or even to be taken
seriously? Am I
unpatriotic? An
Iraqi sympathizer?
Or just a naive
pacifist dreamer? I
will tell you why I
oppose this war, and
then you try to
decide which of the
above I am. You may find it interesting
that I oppose this war for exactly the
reason that I am so perilously close
to supporting it, and with all my
energy, anger, and emotion.
Consider.
I have two daughters, Ashlyn and
Emma, ten and two respectively. Like
all other parents, when 1 look into
their faces, I see the veritable hope of
humanity. My children bring me
peace and hope, and I love them
dearly.
For years now, my wife and I have
admitted to each other that, if anyone
were to harm either of our children,
despite our peaceful and rational
tendencies, we would never restuntil
that person suffered a painful
retribution for the crime. And I do
not believe, unfortunately, that she
and I are unique in this deep-seated
potential for revenge. We love our
children, our wives, our husbands,
our brothers and sisters, and we
would not suffer their loss peacefully
or with resignation.
That doesn't sound much like
pacifism, does it? But regrettably,
these are our instincts, and I expect
that you recognize these feelings in
yourself. How then can I oppose the
war?
Imagine that the unthinkable
occurs. These are painful images:
my daughter, on a commercial flight
to see her grandmother, is blown out
of the sky by a terrorist TO W missile;
my daughter's school bus is taken
hostage by an Iraqi nationalist bent
on revenge, and the children are one
by one slaughtered; my baby's
preschool is bombed out of existence
by unidentified suicidal assassins sent
from Iraq. Now imagine my
response... imagine yours. Will I take
this peacefully? Of course not Even
while writing these words, I feel
myself filled with hatred, and I know
I would swear revenge. I would
declare a personal war on the crazed
Iraqis who performed the butchery,
on Saddam Hussein for sending
them, and on the people of Iraq for
permitting it to happen. I would join
the services, and I would kill Iraqis
until I myself were killed. Well, you
say, these are terrorist acts, obviously
illegal and immoral, and certainly not
within the rules of war. You would be
right to seek revenge. Any person
would.
But what if my children's
murderers were not terrorist war
criminals, but instead Iraqi bomber
pilots? Again the images are painful:
an Iraqi bomber, seeking to take out
our communications, bombs the
nearby television station or
microwave relay tower, in the process
consuming our neighborhood in
flames? Now I know the Iraqis can't
This war, because it crosses cultures, histories,
and even religions, will produce more hatred for
the people of the United States than we can
imagine.
accomplish this, but that is not the
point...the point is, what would be
my reaction? I am told that war and
the suffering it brings are "part of
life," something like the flu my
daughter is fighting while I write this.
And in this case, the killing is within
our definitions of legal war activity.
Will I then accept her death from a
military bomber as I accept her
illness, blamelessly and without
revenge, a "part of life?" Of course
not...whether brought about
deliberately as a terrorist act or
accidentally as "collateral civilian loss
of life," the thought of my child's
violent death from this war fills me
with anger, and worse, with hatred,
and worse yet, a blood-thirsty desire
for revenge. And it is real and it is
powerful.
Do you understand yet why I
oppose the war? No? Then consider
how I came to discover these feelings
in myself...I heard Tom Brokaw
quoting exactly these sentiments
from a well-educated and then
friendly Baghdad resident: "if you
harm my children, I will fight you and
my children will fight you forever."
That Iraqi father and I understand
each other exactly.
The point is that war produces
something more lasting than battle
and more sweeping than death: it
produces hatred. And this war,
because it crosses cultures, histories,
and even religions, will produce more
hatred for the people of the United
States than we can imagine. Because
right now, in the rubble of Baghdad,
there is an Iraqi father cradling his
dying baby and cursing your name
and mine and swearing revenge. He
will not rest and he will not surrender,
because you and I would not either.
All our good motives, all our
careful intentions, all our nationalis-
tic pride, all our carefully constructed
coalition unity of purpose, all are
swept aside and replaced by blood-
thirsty insatiable hatred. It is
happening now and it will continue to
grow until the bombs stop falling and
we begin to talk about peace. So long
as that hatred exists, nothing good
can come of this war.
There is one (and only one)
legitimate counter to this argument,
and that is the possibility that the
killings and the resultant hate will
occur with or without our current
involvement in the war, and that, by
entering now, we are limiting the
scope of the lolling that must occur.
This argument hinges on the
question of whether Saddam
Hussein, as the billboards suggest, is
truly the heir apparent to Adolf Hitler
and Josef Stalin (not to mention more
recently Pol Pot and Deng Xiao Ping).
He is certainly that murderous and
he may very well
be every bit as
megalomaniacal.
Butlamnotyet
convinced that he
posesthe threatof
these brothers in
evil, and my doubts
stem from our own
relations with him:
— at exactly what
point did our
leaders decide that here stood the
next Hitler? Certainly not during the
previous Persian Gulf war, during
which we supplied arms and made
loans to Hussein. Presumably not
even as recently as last July, when
ourdiplomatin Baghdad told Hussein
that we had no interest in the Kuwait-
Iraq border dispute and when our
State Department officials testified
to Congress that we had no
obligations or intentions to support
Kuwait. Certainly it was before
Secretary Baker went to Geneva and
permitted no realistic possibility,
hope, or expectation that Hussein
might retreat
What changed our minds?
Obviously, Hussein's invasion of
Kuwait did the trick. Does this
invasion indicate that there are (or
were) greater grander goals of
conquest and plunder for Hussein? I
don't know, but it is obvious to me
that our leadership in this country
does not know either. If they did
know, why did the invasion of Kuwait
so surprise us, despite the fact that in
1988 Hussein signed a non-
aggression treaty with every country
of the Arabian peninsula except
Kuwait? And if they did know, why
didn't they tell us and prove it, rather
than, for example, conjuring up the
specious bogeyman of nuclear
weapons three months after our own
build-up began?
Our leaders may be right, but I
don't buy it, not for a minute. Do you
find that naive? I will tell you about
naivete. Naivete is still believing,
despite forty, years of historical
evidence to the^ontrary, that we can
control the destiny of third world
nations and regions by good
intentions and superior force. The
superpowers have tried: by installing
Statue story as balanced as possible
To the editors:
Atthe risk of beating adead horse,
I would like to respond to Clay
Stallworthy's erroneous letter,
"Larcenists defended" (Thresher 2/
15/91). Mr. Stallworthy claimed that
the article concerning Rachel
Nation's "No BloodforOil" sculpture
(Thresher 2/1/91) printed
information about Tom Karsten
which was not a matter of public
record and which he asked me not to
This is not true: the matter which
was cited in the article was as follows:
"Karsten was a perpetrator of the
theft and return of the Thresher
printed right before Christmas break
("Threshers stolen, returned later
that night," Jan. 11,1990 Thresher)'
Karsten spoke on the record,
voluntarily, to a Thresher reporter
about that event The matter involving
Karsten which was not on record,
and which I did not print, was entirely
separate and unrelated.
Mr. Stallworthy also claimed that
"no one with the Thresher seems to
be interested in telling the story from
the point of view of the accused." The
names of the accused are not public
record — and at the time the story
was written they were not even
hearsay — therefore, we could not
ask them for their story. We didn't
know who they were.
When one person, Karsten, was
mentioned by a witness, Karsten was
given a chance to respond. He denied
any involvement with the matter—I
duly printed his denial. He did not
volunteer any explanations as to
extenuating circumstances, eg., he
did not say the barrel was his
property.
The news coverage of the event
was as complete as possible at the
time the article was printed.
Furthermore, the editorial I wrote
simply assumed that Karsten was
not involved in the theft, since I did
not think it appropriate to assume
otherwise. Tim League, whom
Stallworthy said was involved, was
offered the opportunity to have a
follow-up story written. He refused,
though the Thresher is still covering
the story. The Thresher strives for
fairness in its news coverage, and
will continue to do so.
Shaila K. Dewan
News Editor
our own despots and supporting them
with money and arms (in Poland,
East Germany, Rumania, etc., for the
Soviets; in Iran, Nicaragua, Cuba,
Vietnam, the Philippines, etc., for the
U.S.); we have tried by assassinating
(or trying to assassinate) foreign
leaders whom we distrusted or
despised (in our case, in Iran, in
Vietnam, in Chile, in Cuba, and in
Panama); and we have tried by
outright force and war (in
Afghanistan and Vietnam).
From Korea to the Congo to the
Dominican Republic to Cuba to
Vietnam to Cambodia to Laosto Chile
to Iran to the Philippines to
Afghanistan to Eastern Europe to
Nicaragua to Panama, the lessons
are rather clear when we try to define
world order in our terms with our
money and our weapons on the
people of other nations and cultures,
no matter how noble our intentions,
people die and hatred grows. And
ultimately, in the long run, we do not
win anything but enemies and blame.
Remember that, to forge our coalition
against the butcher Hussein, we
linked arms with butchers in
Damascus and Bering.
But here we stand again,
convinced of our righteousness and
ready for the modern crusade. We
are right, I believe that Our cause is
just, I believe that And Hussein is a
terrible evil, I believe that But we
cannot win, because waiting for us at
the end of the war is a flame of hatred
that is growing now, and will be fueled
by war until it consumes us all.
Do you doubt the power of our
hatred? A few weeks back, in the
midst of a crowd of pro-U.S.
demonstrators in San Antonio, I
spotted a smiling woman dressed in
our colors, a sign in her left hand
asking "Honk if you support our
troops" and in the other hand, a sign
suggesting "Just go ahead and nuke
'em!" The cars around me honked
and the drivers waved, and there was
a feeling of joy and pride in the left
hand and a feeling of hatred in the
right But there wasn't a thought,
savemyown,oftheinnocentchildren
of Baghdad. You may talk to me about
naivete, butlwilltellyou abouthatred.
Mr. Hutchinson is an associate
professor of chemistry.
Conspiracy theory of
war insupportable,
irresponsible
To the editors:
I am livid over David Harvey's
letter in the February 15 Thresher. In
this letter Mr. Harvey declares that
the war to liberate Kuwait is the
product of a "sinister" plot by
President Bush "to rescue his
popularity and to keep defense
contractors in the black." Clearly,
this vicious attack on our president is
preposterous. Mr. Harvey's argu-
ment is incomplete, inaccurate, and
absurd.
To begin with, Mr. Harvey's
po sition is seriously deficient because
he does not consider the possibility
of motives on the president's part
other than political gain. President
Bush has stated several legitimate
reasons for our actions in the gulf. I
will not go into these reasons in great
detail because we are all familiar with
them.
Briefly stated, .... . . .
they come down to Mf. H3IV6y miQllt
1)thewaris just and
2) it is in the united believe the president isbecause °f the
wwintomct ^ ,KJ demonstrated
effectiveness of the
low support for a potential war,
President Bush formulated a hard-
line policy that he knew could lead to
war. Merely one week before the
liberation of Kuwait was begun, only
31% of Americans "felt strongly" that
we should engage in combat
(Newsweek, Jan. 21, 1991). Clearly,
the political popularity of a war was
far from certain when the decisions
were made.
The probability of a positive effect
on the defense industry was, and
continues to be, very low. Forbes
states "the Persian Gulf dispute is
unlikely to generate much new U.S.
business for [defense] suppliers."
(Forbes, Jan. 7, 1991) This view is
echoed by The Value Line,Newsweek,
and The Wall Street Journal. In fact it
has even been suggested that the
war "provides an argument for
spending less
money on new
weapons" (WSJ,
Jan. 21, 1991)
States' best interest
to prosecute the
war. These rwi^nxj, wwi hv weapons we now
rationales are not ,u± u;„ have.
even mentioned by QrOLMClS tO UOUDt tllS The budget
Mr. Harvey. . , .... recently submitted
Although Mr. Sincerity cMCI Cell I tlllTI 3 by the president
Harvey may be confirms these
dubious as to the //3C. predictions. "If
accuracy of these Congress approves
the plan through
two propositions,
he has no evidence (nor does any
exist) to doubt the president's con-
viction in them. Clearly, the president
believes it our our nation's duty to see
that Iraq is not rewarded for its ag-
gression and that doing this will result
in the greater good. This being the
case, it is absolutely asinine to say
that the war is a political gambit Mr.
Harvey might believe the president
is wrong, but has no grounds to doubt
his sincerity and call him a liar.
But even if we, as Mr. Harvey has
done, ignore the president's moral
rationale, his argument is still
unsound. He proposes that the
president's motivations for going to
war were: l)to revive his sagging
popularity, and 2) to prop up the
defense industry. However, at the
time the president took his decisive
action which led to war these were
not likely outcomes of a war with
Iraq. *
A Gallup poll taken on August 10,
1990 (one week after Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait) by Newsweek showed that
only 42% of U.S. citizens supported a
war to liberate Kuwait. In spite of this
1997 "we will be at the lowest level of
spending as a percentage of the
federal budget in fifty years" notes
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.
(WSJ, Feb. 5,1991)
Mr. Harvey is correct in saying
our foreign policy dealing with Iraq
was inadequate. However, our taking
no position on a potential "border
dispute" between Iraq and Kuwait
was a far cry from okaying the
annexation of the entire sovereign
nation of Kuwait When Iraq shocked
the internationalcommunity by doing
just that, President Bush acted
bravely and decisively to correct this
injustice.
The decision was made in an en-
vironment of uncertainty regarding
public support However, our presi-
dent did, and has continued to do,
what he thought was morally correct
and in pur country's best interests.
To insinuate that he lied to the public
about the impetus for his policy is
crass, irresponsible, and ignorant
David Atkinson
SRC '93
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Moeller, Kurt & Yates, Jay. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 1991, newspaper, February 22, 1991; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245777/m1/4/: accessed May 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.