Letters to the Editor

Partly our fault To the Editor: As an anarchist and an anti-war activist, I feel obligated to respond to both Dan Fishback's ("Intelligent opposition to war," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 1/13/03) and David Copley's ("Setting the record straight on Saddam," DP, 1/13/03) columns. I agree with Dan's criticisms of A.N.S.W.E.R. and the organizations for which it is a front. However, as a person critical of the current anti-war leadership coming from an anarchist perspective, I would like to remind DP readers of the role that our own government has played in Iraqi affairs -- namely, U.S. assistance to Iraq as it used chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War, U.S. abandonment of the Iraqi anti-Saddam resistance after the Gulf War and the imposed sanctions which, by UNICEF and other non-global organization estimates, have caused as many as 500,000 Iraqi children to die. It is no "na‹ve" suggestion that it would be blatant imperialism for our armed forces to now invade Iraq, risking young American lives to fight a dispirited army and inevitably causing many more civilian casualties, in order to remove Saddam. President Bush and his oil-business cabinet are among the very few who stand to gain anything from this war. Saddam needs to go, although he is certainly not the only despotic president who has come to power through undemocratic means. If he is to be ousted, however, it must be by the people of his own sovereign nation. Our government could choose to support Iraqi resistance where it failed to do so a decade ago. If Saddam is going to once again use the chemical weapons that our government provided him with, and which he as yet no longer seems to have, it is most likely to come as a result of an escalation of U.S. violence against Iraq. This Saturday, Jan. 18, I will be taking part in a massive anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. Despite my differences with Mr. Fishback's moderate stance, I hope he will be there as well. Dan Ohlemiller College '05 The wrath of pacifists To the Editor: David Copley refers to students protesting President Bush's war on Iraq as believing in "a pacifist worldview." While many anti-war protesters are indeed pacifists, the considerable majority are not; we are simply people who believe that this particular war, as it is being conducted, is unwise, unlawful or unjust. There have been frequent attempts to marginalize the anti-war community with inaccurate stereotyping. Next time I catch someone calling me a pacifist, me and my pacifist crew might have to go administer a smackdown. Just to prove a point. Ian Kaplan College '03

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