Posted on 03/04/2003 7:56:54 AM PST by BillyBonebrake
My younger brother is preparing for five months of Army training, after which he may be shipped off to the Middle East to assist in destroying Iraq. A month ago, I returned from a week in Baghdad even more committed to fighting that same war — not to fight in it, but rather to fight against the war. We are, my brother and I, even more opposed than the legendary stories of brothers who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. I had received an e-mail from the president of the University of Baghdad inviting me to join its faculty for an academic conference on peace and the dangers of war and the sanctions. U.S. academics like myself had signed a petition against the war; 33,000 of us signed that petition that led to our invitation to Baghdad. Thirty-five of us flew out together on Jan. 11. I was the only one from Connecticut.
I joined the group, Academics for Peace, as an expression of my opposition to a groundless war and to destructive and largely ineffective sanctions. I am a very proud member of the local Green Party, many of whom generously helped me make this trip, including Charlie Pillsbury, whose congressional run I was humbled to be a part of, and New Haven Alderman John Halle.
Obviously, I did not expect to learn whether Saddam Hussein actually still has weapons of mass destruction. I assume he still has some, and I am still against the war. I went because Jedediah Purdy's passionate little book, "On Common Things," inspired me to become a true civic citizen; because Ralph Nader implores us all to take action. We must do something for what we believe beyond complaining about it. And because my brother and other young, formally uneducated men and women who have read too many romanticized accounts of war will die for reasons none of us fully understand and many of us doubt actually exist.
As a social psychologist, I saw the trip as an opportunity to observe firsthand how Iraqis are holding up under profound chronic isolation, deprivation, and vilification.
I listened as senior academics literally begged me to help protect them and their children from war, spoke with promising young people who had all but given up hope of a future, and observed a rage so close to the surface that it was almost transparent as they shared their utter confusion and hopelessness regarding their situation.
They do not see any compassion or justice right now in either their own government or ours. Yet even those on the streets seemed stunningly able to draw distinctions between United States and United Nations policies that are slowly strangling them vs. the many people in the United States and the world who oppose this slow, and clearly psychological, torture.
If the most educated and well-off in Iraq are that frightened, bewildered, and depressed, how would we expect the uneducated masses to respond to this enormous humanitarian violation?
What they and we are seeing as a direct result of this isolation is a recent and steep rise in the most radical and strictest Islamic practices, which offer them a modicum of hope that the world has not.
This horrendous treatment was designed to hurt one person. In actuality, it is hurting everyone but Saddam, and has been doing so for 12 painfully long years. He seems, by all accounts, to be an extremely mentally unstable man. It is time to truly protect, instead of continue to harm, the millions of Iraqis who are not safe at the hands of any oppressive and violent regime.
All this said, I wish my brother safety from harm as he gets his orders from our government to potentially do great harm to the friends I made in Iraq. The sadness all this leaves me with becomes so much sometimes I cannot breathe. I hear the words of my new Iraqi friend Bassam, a truly lovely and promising young architecture student about my brother's age. His words swirl about dryly in my head. In a recent e-mail, he said that we can no longer write. He told me that we, his new friends in the United States, offer him hope; and hope is a luxury he can no longer afford.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kelly Anthony of Hamden is a visiting assistant professor of psychology at Wesleyan University. Readers may write her at the Department of Psychology, 207 High St., Middletown 06459. Her e-mail address is kanthony@wesleyan.edu.
Do us all a favor and Move over there!
She got that part right. The 101st and friends will do a fine job of it, too.
Must be quite a sandstorm going on up there right about now.
BlueLancer
The Official Møøsenspåånkær of the Nasty Little Clique
Catch this pretentious nonsense?
This female wants others to believe she gives a damn about anything or anybody. She doesn't.
Actually, I pinged you to this as a prime example of what I meant by stupid, stupid women laying claim to intelligence and knowledge.
This one should just go ahead and do both sexes a favor and let her "sadness" choke her.
I read your article, which was published in the New Haven Register, and I am amazed at the position you have taken.
You claim to be an educated person. You deserve to get your money back, because you have not been educated, you have been deluded and deceived. I pity the students that sit in your classes, no doubt you are passing on that which you received.
The freedom you enjoy in this country was obtained and is maintained by violence. We fought 2 wars during the founding of our nation in order to establish the form of government and the freedoms we all possess. Later, we fought 2 more large wars to maintain our freedom. Oh, yes, by the way, we also saved many other people and countries from the bondage of tyranny and ruthless, murderous dictators. We did it with violence because that is the only way they could be stopped.
You are terribly misinformed about Iraq and the threat it poses to all of the world, especially the United States. And the sad part of it is that you were there and missed the whole thing. You consider yourself a formally trained academic? You have a lot to learn about how the world works.
Finally, a good course on the Doctrines of Sin and Man, taught by a true Christian would help you understand these things.
Wake up and wise up,
(silence)
It's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing...
..."And because my brother and other young, formally uneducated men and women who have read too many romanticized accounts of war will die for reasons none of us fully understand and many of us doubt actually exist."
Can you tell she is an academic? She has identified the problem. What is the problem with her brother and his Army buddies? They are "formally uneducated" and thus not privy to the mysteries of the educated initiates such as herself and the other "Academics for Peace".
Glad she cleared that up...
dvwjr
Does that make me "informally uneducated"? I went to college, but I think groups like "Academics for Peace" are a bunch of spineless, brainless twits....
No, it makes you formerly uneducated. Now, you are; they're not. They're still uneducated.
I would attribute this to all of the dust in that particular locale.
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