Last Tuesday night, members of the Community Action and Social Justice Coalition and the Movement for Global Justice, two AU student-run groups, met outside the Kay Spiritual Life Center. Armed with cans of spray chalk and cardboard cutouts of human bodies, they outlined the figures in red "to make the campus look like a war zone," according to an e-mail from MGJ to its listserv that I obtained. Way to be grotesque.
According to the same MGJ e-mail, the red outlines "represent dead Iraqi civilians, Iraqi security forces, and American soldiers." All right, well, what message are we supposed to glean from that? Since we have turned the campus into an overgrown Law and Order crime scene, does MGJ mean to suggest that the dead were murdered in cold blood? If so, does MGJ mean to suggest that the terrorist-insurgents are murderers? Probably not, since that would not make a very fitting protest against the administration's policies, so maybe MGJ means to suggest that American troops are responsible for the bloodshed and are therefore no better than murderers? I hope that is not the case, and for the sake of civility, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
Nevertheless, even if MGJ was motivated out of concern for our men and women in uniform and a desire to see them brought home as soon as possible, then their method of expression was grossly insensitive. If I were a soldier fighting in Iraq and I saw such a protest on the home front to bring me and my fellow soldiers home, then I would resent it, even if I wanted to pull out. The reason for this is because MGJ is politicizing the body count, and their political argument therefore necessarily benefits from a higher body count. Perhaps I am alone in this, but I would never want to be making a political argument that could be bolstered by the deaths of more American troops. Say what you want, but remember that freedom of speech does not absolve one of the responsibility not to be crass.
According to MGJ, however, those shock-and-awe tactics were necessary because "traditional protest activities and awareness efforts like vigils are losing their effectiveness." Funny, but a candle never changed my mind about anything. Neither did these red outlines. I do not respond to graphic images. I respond to arguments, but apparently no one in MGJ is capable of making one as to why we should pull out of Iraq. They can explain what they want but not why they want it. Well, let us break out the training wheels.
An optimist may think that we have already accomplished everything in Iraq that we set out to accomplish. We have toppled Saddam Hussein's former regime, allowing Iraqis to draft a constitution and to elect a national parliament. We have introduced democracy and now we can only hope that it takes hold in Iraq and spreads to other Mid-Eastern nations in a new variation on the Cold War Domino Theory, thereby making our own democracy more secure. The best way for the United States to do that is to get out of Iraq because then democracy can begin to work.
Or we could try the Henry Kissinger route. The United States went into Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction. We did not find any, but better safe than sorry. While ensuring that there were no such weapons in Iraq, we also toppled Saddam Hussein's former regime, resulting in ethnic and sectarian violence that has turned the Iraq's forces of aggression inward instead of out at the United States. A civil war in Iraq is actually good for the United States because if Iraqis are fighting each other, then they cannot threaten us, so let us get out of Iraq and let them have their civil war so we can deal with Iran.
Both of these arguments, which come from opposite sides of the political spectrum, are reasonable and logical, which is probably why you will not hear anyone from MGJ making either of them. Members of the protest community, and liberals in general, I guess, seem to have this idea that passion trumps reason, and that is too bad. I say that passion clouds judgment. It is ironic that some students come to an institution of higher learning thinking that they must be passionate when all that does is prevent them from using their minds to the fullest.
Do not let your passion overtake your mind. Learn how to engage thoughtfully in debate. Make an intelligent argument and convince me that you are right. Grow up or shut up.
Jonathan D. McPike is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and the College of Arts and Sciences and is the Eagle's moderate political columnist.
