Student arrested while protesting opposes war with Iraq

Due to what I believe were the unjust actions made by the local police forces on Feb. 26 surrounding a peaceful protest, I was one of many arrested for disturbing the peace. The police claimed I was inciting the crowd by yelling "No War," and I was subsequently arrested and held in a cell at the Medford Police station for a few hours. Ironically, it was actually the riot police who incited the crowd by not allowing us to exercise our First Amendment right to assemble, and by attacking peaceful protestors with shields and clubs. Had I not been unjustly arrested, this was what I planned to say at the rally:

Contrary to what the Bush administration wants the American people to believe, this proposed war on Iraq is a war of choice, not of necessity. This war is not about human rights violations or weapons of mass destruction, it is about changing the make-up of the Mideast.

The strategizing for this war began long ago when the hawks in this Bush administration, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney and the others, were in the first Bush administration. These so-called neo-conservatives believe that once Iraq is given the gift of democracy after an invasion, a domino affect will occur, beginning with the fundamentalist government of Iran falling to the numerous student protests, and that eventually the make-up of the Mideast will be much more democratic and will not allow fundamentalist groups to exist.

Sept. 11 and the subsequent war on terrorism provided the perfect way to steer the country towards war with Saddam Hussein. First, we all began hearing reports that Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague -- but that turned out to be false and it was no longer mentioned.

When the anthrax debacle occurred here at home, there was more demonization of Iraq, with reports claiming the anthrax was of Iraqi origin. Like the Mohammed Atta meeting, this too was proven false when the FBI determined the anthrax was from this country. And now, suddenly, Iraq is an imminent threat with connections to al Qaeda.

Iraq is the perfect country to begin the administration's dreams of re-designing the Mideast. Iran, with confirmed connections to terrorist groups, as well as a known and active weapons of mass destruction program is clearly more of a threat, but among Americans, Khatami is not the best known evildoer, as W would say; Hussein is.

Even members of the pro-war sentiment realize the tactics the administration is using to justify the war. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who has said he supports a war with Iraq if it is done "right," wrote in a piece last week, "I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be very soon. There is simply no proof of that, and everytime I hear them repeat it I think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. You do not take the country to war on the wings of a lie. Tell people the truth. Saddam does not threaten us today. He can be deterred. Taking him out is a war of choice."

Historical precedent is not on the side of Bush -- his family seems to believe that spreading lies in order to bring this nation to war is okay. Prior to the Gulf War, Bush and his cohorts released spy photos showing a supposed Iraqi troop buildup along the Saudi border, only for the world to find out later that the photos were doctored.

Additionally, Bush Senior's administration placed in front of Congressional committees a Kuwaiti woman who told horror stories of Iraqi soldiers entering into Kuwait and removing Kuwaiti babies from hospital incubators and leaving them to die. Shortly after the hearings it was revealed that this woman was related to the Kuwaiti ambassador and that her stories were false.

Yet, it is clearly beneficial to prevent Iraq from having weapons of mass destruction and to help the Iraqi people be free of Hussein's tyrannical rule, but war is not the way to accomplish that.

The administration insists we would be fighting for peace, but war would not accomplish peace. In October 2002, the CIA declassified many documents which stated that Saddam Hussein would not use a WMD in the foreseeable future unless he was attacked and backed into a corner, thus believing he had nothing to lose, the exact scenario a US attack would create.

The report reads, "Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions. Such terrorism might involve conventional means... or chemical or biological weapons... Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD attack against the US would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him..."

Like the "carpet bombing" that took place in Afghanistan, this administration's current war plans show little or no respect for human life and blatantly put civilians at risk. The ideas of Harry Ullman, the "defense intellectual" loved by the administration, are being used to draft military plans against Iraq.

Ullman proposes bombarding Iraq with 800 cruise missiles in 48 hours, or one cruise missile every four minutes, day and night. Ullman also proposes taking out the infrastructure of Iraq in an attempt to make Baghdad unlivable. Taking out infrastructure like water systems, which are not military targets, is simply an attack on civilians. Ullman even advocates the "first-strike" use of so-called "bunker-buster" nuclear weapons to destroy buried facilities, not surprising from a man who has praised the use of atomic weapons on civilian targets in WWII. The possibility that the administration is considering a preemptive nuclear attack is simply abhorrent, and in no way can be justified. Civilian casualties are obviously not even being considered by this administration.

The fact is that inspections work, and they are a peaceful path to disarmament. Iraq is continually making concessions, recently allowing interviews with Iraqi scientists in private as well as the use of U-2 spy planes to gather intelligence.

On Feb. 11, France submitted a plan to the UN Security Council calling for extended inspections. The plan includes tripling the number of inspectors and increased aerial surveillance flights. There has also been talk of sending in UN peacekeepers to bolster the inspection teams.

Additionally, while past UN inspections in Iraq have not discovered every single illicit weapon, prior to their departure, the inspection teams destroyed or made unusable over 48 long range missiles, 14 conventional missile warheads, 30 chemical warheads, close to 40,000 chemical munitions, and 690 tons of chemical weapons agents. Continued inspections will mean further disarmament.

Options also remain to free Iraq from the tyranny of Hussein. Saddam should be indicted for crimes against humanity and be tried at the International Criminal Court. This strategy has proven successful with Slobidan Milosevic who was convicted for his crimes against humanity and is now incarcerated.

It is clear that this war must be opposed, and the people of the world recognize this. President George W Bush said he ignores the anti-war protests; let's make it impossible for his dad not to hear us.

<I>Philip Martin is a freshman who has yet to declare a major and is a member of TCOWI.