With a stark ultimatum from President Bush expiring Wednesday evening and no sign of abdication from Baghdad, all indications are that war is unavoidable between the “coalition of the willing” and Iraq.
The war, remarkable for its pre-emptive justification, has stirred emotional reactions across the world, including the campus of Fairfield University.
Professors sign anti-war petition
In just one day, an online petition for faculty and staff members attracted 80 signatures. The petition quotes a statement from the Jesuit order that states, “The doctrine of pre-emptive war is neither in accordance with UN doctrine and law, nor morally defensible.”
Prominent faculty members, including former recipients of the “Teacher of the Year” award, have signed the petition. Dr. Joy Gordon, a vocal critic of UN resolutions for the harm they cause to innocent Iraqis, was vital to the establishment of the petition, according to one professor.
“As a Jesuit university, it is important for Fairfield to address [a pre-emptive war against Iraq] as one of the most pressing moral issues of our time,” said Gordon.
“A pre-emptive war of this sort … one that is based on the most tenuous evidence [of a threat] is clearly prohibited under the UN Charter,” said Gordon.
President Bush said on Monday that the United States has “pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war.” Bush directly addressed the Iraqi people on Monday night as part of a deliberate effort to paint the Americans as an army of liberation.
However, the immediate impact of a war on the citizenry of Iraq could be terrible, said Dr. Gordon. She said the humanitarian devastation in the event of a war will be overwhelming, citing a January internal report by UN humanitarian organizations. Interruption of food aid with 30 percent of Iraqi children already “so marginal” could be devastating, Gordon said.
Electrical grid interruption, a likely target of coalition aircraft, can render water and sewage treatment plants inoperable. This would cause the spread of cholera, typhoid and dysentery, according to Gordon.
Gordon said that another concern of humanitarians is that the population of Iraq is in poorer health than during the 1991 war and suffers from poorer nutrition and emergency resources.
Gordon said it was “striking how positive faculty response has been” to the petition that began on Tuesday.
A historic moment
President Bush failed to convince some members of the United Nation Security Council that there was justification to pursue military action against Iraq preemptively, the so-called Bush Doctrine. On Monday night, Bush told the American people that the time for diplomacy was over.
“The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage,” Bush said. Speaking from the White House, the president said that his coalition of the willing has “the resolve and the fortitude to act against this threat to peace.”
The nature of that threat and what the warranted response might be produces disagreement. “I thought he did a really good job and I disagreed with everything he said,” said Dr. John Orman of the politics department.
“In terms of the American presidency he’s getting ready to establish doctrine that we can attack a nation in a preemptive strike, which changes [the role] of the American commander in chief,” said Orman.
In October 2002, Congress authorized the president to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and “enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.”
“The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities,” Bush said on Monday, “so we will live up to ours.”
“Everything depends on the outcome of the war,” Orman said. “Nobody knows what will happen.”
Business as usual on campus?
In response to the impending war with Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security raised the national terror alert to “Orange” or High. As of the time of publication, there is no plan to resume a level of higher alert on campus as was enacted in mid to late February.
“We are evaluating the situation with administrators and others,” said Frank Ficko, the associate director of security. “If we need to take other precautions, we will.”
The university responded to the last “Orange Alert” in February by limiting entry points to campus and asking students to be aware of suspicious activity. Normal campus operations were resumed on Feb. 28, as the terror alert was lowered nationally.
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