Why War?
Madeleine Perry

My first contact with the developing protest against the war on Iraq in Washington was seeing 25 Davidson students jammed into the small suburban house of my high school friend Jessica. The power and excitement of the protest was as infectious as mono at an orgy. At one point I heard myself revealing my (more often than not) unwelcome view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. "I should wear my Palestinian shirt to the protest. I want people to know who I support and that the Palestinians are the people we need to be freeing." (Yes folks, I have just officially laid my pro-Palestinian views on paper.) I truly couldn't believe my own words. I was hooked.

The morning of the protest, my father and I took the metro to the Capitol South stop. The evidence of a protest was obvious before we even reached the city. At the metro stop in Virginia, a woman holding a sign with Bob Dylan's picture on it was marching back and forth chanting "No blood for oil! No blood for oil!" I wondered if Dylan knew he was being spoken for. From the moment we walked off the metro, the infamous Jersey turnpike walls blocked any sign of a protest, but, as if a scene out of Forrest Gump ("There's only one thing I can say about…the war in Vietnam…"), they slowly revealed what turned out to be tens of thousands of people -- chanting, eating, dancing, smoking, and more than half seemed to be waiting in line for the port-a-potty.

Though I am no photographer, I was passionately taking pictures throughout the protest -- pictures of children, Vietnam vets, and even Ralph Nader standing in front of a massive sign that said, "Bush never served." The standard speeches attempting to be inspiring and provocative were made, but many failed. The reverend Al Sharpton (who coincidentally is running for president in the next election) and Jesse Jackson both referred to Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech. Jesse Jackson went so far as to refer to the picture good ol' "Dubya" has on his wall of MLK, and Jackson sounded his opinion that the president should hold to the words of the man on his wall -- that we were Martin Luther King's children and we were sounding his voice that day.

The march for the protest started shortly after I arrived and proceeded down Independence Avenue towards the Navy Yard. As we were pulled into the crowds, I saw a boy, about my age, climbing the wall of the arboretum to take a picture. To my own surprise, I also pushed through the crowds, my camera bouncing behind my back, and climbed the twenty-foot wall. The view was truly amazing -- thousands of people with a passion and will for speaking out the truth, walking down an avenue we named Independence. As I was sitting on the wall of the arboretum, telling police officers I would not get down, I wondered how and why this event had become so important to me. I had gone home for the weekend to drive my friend to college, but I ended up being threatened with a citation if I didn't climb down from one of DC's museums at a protest I wanted to avoid in the first place.

The thought that ran through my head on the way back from the protest was this one: most of our parents lived through the 60's. They experienced major events like segregation and Vietnam. Hell, my dad tells the story of how he once burned down an administrative building at his college before he transferred simply to rebel against the war. Our parents participated in rallies, protests, movements; everything our generation has never experienced. There is a certain desire in our generation to participate in those things, even to start those things. When the police asked me to get down from atop the arboretum, I refused; it wasn't a conscious answer, it was something that I had always wanted to do. There was really no reason for it; I wasn't protesting the war by climbing the building or refusing the cops. I was simply making myself heard. After seeing this protest -- trying my hardest not to participate but simply to observe -- I learned that I in fact did want to participate, to protest, to be heard.

If we all remember, our president, George W. Bush said that the United States would not go to war if we could not find significant evidence that Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction." Thus far, little to no evidence has been found, but the probability we will begin a war with Iraq within the next two weeks is very high. Why must our country go to war with Iraq if there is no proof of any of those infamous weapons? Even more importantly, the probability that our country will be fighting two wars at once -- one with Iraq and the other, North Korea -- is mind-boggling. A third point: Palestine is the only occupied country in the world. They are currently on a twenty-four hour curfew by the Israelis in Bethlehem and many other places on the West Bank. Innocent people are being killed on both sides. Suicide bombers threaten the Israelis and the Palestinians' houses are being torn down, leaving them with nowhere to go. No one can live on the street because of the curfew. Instead of going to war with Iraq, why can't we work to find a solution to the most immediate problem in the Middle East?

I will not pretend the Palestinians as a whole are a peaceful people after so many suicide bombings and the unnecessary murder of innocent people. However, how long has it been since someone has gone on CNN and spoken for the Palestinian people? These people have no one to represent them, no one to sound their voice. They are truly struggling and have no allies. The war in the Middle East has been going on for longer than anyone on this earth has been alive and yet, according to Bush, Iraq is a more pertinent problem.

I believe that at this moment, we should not go to war with Iraq or North Korea and that we should not be supporting Israel. We should not be supporting anyone in the Middle East conflict. Rather than providing money for Israeli defenses, we should deny money or support to all Middle Eastern countries. Both peoples are getting desperate and the world is getting worried that no one is concentrating on the real problems or attempting to come to real solutions.

I am not attempting to change anyone's mind. Rather, I am simply asking this of you, my fellow students: if you do not wish to protest, at least observe -- take pictures, write journals, talk with your friends about what our country is doing, what Bush is saying for you. Realize that what Bush does, Americans do as well. George Bush is sounding your voice. Do not only watch CNN and listen to everything they say about Iraq -- log onto websites like www.haaretzdaily.com and www.jmcc.com -- one a Palestinian paper, another an Israeli paper. Log onto these and read about the wars that are already happening; the ones that have been happening for as long as any of us can remember. Find your own websites. Read anything and everything you can about the oppression in Africa, the deaths in the Philippines, the five-year-old children being shot every day in the Middle East, the teenagers behind the guns of the Israelis, the forty-year-old married man with five children who blows himself up for freedom (and read something other than this obscenely pro-Palestinian article). Read about everything and decide for yourself whether Iraq should be the top priority for the United States. Read everything you can and make your own decisions about what should be happening. Don't listen to me. Have your own voice, decide for yourself and make yourself heard.