News-Letter

This weekend we were given the chance to pay our respects to the Iraq war victims as part of an exhibit called "Eyes Wide Open." On the Beach, hundreds of circles of sneakers and sandals were arranged to represent the civilian death toll in Iraq. Lines of boots were also laid out, each pair representing an American casualty.

Put together by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) with help from the Hopkins Anti-War Coalition (HAWC), the exhibit was designed to show us the human cost of war. In that respect, it was successful.

Walking among the circles of sneakers, I teared up at all the deaths -- but I knew there was more to the story. The AFSC claims they champion "the dignity and worth of every individual [and] the sanctity of human life," but the exhibit never once mentioned the human cost of tyranny.

According to http://www.iraq-bodycount.net, an anti-war website, between 24,000 and 28,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion. While these figures are tragic, if somewhat inflated, far more Iraqis were killed under Saddam Hussein's regime.

Hussein executed political opponents, condoned the rape and summary execution of women and ensured the disappearance of anyone who tried to speak out against him. He gassed and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocents and allowed his citizens to live in poverty while he used Iraq's national wealth to build weapons and palaces.

Without even including deaths from unchecked starvation and disease, Saddam Hussein killed nearly one million of his own people (as well as thousands of Kuwaitis and Iranians).

All told, the number of civilians Saddam killed annually was nearly twice those that have died at the hands of coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents since the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003.

After leaving the circles of civilian shoes, I walked over to lines of boots that represented U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Approximately 1800 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq, an argument that the AFSC uses to protest the war.

As I walked down the rows and rows of boots, however, I saw heroes who died fighting for what they believed. I came across the boots representing Corporal Joe McCarthy, a soldier made famous for a photo of him handing candy to Iraqi children. Attached to these boots was a letter from McCarthy's parents protesting the Eyes Wide Open demonstration. To their credit, the AFSC allowed the McCarthys to incorporate their letter into the display.

"Joe believed [in this war] from the beginning," his mother explained, "After he had seen the condition Saddam made these people live in, he knew what we were doing was RIGHT."

Unlike many Americans who simply mourn their death and honor their heroism, AFSC seeks to use these soldiers' deaths as a political tool.

These young Americans voluntarily signed up to defend their country, and most of them strongly believed in what they were fighting for. Now that they are not alive to defend themselves and their actions, groups like the AFSC and the HAWC have exploited their memories and used their deaths as a tool to protest the war. These organizations have desecrated these soldiers' memories.

We can argue over the merits of going into Iraq and the connection Hussein had to al Qaeda, but we all agree that we are fighting al Qaeda there now, and most of us understand the implications of a withdrawal.

Leaving Iraq would further empower terrorist organizations, proving to al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that his movement is stronger than the United States. As a result, al Qaeda would strengthen its recruiting and fight us somewhere else -- perhaps on our own soil.

This weekend, an American flag was planted on the Upper Quad for each death that occured on September 11. That attack occurred because we were viewed as weak after our cowardly actions during the hostage situation in Iran, our lack of response to the destruction of our marine barracks by Hezbollah in 1983, our failure to finish the job in the first Gulf War and our retreat from Somalia in 1993.

Regardless of whether going into Iraq made us safer, leaving will certainly increase the loss of Iraqi life in the short term and American lives in the long term.

I hope that everyone had a chance to see Eyes Wide Open, mourn for the dead Iraqis, and honor our troops who died in battle. At the same time, let us not forget what we are fighting for, and the cost of our failure.

I hope you saw read the words of Corporal McCarthy's parents: "No regrets," they wrote of their son. "Never forget, freedom isn't free."

--Marc Goldwein is a junior political science and economics major from Merion, Pa.

Article Tools