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EDITORIAL: Keep the war in mind
Editorial | 4/1/08
Posted online at 12:37 AM EST on 4/1/08
For a while it started to feel as if the war in Iraq had slipped from our collective memory. For the past couple of weeks, dispatches from the Middle East were replaced by a proverbial echo chamber of news stories: How would Barack Obama deal with the sermon given by his pastor Jeremiah Wright? Were Geraldine Ferraro's comments race-baiting? How would the Clinton campaign respond? Was Clinton's account of her trip to Bosnia exaggerated? What did Sinbad have to say about all this?
If it weren't for the death of the 4,000th American soldier in Iraq and the fifth anniversary of "shock and awe," it seems as if Iraq would have disappeared from discussion altogether.
To mark these milestones, however, members of the Brandeis community took action by marching through campus in protest, carrying signs that read "End the War." This symbolic action was a positive step in returning our attention to the biggest issue at hand, but it is only a step.
The debate on our involvement in Iraq is complicated and cannot be fully addressed with a protest march. A legitimate stance on our policy is much too complex to be written in Sharpie on a cardboard sign. What does it really mean to "End the War?" A quick withdrawal may end American involvement in Iraq, but it certainly would not end a war.
Viewing the conflict in black and white is what got us in trouble in the first place and has helped put the kibosh on intelligent debate in this country. It's too easy to be just for or against the war.
Now that the candidates have made their stances clear (either leave troops in for an extended period of time, as John McCain would have us do, or remove them as quickly as possible, as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have suggested) the discussion of our wartime policy has been almost completely replaced with domestic issues-the bitter presidential race or the weakening economy.
At Brandeis, we have the opportunity to move our debate about our involvement in Iraq to a higher plane-to a place that goes beyond just being for or against the war. The fact is, there is no such thing as an easy decision here, but it is our responsibility at least to keep the conversation going.
If it weren't for the death of the 4,000th American soldier in Iraq and the fifth anniversary of "shock and awe," it seems as if Iraq would have disappeared from discussion altogether.
To mark these milestones, however, members of the Brandeis community took action by marching through campus in protest, carrying signs that read "End the War." This symbolic action was a positive step in returning our attention to the biggest issue at hand, but it is only a step.
The debate on our involvement in Iraq is complicated and cannot be fully addressed with a protest march. A legitimate stance on our policy is much too complex to be written in Sharpie on a cardboard sign. What does it really mean to "End the War?" A quick withdrawal may end American involvement in Iraq, but it certainly would not end a war.
Viewing the conflict in black and white is what got us in trouble in the first place and has helped put the kibosh on intelligent debate in this country. It's too easy to be just for or against the war.
Now that the candidates have made their stances clear (either leave troops in for an extended period of time, as John McCain would have us do, or remove them as quickly as possible, as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have suggested) the discussion of our wartime policy has been almost completely replaced with domestic issues-the bitter presidential race or the weakening economy.
At Brandeis, we have the opportunity to move our debate about our involvement in Iraq to a higher plane-to a place that goes beyond just being for or against the war. The fact is, there is no such thing as an easy decision here, but it is our responsibility at least to keep the conversation going.
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