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 NPR and other news agencies have been reporting on the controversy surrounding Ward Churchill, a University of Colorado professor who wrote a very caustic essay about September 11. Aside from discussing the validity or my opinion of the ideas espoused in the essay, which I will probably do later, I want to quickly give a rundown of the essay and tackle the reality of the free speech situation in America since the attacks of that day.
The gist of the essay says something like this: the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were not aimed at "innocent civilians," as we are so often told. They were aimed at the infrastructure of the American military and economic machine. The attacks were symbolic; this was discussed for a little while when they first happened, but quickly the discussions degredated into the ideas of how the people who caused these attacks "hate freedom" and "what the United States stands for." They do hate some of the things United States stands for, but freedom isn't one of them.
Churchill claims that the attacks were a response to America's strong-handed foreign policy that has caused the deaths of many innocent people - many more than the 3,000 or so who died on September 11. He considers it "the chickens coming home to roost," specifically chickens representing the 500,000 children who have died as a result of America's "surgical" bombing campaigns in Iraq and the sanctions imposed on that country after the Gulf War. 500,000 children is equal to about 25% of the entire population of that age group. These deaths were "widely predicted," says Churchill, and the people who were killed on 9/11 were willing participants in the system that funded, caused, and supported those attacks and sanctions. Therefore, he says, they were not "innocent civilians." From the essay: "Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in and in many cases excelling at it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.
The men who flew the missions against the WTC and Pentagon were not "cowards." That distinction properly belongs to the "firm-jawed lads" who delighted in flying stealth aircraft through the undefended airspace of Baghdad, dropping payload after payload of bombs on anyone unfortunate enough to be below including tens of thousands of genuinely innocent civilians while themselves incurring all the risk one might expect during a visit to the local video arcade. Still more, the word describes all those "fighting men and women" who sat at computer consoles aboard ships in the Persian Gulf, enjoying air-conditioned comfort while launching cruise missiles into neighborhoods filled with random human beings. Whatever else can be said of them, the men who struck on September 11 manifested the courage of their convictions, willingly expending their own lives in attaining their objectives. |
 Anyway, that's enough of a summary, so now we'll get down to the free speech issue. Many lawmakers in the federal government and in Colorado, along with many students and faculty at the University of Colorado, are calling for Chuchill's removal. Protesters, some of whom are Churchill's supporters, others of whom are simply supporters of free and academic speech, have been gathering at the University and other places in the state to express their distaste for the idea of a college professor being fired for speaking his mind. He's been called everything from evil to hateful to un-American, but of course, that's no surprise. He and others on the faculty have received death threats.
Now, let's consider this. The man was expressing his own point of view in an academic environment. Noam Chomsky has (though sometimes unpopularly) been doing the same thing at MIT for decades. Why the outrage over this professor? Is it because Chomsky's been there so long that he has tenure and therefore nobody even bothers to complain? I guess that could be part of it, but also Chomsky's never specifically said something in a public forum that is so detrimental to the beliefs that the war on terror are supposed to be based on. Basically, Chuchill is attacking the ideas that the people who were killed on 9/11 were innocent, the attacks were random acts of terror against civilians caused by people, and that the United States has to "defend" itself against "madmen" who have "no respect for human life."
Whether or not any of this is true, Churchill has every right to express his beliefs. If no one ever questions the mantras that the powers that be want everyone to believe, then how can we ever be sure that they're true? Granted, I don't think that all of the people killed in the attacks were willing participants in the slaughter of innocents overseas. However, many of them were (especially at the Pentagon and some at the WTC). However, I'm a pacifist, and as such I don't see bloody retribution for bloody attacks helping anyone on either side. The people killed on 9/11 may have deserved punishment, but they didn't deserve to die any more than the people killed by U.S. sanctions and fighter jets.
However, did Churchill say that these people deserved to be killed, or just that they weren't innocent? I think he simply said they weren't innocent and that the attacks were an act of retribution, not an unprovoked act of terror. Read the essay, read the responses that are all over the Internet, and judge for yourself. Whether or not you think his ideas are correct or fair, however, remember that McCarthyism was a huge problem for free speech. The Sedition Act of WWI and laws of its nature undermine the very freedom that we are supposedly trying to protect by punishing those who carried out the 9/11 attacks. Some say that people like Churchill are helping the terrorist cause by writing such essays, and that may be true, but Ann Coulter recruits her share as well with statements like "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." That doesn't mean that the Churchill or Coulter have any less right to say what they think of the situation and get a dialogue going than George Bush has, does it? Of course not. I don't know if Churchill will be fired, and I doubt he will, but all that will do is give him more press and the ability to go on talk shows and write books that will be bestsellers. That may be what the press he's getting now will do. So... if they really want to keep him quiet, what they should probably do is leave him alone. Personally, I'm glad he got these ideas out, because they need to be discussed, right or wrong.
Finally, an important couple of tidbits from Alexander Cockburn (the man with an unfortunate last name but a great skill for pointing out the truth):| "And, yes, this is the same University of Colorado whose officials decided last year to take no firm disciplinary action after Katie Hnida and two other women charged they had been raped or assaulted by members of the UC football team, also that Coach Gary Barnett's staff had staged porno movie showings for potential team recruits, also promising them easy sex if they signed on. Once again, two sets of books. For rapists and procurers a wink and a nod;for political commentary, a full press persecution and threats of termination. Hnida told Katie Couric a few days ago that her lawyers are actively pursuing legal sanctions. |
Two sets of books, to say the least.
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