After listening to two hours of these "intellectuals" pontificate on the evil America has done in Iraq and other nations, I now see the light and am convinced that America has no right to attack Iraq or to oust Saddam Hussein. After all, if Saddam is not behaving himself it is probably because he had a bad childhood and his country is constantly under attack by money-grubbing capitalists who only want to exploit him for his oil and kill Iraqi children.
I learned things last Monday that I had never heard before -- anywhere. In fact, I learned so much that I had to limit this column to the top five things I learned at the "No War in Iraq" teach-in:
1. CNN and The New York Times are examples of "right-wing" media organizations. I was surprised to learn that the two media sources I always considered to be the most liberal, CNN (aka the Clinton News Network) and The New York Times, are in reality nothing more that mouthpieces for President Bush and the Republican Party. This is according to a number of speakers at the "teach-in" who referred to these and other mainstream media organizations as "right-wing." Apparently all of the anti-Bush editorials that have appeared in The New York Times during the last couple of years are just figments of my imagination.
2. Hippie activists don't like to bathe. Ronald Reagan once said, "A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah." He must have been to a UNC teach-in. After taking my seat in 209 Manning Hall, I was overcome by a terrible odor. My first instinct was to check under my seat for a dead animal carcass, but upon further exploration I discovered the odor was emanating from those around me. I guess it was just part of the Vietnam War-era atmosphere the teach-in organizers sought to emulate. Or maybe everyone in the audience was French.
3. John Edwards is really a conservative Republican. Apparently North Carolina's junior senator, John Edwards, is nothing more than a conservative Republican masquerading as a liberal Democrat. Teach-in speakers routinely lambasted Edwards for his support of Bush in the war on terrorism and encouraged attendees to call Edwards' office to encourage him to oppose taking military action in Iraq. "We need to be blowin' up his phone," said Ajamu Dillahunt, a member of the socialist group Black Workers for Justice and a speaker at the teach-in.
Man, talk about poor word choice.
4. Blacks are not really patriotic. "I would argue that some of the patriotism you see among black folks is fear," said Dillahunt, the only black speaker at the teach-in. "There may be some (patriotism), ... but it's not the predominant opinion." I guess that means Outkast's "Bombs Over Baghdad" and the thousands of African-American soldiers who defend our country every day are really only motivated by fear, not patriotism.
5. Americans, not Saddam, are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent women and children in Iraq. "Put yourself in Saddam's shoes," said Rania Masri, coordinator of the Iraq Action Coalition and the most vocal opponent of American intervention in Iraq at the teach-in. "We (Americans) have killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever thought possible, specifically through sanctions." She went on to claim that the United States-supported sanctions have caused the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi women and children due to starvation and lack of other items.
She must have just forgotten to mention that sanctions do not prohibit necessities such as food and medicine from entering Iraq and that Saddam has instead reportedly funneled millions of dollars for such items to the families of Palestinian terrorists instead of using it to save his own citizens.
