To the Editor:
Spectator, now for the second time in less than a year, has succeeded to quote me in a remarkably decontextualized and inflammatory manner. In Margaret Hunt Gram's report on the faculty teach-in against the war in Iraq (March 27, 2003), I am quoted as wishing for a million Mogadishus but with no indication whatsoever of the perspective that framed that remark. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that your Staff Editorial in the same issue, denouncing the teach-in for "dogmatism," situates me in particular as the premier example of an academic "launching tirades against anything and everything American."
In my brief presentation, I outlined a long history of U.S. invasions, wars of conquest, military occupations, and colonization in order to establish that imperialism and white supremacy have been constitutive of U.S. nation-state formation and U.S. nationalism. In that context, I stressed the necessity of repudiating all forms of U.S. patriotism. I also emphasized that the disproportionate majority of U.S. troops come from racially subordinated and working-class backgrounds and are in the military largely as a consequence of a treacherous lack of prospects for a decent life. Nonetheless, I emphasized that U.S. troops are indeed confronted with a choice--to perpetrate this war against the Iraqi people or to refuse to fight and contribute toward the defeat of the U.S. war machine.
I also affirmed that Iraqi liberation can only be effected by the Iraqi people themselves, both by resisting and defeating the U.S. invasion as well as overthrowing a regime whose brutality was long sustained by none other than the U.S. Such an anti-colonial struggle for self-determination might involve a million Mogadishus now but would ultimately have to become something more like another Vietnam. Vietnam was a stunning defeat for U.S. imperialism; as such, it was also a victory for the cause of human self-determination.
Is this a tirade against "anything and everything American"? Far from it. First, I hasten to remind you that "American" refers to all of the Americas, not merely to the United States, as U.S. imperial chauvinism would have it. More importantly, my rejection of U.S. nationalism is an appeal to liberate our own political imaginations such that we might usher in a radically different world in which we will not remain the prisoners of U.S. global domination.
Nicholas De Genova
March 27, 2003
The author is an assistant professor of anthropology and latina/o studies

Most of those heading to Baghdad are of fighting age, with every intention of joining the military. At a roadside restaurant near the border, they sing defiantly about what a fine thing it would be to be martyred in their homeland.

It is true that Vice President Al Gore flew to Japan to take part in the final, grueling negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and that he was much applauded for taking such a political risk. It is true that Gore signed on to the treaty, which committed the United States to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels by the year 2012, even as India and China assumed no commitments whatever.

But Gore didn't really mean it, he explained when he returned to Washington. The administration did not intend to submit the treaty for Senate ratification. Even as it signed the document one year later, it called it a "work in progress"; the signing, The Post explained at the time, was "a largely symbolic act." Beyond promising that new technologies would reduce greenhouse gas emissions without causing any economic pain, the administration never put forward a plan to reach Kyoto targets.

When it came to the International Criminal Court, Clinton was as worried as Bush about exposing American soldiers to international jurisprudence. He was dissatisfied with concessions his negotiators extracted in the final treaty; he complained about its "significant flaws." But again he signed it anyway -- to "reaffirm our strong support for international accountability," he said. Then he said he wouldn't submit the treaty for Senate ratification and would recommend that Bush not do so either.

Clinton was committed to the ABM Treaty with Russia, the primary purpose of which was to outlaw national missile defense. But Clinton also spent much of the last two years of his presidency unsuccessfully trying to persuade the Russians to redefine the treaty precisely to permit national missile defense. "One way or another," Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, told his Russian counterpart, according to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, "NMD was almost certain to proceed."

But it's also fair to ask whether Clinton's fudges would not sooner or later have proved untenable. It wasn't for lack of sincere diplomacy that Clinton failed to persuade Russia to bless U.S. national missile defense, or Europe to modify Kyoto or the ICC. Nor did he manage to win U.N. approval for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Kosovo.

In each case, the refusals had to do with foreign fears of America's unique place in the world, with resentment of its status as lone superpower, unrivaled in military and economic might. Clinton was more eager than Bush to assuage that resentment, but he was hardly more willing to shackle America's economy or cede judicial control over its troops abroad to do so. To misremember the history now understates the challenge America faces in the world, especially after Iraq, no matter who is president.

>From: Lena.E.Previll@Dartmouth.edu (Lena E. Previll)
>Subject: QuEER bAr NiGHt
>Date: 31 Mar 2003 14:24:10 -0500
>Bulletin Topic: Activities for Students
>Expires: 5 Apr 2003 14:23:44 -0500

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The American military has been asking the Israeli army for advice on fighting inside cities, and studying fighting in the West Bank city of Jenin last April...The American military has been asking the Israeli army for advice on fighting inside cities, and studying fighting in the West Bank city of Jenin last April. ... Using bulldozers, the Israeli army demolished an entire neighbourhood – home to 800 Palestinian families – reducing it to dust and rubble.

Fox News had its own response to the demonstrators. The news ticker rimming Fox's headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn't carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators, chiding them. "War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!" read one message. "Who won your right to show up here today?" another questioned. "Protesters or soldiers?" Said a third: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them." Still another read: "Attention protesters: the Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street" - a reference to the film maker who denounced the war while accepting an Oscar on Sunday night for his documentary "Bowling for Columbine." The protesters said Fox's sentiments only proved their point: that media coverage, in particular among the television networks, is so biased as to be unbelievable.

Columbia, of course, couldn't summon the courage even to address what its hireling had said - let alone condemn it.... But isn't De Genova himself a representative of Columbia University? He's on the faculty. Along with a gaggle of Columbia-based lefty lugnuts, he was speaking Thursday night as a professor, on university property, largely to university students - when he called down disaster on thousands of brave young Americans.

"Under well-established principles of the First Amendment, this is within a person's right to free speech," Lee C. Bollinger, the president of Columbia, said in an interview. "Not for a second, however, does that insulate it from criticism. I am shocked that someone would make such statements. I am especially saddened for the families of those whose lives are now at risk." ..."Professor De Genova's speech did not represent the views of the organizers," said Eric Foner, a history professor who was one of the teach-in's organizers. "I personally found it quite reprehensible. The antiwar movement does not desire the death of American soldiers. We do not accept his view of what it means to be a patriot. I began my talk, which came later, by repudiating his definition of patriotism, saying the teach-in was a patriotic act, that I believe patriots are those who seek to improve their country."