Maybe Arshad Hasan speaks a bit too loudly. Maybe his views are a bit too leftist to garner the support of many of his politically moderate or apathetic classmates. Maybe his righteous indignation is too reminiscent of the woebegone days of the late '60s. Whatever the reason, Hasan has created a fury at Starbucks. Leaning ever so slightly over the small Starbucks table, Hasan loudly states, "Ari Fleischer is one creepy man, let me tell you." Hasan has a twofold qualification for such a statement: first, that he himself is a liberal and second, that Fleischer has a "smug way of covering shit up." This statement is enough to send the surrounding Republican coup into an uproar. "No, no. You got the Republicans all wrong," exclaims John Yau, a recent Penn graduate, who has been sitting to Hasan's right and eavesdropping from behind his laptop. "Honestly, honestly, I would rather have the Republicans in control," he continues. "You should be hawkish in your stance, so you basically force [Iraq's] hand. You want to be aggressive in this situation. Being passive doesn't do anything." Hasan finds himself on familiar terrain: defending his liberal political views against an enigmatic, conservative foe on campus. Yet this time, it is more like -- to reference an outdated phrase -- conservatism with a human face. "I disagree. I disagree." "Why?" interjects Amy Khojasteh, who has been sitting with her sister at a nearby table. She has been listening to everything Hasan has said up to this point -- his views regarding campus support, or lack thereof, of the anti-war cause, the hawkishness of the Republicans, his general mistrust of Bush and, of course, his condemnation of Fleischer. And, although the couple who had been sitting directly behind has already left due to what Hasan was saying, she has decided to stay and confront this rather proud liberal. "Why?" she indignantly repeats. As the former president of Penn College Democrats, a prominent member of the Penn ACLU and a frequent guest columnist for The Daily Pennsylvanian, Hasan is more than equipped to defend his views regarding the impending war with Iraq. But he is the first to concede, "It isn't as dichotomous as being passive and hawkish." The polls reinforce Hasan's understanding of war support. At the end of November, the students of Public Opinion and Democracy, an upper-level Penn political science class, conducted an e-mail poll of 289 randomly selected full-time university undergraduates. 69.8% of those polled supported U.S. intervention in Iraq when qualified with conditions, such as having the support of the U.N. and the results of the weapons inspections. For many, the question, at least as it stands now, is not as clear-cut as extreme bipartisan politics may have one believe. This leaves a rather large population of students on the fence and student activist groups anxious to find potential supporters. • A gray Philadelphia haze has taken its customary place over the morning skyline. Even so, David Copley, the precocious sophomore who is chairman of the Penn College Republicans, is wide awake. Because he is in ROTC, 9:30 a.m. might as well be high noon. But as writer of the DP column "Right on Target" and a vocal pro-war advocate, he is not at liberty to discuss or even affirm his affiliation with the United States military. Nonetheless, his perfectly level flattop and his unabashed patriotism -- represented by a small, ever-present American flag pin on his breast -- say enough.
In his first column of the semester, Copley wrote, "Some people are truly evil; they are concerned solely with their own well-being and quest for power. Saddam Hussein is one of these people." For Copley and his Republican colleagues, Hussein represents an irrational tyrannical force with chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction, not to mention ties to al Qaeda. He is not only a threat to national security, but also an anti-humanitarian, whose regime is reminiscent of Stalinist Russia. Recently, the pro-war side has found its most eloquent and cogent defender in Kenneth Pollack, who recently released The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. Pollack, a former military analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, has a status that warrants his analysis a legitimacy that perhaps Bush's or Fleischer's does not have. On this campus, however, no professors or faculty have volunteered to debate the pro-war side or conduct a teach-in. Copley thus represents one of the few visibly vocal proponents of U.S. military action in Iraq. His DP columns reach an audience of upwards of 30,000 people and -- as the chairman of the Penn College Republicans -- he represents the conservative student agenda. Despite appearances however, Copley is not alone. Many people, like Amy Khojestah and John Yau for example, may have very strong pro-war sentiments, but have yet to find the appropriate outlet for them. For Copley, it is because of this that he feels an almost moral obligation to speak up. So it is not surprising that tomorrow, he will argue for the pro-war administration in a debate sponsored by the Penn Forum. His opponents debating the anti-war side? Arshad Hasan and Spencer Witte. Wearing a Temple baseball team jacket, College junior Spencer Witte is not what he appears to be. He is a third-baseman for the Penn baseball team and a prominent member of Penn Students Against War in Iraq. He is soft-spoken, yet he sounded off at an anti-war rally at City Hall in November. He is an upper-middle class suburbanite who visited Baghdad last month to meet and speak with Iraqi students. Whatever confusion his background might cause, none is reflected in the confidence with which he talks about his anti-war views. His skepticism regarding the impending war with Iraq is informed by a proactive approach to self-education: "I read a lot of books coming from both a pro-war and an anti-war perspective, listened to conservative radio. And it's an educated decision based on a lot of different issues and inconsistencies with our recent history with Iraq." Those inconsistencies may lie within Bush's continued talk of unilateralism and the alleged links between Hussein and al Qaeda.
This anti-war rationale is not unique to Witte. Penn Students Against War in Iraq, although by no means captured by one voice, would agree that they too are critical of the Bush administration's lack of evidence supporting an attack on Iraq. The group is not to be confused with the similar, yet ideologically broader Penn for Peace. Witte explains, "[PSAWI] is single-issue oriented whereas Penn for Peace takes a more holistic approach, tackling larger issues of militarism and various other social issues." There is, however, a lot of overlapping membership between the two groups and Penn for Peace works with PSAWI in promoting their anti-war agenda. PSAWI combines both education and protest into one ad hoc agenda. They promote dialogue through teach-ins, debates and, for those decidedly anti-war, rallies. The underlying premise is education, not indoctrination. Their agenda is thus both meant to attract those already in the anti-war camp and the 69.8% of students who are on the fence. Protests -- which seem to represent the radical anti-war supporters -- attract the most attention and perhaps alienate the less politically active students. Unfortunately for the anti-war groups, this may be an irreversible trend and thus bodes poorly for attracting new members. Current anti-war protesters have inherited a tradition and mode of activism born out of the turbulent '60s. These activists have become somewhat of an anomaly, an homage to the day when protesting was not only popular, but socially relevant. Today, the political landscape has vastly changed. Americans find themselves in a period of "conservative hegemony" as Professor Sheldon Hackney -- who teaches a honors history seminar entitled "The Sixties" -- puts it. "I'm not quite so sure that apathy is the right word for student attitudes," Hackney says. "It's just that they feel about like society as a whole does, which is a very conservative mood." Perhaps, it is this very mood that deters many students from becoming politically active. Moreover, students have inherited a general mistrust of politicians and front-page reporting from the Vietnam era -- making them largely ambivalent, not knowing what information to trust, whether it is from the media or the very lips of the president. • Heather Sharkey is a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies who teaches an introductory course on modern Middle Eastern history. Because of her academic background, many look to her for answers regarding the current situation in the Middle East. Sharkey, however, is profoundly torn. "On the one hand I'm supposed to be this Middle East expert and I give lectures on Middle Eastern history and I do understand the historical context," she explains. "On the other hand, I'm reading or listening to or watching the same news that everyone else is watching." Her ambivalence is due to a deep-seeded concern on various levels: "I'm concerned about the lack of American worldwide support. I am concerned about the consequences of the war for the Iraqi people and for the long-term perception of the U.S. in the eyes of Middle Eastern audiences." Sharkey also admits, "Everybody knows that [Hussein] is a despot. He has done horrible things to his own people. He has a highly repressive regime. And he's thrown lots of people into prison. He's a megalomaniac." Sharkey realizes the viability of both the anti-war and the pro-war sides and has yet to make up her mind. And although few share her depth of understanding of the Middle East, it seems, at least according to the polls, that many can relate to her confusion and concern. There is a certain irony in the fact that we live in the so-called "Information Age" and yet, many feel misinformed or ignorant of the truth regarding situations such as war. Political Science Professor Art Shostak understands this dilemma. When confronted with the prospect of war in the Middle East, Shostak chose to educate. Instead of combating ignorance with teach-ins, he created, on an emergency basis, a seminar entitled "War and Peace: American, Terrorism and the Crisis in Iraq." The course is the only of its kind, taught by a team of 24 professors (including Sharkey), working on a pro bono basis, presenting lectures in their specific fields. Like Copley, the greatest challenge Shostak has encountered is the absence of faculty willing to lecture on the pro-war administration's side. Their absence is both puzzling and disheartening to those students searching to understand both sides of the argument. Moreover, what about those students who cannot partake in Shostak's course (with the class size limited to 25 students)? Websites such as www.truthout.org and message boards, like the one sponsored by the leftwing independent organization Solidarity4ever, provide a wealth of resources and opinions, with anti-war undertones, for those with liberal leanings. Online copies of the decidedly right wing National Review and Weekly Standard provide arguments supporting the pro-war administration. There is no scarcity of opinions online. And if subjectivity is achieved solely by listening to one voice, then objectivity is achieved through listening to many voices. Perhaps the truth lies in time. The conditional nature of most polls reveals the reluctance of people to make a decision before all of the currently unfolding events take their course. And this is in accordance with the historical trend of anti-war protest: a strong opposition to the Vietnam War did not materialize until at least three years into it. This impending war with Iraq, however, is clearly different from those wars of the past. This is the first time protests have begun before the actual fighting. And there seems to be a large number of people who would support the president, if his argument for going to war solidifies and evidence for his claims become more readily available. But between now and then, Penn students -- as well as the entire country -- are left seeking answers. Hackney, a self-professed "liberal-centrist," offers one final thought: "Even if [the Bush administration] does not have evidence, it may even be true that the world would simply be better off in the long run without Saddam Hussein there; how ever we get rid of him. But the cost of that is what worries me"
