View the full text of the Students Against War petition (pdf, 188 KB)
(soonersforpeace @ou.edu)
A Message from Phil, OUSAW founder
September 4, 2003
Heya all, Today is my last day in the United States of America. Tonight, in just four hours, I will step onto a plane to be flown to Graz, Austria, where I will spend ten months studying abroad. I have an amazing year ahead of me. But I've also had one that is just ending. Last fall I began OU Students Against War after reading about a faculty petition in our campus newspaper. Within days of speaking with Dr. Holguin, one of the petition's organizers, OUSAW held its first meeting and created a petition of its own. That very same night we collected over 60 signatures, and by the end of the semester, the organization had gathered 2000 names from students, faculty, staff, and other members of the OU community. When we sent the signatures to our elected representatives in the hopes that they would stop or at least slow the war, we joined 10-20 million people worldwide and 1/3 of the American public in our stated opposition to war.
As spring rolled around our group had over a dozen core members and a list-serve of over three hundred. During the spring semester we held one of the largest rallies on campus in recent times, with around 250 people attending, we held teach-ins and a debate, there were vigils and almost weekly demonstrations, films were show, letters written--our presence was made known. On the university of Oklahoma campus, in Oklahoma, in America, there were people who opposed the war. Today, we continue to oppose both it and the mishandling of its aftermath.
Iraq is in shambles. Almost
daily American men and women, wives and
husbands, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters--are
dying. At least 140 US soldiers have died since the end of
the war,
more than the number killed during combat. A week ago over 100
Iraqis
were killed by a car bomb that targeted one of Iraq's leading Shia
Muslim politicians. In the past month alone, this bombing has
been joined by an attack on the UN headquarters and the bombing of
the
Jordanian embassy. Ever day there are acts of sabotage that destroy
oil, water, and electrical facilities. Iraq is in bad shape, and
the
mess is ours. For what?
No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. No terrorist connection has been proven, although now, Iraq is attracting terrorists from the world over. Americans, British, and Iraqis are dying on a daily basis for no good reason. This is terrible. Thankfully, in Britain the insanity of the situation has been brought to the fore and investigations into prewar intelligence, into the lies told to the world, have begun. Blair has lost two members of his cabinet, Claire Short the first to quit, and Alastair Campbell, his director of communications, after the death of David Kelley. Kelley was the source of a BBC article accusing Blair's government of sexing up the Iraq Dossier, and Campbell was implicated. Could Iraq launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes? Did Iraq even have weapons of mass destruction?
The reaction to US and British failures in Iraq has been more subdued in our country. Certainly, Bush has been under pressure to justify pre-war intelligence, post-war planning, and the billions of dollars already spent as well as the billions more requested by the Iraq's US administrator. Our president, however, must be put under more pressure. He must, in short, be removed from office. This is where we need your help.
OUSAW has changed its name to
Sooners for Peace, and with that change
our goals have shifted as well. First, we must educate, you must
educate your friends, family, and coworkers. Second, register
to vote
and have them register as well. Bush must be held accountable
for his
actions and voted out of office in 2004. In addition, demand of
your
elected representatives a complete investigation into pre-war
intelligence, and demand that Iraq be placed under the complete
control
of the international community so that democracy can be established
there as quickly as possible. The US cannot fix this mess alone. Our
country needs the help of the international community in
Iraq. And
here, our country needs your help.
For the past ten months
I have tried to clearly reveal to myself
myreasons for opposing the Iraq war and war in general. I
keep coming to
two: a book, and certain unique experiences with which fortune has
blessed me, and, I believe, potentially everyone. I
was exposed to
both during my one year of school in Colorado. The first, a
book, is
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Go read it. By
itself it
convinced me to withdraw from Air Force ROTC.
The second, experience, are the joyful moments available to every
one
of us that reveal the beauty and awe-inspiring magnificence of life. I
don't quite understand these moments, but no matter. We live,
are
born, and die. We have family, friends, we fall in love and
raise children. In the midst of this, we can listen to music,
we can fall
into music and connect to it, share ourselves with it. We
can read a
book, lose ourselves in it as the tired emptiness of mundane life
fades
away. We can gaze at the everchanging shimmer of the sun as
it plays
with a lake and captures us. What is all this? How
are these moments?
I just don't know. But that we even have them. That
you and I live.
That this even is--this is amazing!
But instead of searching
for
beauty and joy, instead of creating and loving and living, we
kill. We
murder by the thousands. We submit human beings to unnatural
death and
horror, to the torment of watching their friends die and the
unspeakable pain of murdering innocents. We take their humanity
from
them, and we call it support. We have chosen the wrong path
where
there is a right one. We waste whatever This is when we should
be
finding and creating joy with one another. Thank you for an amazing
year. Thanks
for all the help, and please
continue to assist Rachel, Eric, and Amber as they lead Sooners
for
Peace. I hope to see many of you when I return.
-Phil