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Classroom on the Quad
Welcome and Introductions
Bruce Knauft, Faculty Council

Jim Grimsley, Faculty Council

Purvi Patel, College Council

Donna Wong, Campus Life

Iraq: The Challenge of Responsibility
Rick Doner, Political Science

Weapons of Mass Destruction and U.S. Foreign Policy
Dan Reiter, Political Science

A Call to Words
Asanka Pathiraja, Foreign Policy Exchange

Hearing in Eqanimity: Deciding Your Path
Bobbi Patterson, Religion

The Necessity of War with Iraq
Bob Bartlett, Political Science

The Humanitarian Cost of War
Laurie Patton, Religion

A Man of Honor: The President's Noble Vision
Daniel Hauck, College Republicans

Women: War and Peace
Lili Baxter, Women's Studies

The Morality of War
James Tarter, Students for War Against Terrorism

Speak Up or Get Out
Erin Harte, Young Democrats

War Does Not Resolve Conflict, War Is Conflict
Mark Goodale, Anthropology

A War of Liberation
Frank Lechner, Sociology

A Call to Consciousness, A Litany of Questions
Juana Clem McGhee, Institute for Comparative and International Studies

Student Activism: Ways to Be Involved
Erik Fyfe and Rachael Spiewak, Emory Peace Coalition

Cross-Cultural Communication: U.S. and Iraq
Devin Stewart, Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies

The U.S. Has Never Been Alone in the World
William Chace, University President

Listening to the speeches of our president and top officials, I cannot help but ask, "Have they ever stopped to consider what they sound like to someone who is not American?" They assume that we are inherently more important and more valuable than any other people on the globe. They assume that our power gives us the right to dictate. But most of all, they assume that their parochial opinions and assumptions are necessarily shared by their audience, no matter who that audience is. This tactic signals arrogance, a lack of respect
for others, and a lack of simple good sense. Effective communication and diplomacy is based on mental flexibility—the ability to put oneself in others' shoes, to speak to them on their own terms, to understand their assumptions and rhetorical strategies. Even when faced with a stubborn, devious, and immoral opponent, there are almost always means of negotiation short of a unilateral attack. If lawyers and insurance adjustors deal with such conflicts every day,
why can't our government? We have consistently failed to show diplomatic savvy and finesse and have succeeded in appearing inept and tyrannical, a bad combination.

It is a shame that our leading spokesman, President Bush, seems horribly inadequate, mediocre in every conceivable way except for wealth and privilege. Indeed, it appears to the world that he is president primarily because his father was. I guess we are trying to live up to the example of Syria, that well-known beacon of democracy, where Bashshar al-Asad, an eye-doctor, neatly
took over upon the death of his father. It's good to know that we share something so important with the Arab World.

It is a shame that a small group of officials have been able to formulate our foreign policy, including promotion of the war against Iraq, and single-mindedly push it through with little consideration of public opinion here or abroad.

It is a shame that, because of the administration's rhetoric, a large
percentage of the American public actually believes that the 9/11 terrorists were Iraqi!

It is a shame that we have the strongest military in the world, but flimsy diplomacy. We seem to have a knack for offending our allies. You might object that the French are always getting offended, but what about everyone else?

It is a shame that while our generals boast of our high-precision bombs, able to pinpoint one window on an airplane, some of these same bombs missed the entire country of Iraq and landed in Iran. "Whoops!" At least we apologized.

It is a shame that, despite our historic role in ending the colonial empiresand supporting the independence of nations, the U.S. appears now to be the most tyrannical power on the globe.

The Iraqis I know are of divided opinion on this war. The Shiites in southern Iraq and the Kurds in northern Iraq have suffered unspeakably under Saddam Hussein's regime. They long for the day when he no longer rules the country, and many Iraqis do support the war. At the same time, it should be perfectly understandable that few people look with glee upon a foreign invasion, the bombardment of major cities, and fighting in residential areas. Iraqis have no
illusions; they know from experience the costs and complexities of war. They know of loss, famine, and chaotic killings and reprisals. Several days ago, seventeen Kurdish men were publicly executed in the northern city of Kirkuk. Their supposed crimes were irrelevant—their execution was a warning to Kurds contemplating cooperation with the invading forces. [Many more have since been executed, usually for possessing satellite phones with which they are suspected of communicating with anti-government Kurdish and other forces]. You may recall that our government encouraged Iraqi Shiites to revolt against Saddam in 1991, promising to help them. You may not remember that we then pulled out, leaving the rebels in the lurch. They were then bombed in air raids, rounded up, and
executed by the Iraqi government. I cannot pretend to predict the course of the war, but I sincerely hope that we don‚t repeat that scenario. There is a danger caused by our attack, and there is another potential danger of reprisals if we do not completely topple Saddam's regime.

After Septermber 11th, the entire world rallied behind us; a year and a half later, nearly the entire world is against us. If nothing else, this indicates a massive failure in public relations and a failure to communicate intelligently.

I hope that we learn from this crisis that, as a nation, we must avoid acting and communicating in an arrogant manner. All nations are proud of their people, their accomplishments. All brag a bit about their national beliefs, icons, and cultural traditions. It is not that we alone do this while others don't. Extreme forms of nationalism, chauvinism, and bigotry exist all over the world: in Iraq, France, Turkey, Germany, you name it; by no means do we have a monopoly. Few nations, however, are as oblivious to the perceptions of others as we are. The United States is particularly prone to a bad reception for several reasons. First, the United States is seen as extraordinarily wealthy and powerful. That, combined with some coercive actions in the international arena in the past, makes us liable to be considered arrogant from the outset. We think that we are humble, unassuming, freedom-loving, accepting, easy-going, reasonable, but that is almost never the initial view outside this
country—even in Canada. Our government must always set out to undermine the perception of arrogance, whether we are negotiating a peace treaty, moving troops into a conflict zone, or giving earthquake relief. The Bush administration has failed utterly in this regard, and has exacerbated the problem considerably.

Second, for various reasons, Americans, including our high government officials, have relatively little general knowledge about the rest of the world, including history, geography, politics, and other areas, even sports. We tend to be very weak in language and the knowledge of general culture and rhetorical strategies that would come with linguistic expertise.

Third, typical American speech strategies, including what we would see as honesty or straight talk, tend to come off as simple and naive or, when we are ignoring the beliefs or dignity of our interlocutors, insulting and conceited.

Even worse, because of a lack of practice, our occasional attempts to adjust to a non-American audience come off, in the tradition of Napoleon's proclamation to the natives upon his invasion of Egypt in 1798, like an awkward encounter with aliens. The food and leaflets we dropped on Afghanistan are merely some recent examples of such failures. A diplomatic approach needs to work towards specific goals and adjust the rhetoric to what is likely to work with the interlocutor—whether friend or foe—and not to try to force our views down his throat.

Many Americans, and obviously Bush and his advisors, believed that it was impossible to get anywhere with Saddam without a major military invasion. I believe that we could have done better. Our approach has been determined, single-minded, and inflexible. If we adopt this as a general policy, we will be fighting many wars in the future. By issuing threats and ultimatums, we put ourself in a bind as much as our opponent. We succeeded in severely limiting our own options in dealing with the current Iraqi crisis, when, because of
widespread international opposition, we should have been trying to devise alternative strategies.