The Clarion

Issue date: 9/25/07 Section: Editorials

Media Credit: Zach Blom Penrose Library, once the site of 'Woodstock West' [Click to enlarge]

Are you sitting down? You shouldn't be. Not as long as we're at war in Iraq.

You might be thinking, "Another defeatist editorial from another leftist journalist."

But this message is not a leftist one; it's an American one. After all, it is a protest, and America was founded by protestors seeking a better life and a better country. No matter your party affiliation, your race, color or creed, you are an American, and with that title comes responsibility, regardless of other differences.

As you read this, young Americans like you are fighting and dying, literally giving life and limb in the mismanaged, misinformed, misanthropic quagmire that is Iraq. As of Sunday, known American casualties approached 3,800. And last week, the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11 came and passed with little fanfare.

No one wants to pay attention to that date anymore. It reminds us of Iraq, of a war we failed to prepare for, and more closely, it reminds us that we are a people who allowed our nation's leadership to go there, unilaterally, with no grasp of the consequences. Like good citizens in adverse times, we believed our government's leaders when they said Iraq was tied to 9/11, supported the "War on Terror," and felt our backs against a wall with the report of WMDs.

And now, with no end in sight, we want to sweep it under the rug like it isn't happening. We don't want to see how ugly we are, or who is pushing us against that wall.

But it is happening. This very moment, it is happening. It's time for us to be good citizens again. And this time, being good citizens means that we must protest. We must protest this ugliness if we are to become beautiful again. If we are to leave Iraq, we must push back against the leadership that put our backs against the wall with lies.

Here at the University of Denver, it's easy to forget that we wage a war on a foreign soil, a foreign people, a foreign culture. In college, it's easy to forget yourself, let alone the world-at-large. But it's time to remember our roots, not just as a nation, but as a student population.

Continued...

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