GLENDA GILMORE
Prior to the war in Iraq, United States historian, Glenda Gilmore pro-tested U.S. occupation of Iraq in a letter written in the Yale Daily News.Though her column offered an incisive analysis of the events to come, it sparked a nationwide controversy in which she was criticized forher political position and was personally attacked for being an academic engaging in a public debate. We have reprinted here her initialarticle in the Yale Daily News as well as her rebuttal to the controversy, which she gave in a talk to the Yale Peace Coalition meeting on April9, 2003.
Variations on Iraq: Glenda Gilmore
Published Friday, October 11, 2002, Yale Daily News
A U.S. attack on Iraq, which seems inevitable, will be the most craven abdication of democratic principles in our country's history. As I write, the House has approved, and the Senate is debating, a resolution that gives President George W. Bush, in Sen. Robert Byrd's words, "virtually unchecked authority to commit the nation's military to an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation." The Bush Administration recently articulated its foreign policy plans this way: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States." This means that the United States of America may invade any country, anywhere, any time, before it becomes a threat.
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