Editorials written by vituperative academicians that claim America deserves the wrath of terrorists such as Osama bin Laden are standard fare. The claims in these editorials are illustrative of the perspective of leftist academics disguised as pacifists.
One such editorial by Richard DuBoff and Edward Herman exemplifies the beliefs of the Americaphobic academicians who are an integral part of two of the major “peace” groups-Not In Our Name (NION) and International ANSWER. DuBoff is a professor emeritus of Economics at Bryn Mawr College and a 1988 Socialist Scholar Conference panel member. Herman is a professor emeritus of Finance at Wharton. Both DuBoff and Herman were signers of the NION ad. The newspaper that ran their piece, The Philadelphia Inquirer, disclosed none of this information. The Inquirer would have been all too anxious to mention the affiliations with conservative groups of writers with a different perspective.
The essay is entitled “In its Unilateralist Disregard, U.S. is the Real ‘Rogue State.'” In the essay, Herman and DuBoff claimed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets. The authors then made those attacks the moral equivalent of acts of Arab terrorism. Their ignorance is palpable. By making such a comparison, they disregard Japan’s role in World War II. They forgot Pearl Harbor, the Aleutians invasion, the planned invasion of Hawaii, the September 1945 Japanese plans to spread plague in San Diego, and the fires in the Pacific Northwest states caused by Japanese balloons. They do not even acknowledge that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved more lives than it cost, as survivors of the bombings themselves say.
DuBoff and Herman claimed that the U.S. only acts in the interest of American corporations. Really? What corporate interest was there in helping Muslims in Bosnia? What corporate interest was there in helping civilians in Kosovo? Croatia? Macedonia? Haiti? What about twenty years ago when the US Marines assisted in evacuating the PLO from Lebanon? Two hundred forty-one Marines died during that peacekeeping mission.
DuBoff and Herman mentioned America and the “oil industry.” The communists always cite this. They claim that America is meddling in the affairs of the Arab nations for the purpose of controlling the oil under their soil. Because of this foreign policy focus, the Arabs resent America. First, were it not for America, the Arab nations would not be enriched by oil. Second, if oil were the only consideration, we would have annexed the Iraqi oilfields during the Gulf War.
DuBoff and Herman wrote, “And in the case of Afghanistan, the United States launched a unilateral war of revenge against a brutal regime of its own creation, although none of the 19 hijackers were Afghan and none of the thousands of “detainees” held in the United States and abroad have been charged with any participation in the crime.”
9/11 was not a crime. It was an act of war.
DuBoff wrote a March 26, 2002 essay for Znet in which he claimed that terrorism was somehow a pretext for promoting Republican ideology. This is interesting because a professor who attempted to disassociate himself from the communists in the anti-Iraq war movement enunciated a similar theme. Penn State English professor Michael Berube wrote an essay entitled, ” Toward an Ideal Antiwar Movement: Mature, Legitimate, and Popular,” in the November 29, 2002 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Berube’s essay examined the participation of communists in the anti-war movement.
Berube considers them inimical to the movement although conversely he sees them as integral to it. Berube does not approve of groups such as the Workers World Party or the Revolutionary Communist Party and does not want to associate his pacifism with such organizations. However, Berube wrote “the truly significant danger, for any antiwar advocate, isn’t the Workers World Party or Revolutionary Communist Party: It’s the fact that the Republican Party controls the White House and Congress…”
In like fashion, for Professors Berube and DuBoff, Republicans are a more significant danger than organizations that want to eliminate the democratically elected government of the United States and the capitalist system. They consider our duly elected government detrimental to the people of our country. Is it any wonder that such academicians invite terrorists and convicted murderers to speak at campuses while denying Condoleeza Rice or Clarence Thomas that opportunity?
A veteran of the Philadelphia police force, Mr. Tremoglie serves as vice president of the Pennsylvania Association of Scholars.
