By his recent activities – “providing estimates of the number of civilians needed to act as a human shield”(“Prof travels to Iraq,” Oct. 21, p.1) – professor Tom Nagy has proven himself a tool in the hands of Saddam Hussein. Despite his purported concern for Iraqi children, Nagy and his cohorts engaged in activities that will ultimately risk the lives of countless Iraqi civilians in the event of an upcoming war. Hussein has previously and undoubtedly will again use civilian hostages as shields to protect weapons plants, “presidential palaces” and other infrastructure critical to his retention of power. Unlike Nagy, these civilians will be forced at the point of a bayonet to “guard” Iraqi defense facilities, where they will be slaughtered during any future bombing campaign.
These tactics are not new to Hussein. In the past he has used chemical weapons in combat and on defenseless civilians in his own country. His regime has a long history of torture, rape and murder against dissidents. An example of this was the 1980s arrest of a widely respected Shi’ite cleric by Saddam’s henchmen, who forced him to watch the rape of his sister before they killed him by lighting his beard on fire. Such behavior is typical of the Iraqi regime. What is not typical is an American professor’s encouragement of such tactics by fostering further ideas for repression in the mind of a tyrant, based on his own myopic perception that the medicine is not worth the cure.
An upcoming war against Iraq would not be a war of repression or destruction against the Iraqi people – that has been inflicted upon them by Saddam for decades. An upcoming war is a war to free the Iraqi people from the yoke of slavery, repression and murder. Any activities that delay this result will only make the process more destructive to Iraq and more deadly for its children.
Professor Nagy’s activities place in jeopardy the lives of any number of civilians. Such activity is morally reprehensible and conceivably violates international law. It is not a question of being unpatriotic, but rather of being idiotic. Despite his reflexive anti-Americanism, Nagy’s tacit encouragement of the use of human shields is grossly irresponsible and borders on criminal. Sadly, those with whom Nagy professes most concern will bear the brunt of his naivete.
-Matt Franker
law student
