[IPSM] Ward Churchill Under Attack

Wed Feb 2 10:20:37 PST 2005

Ward Churchill Under Attack

After finding himself at the center of a media firestorm--and
receiving a barrage of death threats--Ward Churchill, has stepped
down from his position as Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department
at the University of Colorado. Not satisfied with this, Colorado Governor
Bill Owens is demanding that Ward resign his position as a tenured
professor as well.

The controversy is based on an essay Ward wrote soon after 9-11,
which he later expanded into a book, On the Justice of
Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial
Arrogance and Criminality. Conservative protestors used the essay to
force Hamilton College in New York to cancel a speaking engagement  Ward
had scheduled there. The mainstream media (including Bill
O'Reilly and Fox News) has picked up the story, distorting and
misrepresenting the facts, as usual.

AK Press wishes to voice our support for Ward in this struggle--in  terms
of both his well-researched analysis of factors that
contributed to the 9-11 attacks and his right to express that
analysis in public without having his life and livelihood threatened.

Below, we've provided some links to articles describing the
controversy, followed by the press release Ward issued. We also
recommend that you read On the Justice of Roosting Chickens yourself,
rather than relying on the media's version on it.

short essay: http://www.homemadejam.org/renew/archive/2002/2002people.html
book available at
http://www.akpress.org/2003/items/onthejusticeofroostingchickens

Media Coverage:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_3512151,00.html

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3514100,00.html

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/4151452/detail.html
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Ward Churchill's Press Release:

January 31, 2005

In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate
media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has
resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life.
  What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite
of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least  to
the same extent that the fabrications have been.

* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On  the
Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed
chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S.
violations of international law since World War II. My point is that  we
cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in
massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights  and
not expect to reap the consequences.

* I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply
pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and
destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that
destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should"
engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks  are a
natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As  Martin
Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make  peaceful
change impossible make violent change inevitable."

* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in
Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever  wish to
see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence,  especially
that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the
responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United  States
around the world. My feelings are reflected in Dr. King's
April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of
urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, "I could never again raise  my
voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having  first
spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the
world today - my own government."

* In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to  be
U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi
children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on
national television that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I
mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the  deaths
of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed  in the war
in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of
Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the
transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected  to
genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the  deaths of
others, we can only expect equal callousness to American  deaths.

* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as
"Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in  the
World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns."  Adolf
Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring  the smooth
running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi
genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted  by
the Allies.

* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that  a
CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the  logic by
which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have
consistently sought to justify target selection in places like
Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and
control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted  the
Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following  U.S.
military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing,
those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the
attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S.
public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the are routinely
applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the  same
standards are applied to them.

* It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns"
characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it  was
obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service  workers,
firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack.  According to
Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral
damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less  ugly,
painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis,
Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be
treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be
similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only  way to
prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American
citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law.  The
lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our
obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the
"Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions  and
have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the
consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my
family, no less than anyone else.

* These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the
Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for  the
Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human
rights. Some people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but  it
presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public  debate
if we are to find a real solution to the violence that
pervades today's world. The gross distortions of what I actually said  can
only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real  issues
at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic  debate in
this country.

Ward Churchill
Boulder, Colorado
January 31, 2005

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