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As discussed, we have been looking at Marquette University’s, and specifically the “Theology” Department’s, newest faculty member, Saddam Hussein-supporter Simon Harak.

Proquest, and the internet, is a beautiful thing.

Daniel did a great job detailing a number of arrests arising from public demonstrations by Harak and his assorted organizations.

Now for a glimpse of what Proquest had to offer on Harak.

For those without Marquette’s Proquest access, a number of stories on Harak may be downloaded from here. I will comment on several.

First, on a non-Harak note, get this bit about the FY07 Budget bill from a Mar 25, ‘06 article from People’s Weekly World titled “Senators pass Bush ’steal from the poor’ budget’:

The Bush budget includes $700 billion to privatize Social Security and $6.3 billion in immediate Social Security benefit cuts, $13.7 billion in cuts to Medicaid, the largest cuts in federal aid to education in history, and termination of child care benefits for 400,000 children. It contains $900 billion in tax cuts for the richest 1 percent of taxpayers over the next 10 years.

Somehow I must have missed that news event where the government stopped driving Social Security into the ground and reverted the power of citizens to run their own lives, and retirements, back to the people themselves. Etc.

The second story gets us going in the right direction. “An Arab-American Priest, Depleted Uranium, and Iraq” from the Nov 2005 edition of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

It begins:

Traveling around southern Iraq in the late 1990s to investigate the effects of U.N. economic sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, Jesuit Father Simon Harak stopped at a hospital in Basra.

Wait — stop right there. Basra? The same Basra in southern Iraq where Saddam drained the wetlands, destroying the economic and social infrastructure to enhance his political power? Ok, continue.

Harak speaks about birth defects, etc, found at the hospital his contacts have brought him to:

“Given the fact that there is an incubation period [after the Persian Gulf War] involved here,” he pointed out, “we shall soon be seeing the second wave of cancer and birth defects as a result of that war.”

Naturally, it’s America’s fault, for Harak. Listen to this bit where he pretends to act like a scientist:

“Depleted uranium,” he explained in his methodical, professorial way (having once taught ethics at Fairfield College), “is 60 percent radioactive. It is also heavy metal toxic. It is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process of nuclear weapons production from which uranium’s most radioactive isotope, U235, is recovered for re-use in new fuel rods.”

Ever think that these deformities could be, perhaps, an effect of the chemical weapons that Saddam used not only in the Iran-Iraq War, but also against his own people? No, of course not.

Harak used the case of Basra to illustrate how the damage was done.”Basra is on a river,” he noted. “A DU shell poisons the water in a river. It poisons the grasses and the grains. [...]

A river that has probably been 1) drained to the point where only toxins remain in the first place and 2) probably already poisoned by Saddam as a weapon of genocide.

When a baby is born in Basra, the doctors said, the first question the mother asks her obstetrician is: “Is it all right?”

Is the baby alright? Is that somehow radically different from the rest of human civilization? Oh wait, Democrats probably ask why the doctor delivered the baby instead of … well, you know.

Lacking in the late ’90s … were scientific studies … that would prove conclusively that there was uranium in the blood of deformed children and cancer victims.

So are you just assuming that it is uranium? And also that it is from some mystic American military force?

Catholics always took so seriously the words of Jesus when he said, ‘This is my body.’ But Jesus also said, ‘Love your enemies.’ That, unfortunately, was never taken so seriously.”

Looks like Saddam took pretty good care of those Israeli, Iranian, and Kuwaiti enemies of his. Must have been some kind of Ba’athist “tough love” strategy.

Again, no mention in the article of the atrocities, including chemical and biological weapons-use, against the Iraqi people themselves. Not even evidence that the deformities he witnessed - which I’m sure really did exist - were from the “depleted uranium” he claims were used.

The third story is from a list of what appear to be quick news blurbs from The Commercial Appeal of Memphis from Oct 21, 2004.

Christian scholar and Jesuit priest Father Simon Harak will be in Memphis for events today and Sunday where he will address how military action challenges people of faith.

“We hear much about occupation these days,” Harak said. “The U.S. supports the ongoing occupation of Palestine and is in military occupation of Iraq. What’s a person of faith to do?”

Actually, we really don’t hear a lot about occupation these days. Tibet? Bueller, Bueller, anyone, anyone? We only hear about American invasions that overthrow dictatorships.

I really, really can’t wait until Harak starts to shoot his mouth off on Palestine. I would like to hear responses to several questions from Harak regarding Palestine/Israel:

1) Does Israel have a right to exist?
2) Is suicide bombing justified on behalf of the Palestinians?
3) Did the Holocaust happen? If so, do you believe its severity was overblown?

Etc.

Oh, also from this news bit: “His efforts have earned him three Nobel Peace Prize nominations.”

That would be the same Nobel Peace Prize that Kofi Annan and Yassir Arafat have received.

Here’s part of a Sept 9, ‘04 story from the Metroland, at the RNC convention, titled “The Price of Dissent”:

Harak led an unpermitted, nonviolent march that called for the Bush administration to take responsibility for lives taken by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The police, (who had been initially informed of the march and had given verbal assent), barricaded the protestors at an intersection and then accused them of blocking traffic. Harak and 270 others (including members of the press and bystanders) were rounded up in orange plastic police nets, arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, and detained at Pier 57 for more than 12 hours. Harak was held for 23 hours.

Several comments: First, I think it’s a pretty sad commentary on the state of liberalism, or “progressivism,” if you can only corrale 270 people for a protest. The College Republicans once got that at the drop of a hat in downtown Milwaukee in an hour’s time on Saturday night; Second, Harak follows that up with general whining about the “criminalization of free speech,” which I find hilarious given the fact that he’s being reported in a paper.

The next story is titled “Policy experts warn of precedent set by ‘preventive war’ in Iraq, in the National Catholic Reporter, from Apr 18, ‘05.

The “preventive war” against Iraq “sets a dangerous precedent,” said Jesuit Fr. G. Simon Harak, a part-time Fordham University professor and full-time activist against U.S. policy toward Iraq. “If North Korea feels they need to attack us because they feel that the United States is a far greater threat to them than Saddam Hussein ever was to the United States, is that OK?”

The moral equivalence is staggering. North Korea has massacred and starved millions of its own people over the past 60 years. Basically, Harak wants the reader to believe that no nation is justified in intervening in another because another might “feel the need to attack” back. I guess black Darfurians are permanently screwed.

Now for my favorite article. This one comes from the Times-Picayune of NO, LA from Mar 12, ‘03 titled “Activist speaks against war.”

Harak said that “while most of the stuff they say about Saddam Hussein is true,” referring to the dictator’s ruthless purge of opposition, it also is true, he said, that Saddam has raised educational levels and provided high levels of health care in Iraq.

First, the obligatory “well he was kind of bad,” and then, second, the unbelievable ignorance of “Saddam has raised educational levels.” Wow. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard ignorant individuals on this campus or elsewhere tell me that Cuba has the best health care in the world. Do Democrats ever try to come up with new plays, or is it always the same playbook?

Memo to Hillary Clinton ‘08 staff: Don’t use Iraq’s health care system (or Cuba’s, for that matter) as a justification for nationalized health care here in the United States.

The next story is from the National Catholic Reporter titled “Under wich [sic] god?” from Sept 6, ‘02 and was written by Harak himself.

Harak basically complains that a bunch of right-wingers claim that the United States is led by God. I found the following pretty entertaining:

What god was in charge when we supported the rise of Saddam Hussein to power? “He’s an s.o.b.,” observed one American official, “but he’s our s.o.b.”

Isn’t that about what Jospeh P. Kennedy said about Hitler? Those funny Democrats and their opinions about Jews … .

What god, I wonder, was in ascendance when U.S. bombing completely destroyed the civilian infrastructure during the Gulf War? What god called for us to unplug every hospital drug and blood refrigeration unit, every life support machine, every incubator, in the country? What god demanded that we poison Iraq’s drinking water [...]“

I’m sure the Marines went through hospitals and personally unplugged as many life support units as possible. Why don’t dictator-apologists like Harak ever admit that Saddam was in the business of torturing his own people, not just individually but collectively? Saddam Hussein himself was a weapon of mass destruction.

Here comes the vaunted Oil For Food program:

And what god dupes us into thinking that an Iraqi can live on the 51 cents a day provided by the “oil-for-food” program? U.N. overseers have repeatedly verified that there is no hoarding or diversion in the distribution system.

This is an absolute LIE and one that should bar Harak from ever stepping foot into respectable society again. The United Nations itself was forced to admit in 2005 to perpetrating the biggest financial scandal in world history, wherein corrupt Iraqi and UN officials traded off the good will of the international community in order to pocket money meant to go towards food, medicine and other necessities for the Iraqi people.

By lying about the Oil For Food program, for which someone with extensive connections such as Harak surely knew the truth, Harak helped prop up a genocidal tyrant bent on using him and any other device necessary to make himself look good to the international media at the expense of his very own people.

Harak should be abysmally ashamed.

It is important to note that these meetings of Harak ferreting medical supplies across the border into Iraq were for this primary purpose of propaganda. Whether Harak personally coordinated the arrangements with Ba’athist officials or not, he was a willing participant in a propaganda campaign that helped keep a murderer in power and execute hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

Here’s an excerpt from another story, this time called “The seige of Iraq” in the Austin American Statesman by Harak himself.

In fact, you don’t have to imagine. You could go to Iraq with a delegation of Voices in the Wilderness and see for yourself. Just be warned: We bring medicine and toys to Iraqi children, and this is against U.S. law. And it’s punishable by up to $1 million in fines and 12 years in a federal prison. Because you see, we are breaking the siege.

Again, helping children is not Harak’s primary mission. His mission is to act as an international propaganda agent for Saddam Hussein, for which he succeeds brilliantly. If Harak really wished to help “the children” of Iraq, we would have seen a little more effort at exposing the mass murders, the mass graves, and the political executions of one of the 20th century’s most ruthless men.

The next story comes from the Arab American News of Dearborn, from Dec 31, ‘99, as an open letter from Harak.

Eye witness accounts from thirty previous Voices in the Wilderness delegations have all likened the effects of economic sanctions to a form of warfare far more lethal and destructive than even the worst of the bombardments Iraqis have endured since 1991.

30 previous delegations?? Wow. A few questions, again:

1) What contacts with the Hussein regime’s political or security infrastucture permitted you access into/out of Iraq?
2) During your 30 visits to Iraq, did you at any time witness atrocities on behalf of the Hussein regime for which you reported back to international authorities?

Here is Harak’s very next sentence:

We continue to believe that economic sanctions are contrary to the UN charter and constitute crimes against humanity because they target innocent civilians.

Again, nothing. Nothing about Saddam’s atrocities against his own people. Nothing about violations of the UN charter or UNSC resolutions. Nothing about the persecution of his own people. For Harak, hurting America and the West through the media takes a front seat to all those minor concerns.

I lied earlier. The following is my favorite story, from the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester from Feb 18, ‘98, titled “Professor says people of Iraq loyal to Saddam.”

Here is the first third of this disgusting story:

WORCESTER - Saddam Hussein is a “populist” leader and the people of Iraq remain loyal to him even after seven years of United Nations economic sanctions, according to a Jesuit professor.

The Rev. Simon Harak, who brought medicine to physicians in Iraq at Christmastime, last night called for an end to the sanctions. About 75 people attended the lecture at Holy Cross College.

“They love him to death,” Harak said of Saddam.

Harak said he spoke with one Christian pastor who was having some difficulty with a parishioner. Harak said the woman finally told the pastor, “If you don’t give me what I want, I will go to my president.”

Saddam takes some of his entourage out into the neighborhoods where he knocks on the doors of poor people, Harak said. He goes into their houses, checks their cupboards for food and orders his entourage to come up with some food for people living there.

SING SONGS TO HIM

“People actually sing songs to him on television. His picture hangs everywhere,” Harak said.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor the American people “rallied around the flag” and supported their president, Harak said. The Iraqi people have done the same with their president, he said.

“The picture of what is going on there is different than what is presented in the United States,” Harak said.

Harak, a professor at Fairfield University, said everyone he spoke to in Iraq, including non-Iraqis, agreed that most of the medicine and food that get into the country through humanitarian aid gets to the people in need.

Let me be very clear:

THIS IS AS MUCH PROPAGANDA AS ANYTHING DREAMED UP BY WALTER DURANTY

It should not even need to be said how OUTRAGEOUS these comments are, especially about someone who SLAUGHTERED hundreds of thousands of his own people, and yet here we are.

His comment “they love him to death” really takes the cake.

Yes, Harak, they did love him to death: TO THE TUNE OF AT LEAST 600,000 MASSACRED BODIES.

How OUTRAGEOUS to make light of a genocide. How UNBELIEVABLE that a man of the cloth (as if) would COVER UP the SLAUGHTER of innocent people.

Let me be clear, again: It is an OUTRAGE for Marquette University to provide safe haven for such a sadistic man. We will making sure in the coming weeks and months that as many alumni, students, and potential students know about this.

• Simon Harak's September 2003 Speech at Marquette -- And My Official Introduction to Jesuits - June 12th, 2008
• "How Al Gore is Getting Fat off of a Starving World" - June 1st, 2008
• Best column I've read so far on Scott McClellan - May 31st, 2008
• So in other words, you have no leads or suspects at this time? - May 30th, 2008
• RITA GAHAGAN - May 24th, 2008