Sorry we’ve been away for the weekend, folks. Busy days, beautiful weather, but not much blogging. Thoughts on two of today’s News Briefs items.
First, Madeline Wake announced her retirement from the position of Provost today. She has served this University loyally for many years. Her tenure as provost has been a good one. While we at GOP3 have had many occasions to criticize the University Administration, it has been almost universally on the student affairs side of things. While she has supported several liberal initiatives that we disagree with (I think here of the associate provost for diversity and the Vagina Monologues performance), she has always done so with grace and honesty. She displayed the same qualities in person – always kind and caring, and genuinely interested in what was best for Marquette.
The second item in today’s NewsBriefs was the announcement of Fr. Simon Harak, S.J. as the new director of the new Center for Peacemaking. The NewsBriefs gives a brief bio:
“Voices in the Wilderness,” an organization Harak helped found to nonviolently challenge the economic warfare waged against the people of Iraq, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, 2002 and 2003. Harak has traveled to Iraq three times with VITW to bring medicine and toys to Iraqi hospitals. During one of his visits, he was the only American representative among 500 international participants at the Baghdad International Conference on the Sanctions.
Let’s take those claims apart one at a time. First off, let me note that Marquette’s Raynor Library Archives is home to the VITW Papers.
The “economic warfare waged against the people of Iraq” is hippy for sanctions authorized by the United Nations. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “The sanctions regime was first established in U.N. Security Council Resolution 661 after Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait. That resolution barred Iraq from engaging in most international trade. After Iraq was driven from Kuwait, the sanctions remained in place, to pressure Baghdad to surrender its weapons of mass destruction.”
“Bringing Medicine and Toys.” What he doesn’t say is that he brought them in violation of US law. The Office of Foreign Asset Control of the US Department of the Treasury hit them with a $20,000 fine for its multiple violations of US law. Rather than pay the fine, Voices in the Wilderness shut down and Voices for Creative Nonviolence was created.
The “Baghdad International Conference on the Sanctions” was a Saddam Hussein-sponsored propaganda stunt. Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe reported:
A conference held in Baghdad 1-3 May on the theme “The Aggression and Embargo on Iraq is an Arab and an International Issue,” was entirely predictable in both form and content.
Iraqi Deputy Premier Tariq Aziz delivered the opening speech on behalf of Saddam Husseyn. He criticized U.S. aggression against Iraq as well as the continuation of the “unjust blockade” for which the UN Security Council was also to blame, Republic of Iraq Radio reported on 1 May. He also suggested that “the independence, sovereignty, and basic interests of all Arab nations are threatened.” And he called for the “formation of an international front or any practical grouping that comprises the countries which reject U.S. hegemony.”
At all public sessions, foreign delegations from such groups as the Cuban Communist Party, the Tunisian Committee for Revoking the Iraq Sanctions, and the Voices in the Wilderness organization repeated what Aziz had said.
The Middle East Institute of Japan provides a translation of the Conference’s Baghdad Declaration, which praises Saddam’s government and fiercely criticizes the US and Britain. You can read Fr. Harak’s own report on the Conference, and it is well worth reading, online.
I will respond at a later time (or Brian will) to today’s Marquette Tribune story on the Center, and I also intend, hopefully tomorrow, to respond to Prof. Michael Duffey’s email to Prof. McAdams.
For the moment, ask whether you would brag on your resume that Saddam Hussein sponsored a conference at which you presented TWO plenary papers!
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What’s the deal with using the “Dr.” title for a professor? Are there so few people with PhD’s on campus that they have to mark themselves? This isn’t done at Madison, where even the janitors are “Doctors”!