I was stunned today to see that the mainstream newspaper of a university as open-minded as Duke could publish writing like that I stumbled across on the staff editorial in the Feb. 10 issue of The Chronicle.
My interest in politics is usually low, yet I couldn't help but react when I read, in "War against Iraq justified," that "as it has done for much of its history, France once again refuses to stand up to a clear threat to democracy." I'm French, you see. I don't have an over-developed national pride, but I am a strong partisan of truth and I think that this statement is a really an overly-simplistic view. Keep in mind that we're talking about the nation that wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I would really appreciate it if The Chronicle could put those sentences in perspective. Of course France doesn't have a stainless background, and it might indeed have "sold Saddam a nuclear reactor and [have] a vested interest in Iraq's oil." But remember that the United States put Saddam Hussein's party in power in 1963 and sold Iraq weapons throughout the 1980s. I honestly wonder who is "complicit in Iraq's tyranny" now.
As for defending democracy, should I give the names of a few countries that were helped out of it by the United States? Guatemala, Laos, Bolivia, El Salvador and Chile immediately come to mind.
I am not trying to say that the United States has been wrong in doing any of this. I would just like to point out that there are usually two sides to a story. Presenting "facts" in such a harsh way as the The Chronicle did does not favor positive debate: It only creates tensions among the international community of our University. For everyone's sake, try to be a bit less assertive when all The Chronicle is doing is giving its opinion.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.