Campus Antiwar Network History

David A. Caputo
President
Pace University
president@pace.edu
campus “hotline” 1-866-PAC-E001

Dear President Caputo,

The news of the persecution of Brian Kelly and Lauren Giaccone for holding
an antiwar meeting on the campus is extremely distressing. The purpose for
campus rules that require pre-registration of groups and meetings is to
prevent violence or other illegal activities from taking place on the campus
not to prevent the peaceful exercise of free speech and assembly.

The real perpetrators of illegalities and violence–the U.S. Military–are
the ones that should be banned from campus and brought up on charges for
disseminating lies about military service such as assuring enlistees that
they do not have to fight but can have careers in such fields as “electric
guitar player” or “doctor” instead–which is a blatant lie and act of overt
and covert deception. Are these promises designed to honestly recruit the
“best of the best?” NO! These recruitment techniques are designed to recruit
the most economically desperate and naive of students.

The recent Supreme Court ruling upholding “equal access” to students in
colleges and High Schools for the military is just a way to circumvent the
“opt-out” forms that both parents and students have signed to keep the
military away–to keep the lies away.

The function of any school is to promote the lives and future of our kids
not to promote their road to death and possibly severe injury that could end
any chance of a decent future for them.

The military doesn’t need your help! They have a two billion dollar budget
this year alone for recruitment advertising with McCann/Erickson, a major
advertising agency. And they are actively spreading these lies about one’s
“choices” in military service. But, once you take your second oath you
become military property to do with as they please and all of your rights
are suspended and all of the promises that the military gave–even contracts
that they sign with enlistees–are made null and void by taking that second
oath.

Already, over a third of returning veterans are seeking psychological
assistance from public health facilities and are suffering from depression
and post traumatic stress syndrome because the cause for what they signed up
for turned out to be a bunch of lies. Instead they have experienced an
entire population–the people of Iraq–expressing their overwhelming desire
for the U.S. Troops to get out of their country. They are not welcomed by
the people of Iraq with open arms as the enlistees were told.

And, most importantly, the Iraqi people’s hatred for the U.S. Intervention
into their country is completely justified! The analogy of murderous police
entering your home, killing family members, destroying your home, torturing
and imprisoning children and grandparents, stealing or destroying all that
you own and then expecting that those very same police be asked to undo what
they have done is insane!

This war is dead, dead, dead wrong! These students should be hailed as
heroes! And, our institutions of higher learning as well as our public
school system should be actively fighting to get the military out of the
schools. They should be universally demanding that schools be off-limits to
these military organizations who are carrying out mass murder and turning
innocent kids who just want a good life for themselves and their families
into murderers too!

The schools and universities–teachers and professors AND
ADMINISTRATORS–should be actively fighting against such laws as “No Child
Left Behind” that holds our children’s education and funding of the schools
as ransom to the military–a law that ties school funding to open hunting
season of our kids year-round to military ghouls!

The constitution expressly states that people have the right to peacefully
protest and demonstrate their opposition to government policy. No rules can
be designed to circumvent the constitution–even on college campuses!

As long as this war is being carried out against the will of the Iraqi
people and, against the will of the American people; and as long as the “no
child left behind” law is still in effect, the military should be given a
stall in the dirtiest bathroom on campus as their headquarters! And huge
warning signs should be posted at the door stating:

“The material and information you receive from the military is full of lies
and false promises designed to get you to sign up to risk your life in an
unlawful, and unjust war. While the university/school can’t legally prevent
the military from coming on campus without losing funding that will keep the
school open, we can warn our students of their deceitful and unlawful
attempts to get you to sign up. STUDENTS BEWARE AND TURN AWAY FROM THIS
MILITARY RECRUITMENT TOILET AND DON’T JOIN THE MILITARY.”

The administration COULD do this and not be in defiance with “no child left
behind.”

It us the only thing a school with a conscience can do.

The whole world is watching what your school does in this circumstance. We
demand that you drop all charges against the students and their lawful,
peaceful organizations and carry out the will of the majority of Americans
and protest the hunting of more cannon fodder for this murderous war in our
places of learning.

Schools should be a safe haven not a hunting grounds for death and
destruction!

This message will be circulated far and wide!

Sincerely,

Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War
www.bauaw.org