Michael George Smith, UCAL/Berkeley

The Pace University administration has now firmly lined up on the side of the warmongers against the people of the world, both abroad and here at home, and added its name to an ignoble list of universities that have tried, and failed, to stifle students’ right to free speech and the exercise of their moral duty to speak out against such horrid injustice.

Brian Kelly and Laura Giaccone deserve our praise and respect — not condemnation and the threat of expulsion — for raising their voices against a man responsible for the slaughter of innocents from Baghdad to Belgrade. Bill Clinton is no man of the people nor peaceful alternative to George W. Bush; we can take no solace in the fact that his murders took place slowly and out of the camera’s eye.

Make no mistake, the invasion of Iraq is a bipartisan effort. Though Mr. Clinton may talk a better game than his Republican counterparts, let us not forget that he and his administration are responsible for over a million Iraqi deaths from the murderous sanctions regime and his repeated bombing of a nearly-defenseless country.

I urge Pace University to think seriously before embarking down this road. It is not too late to drop all charges against these two
courageous students and take a stand for the principles that academia is supposed to embrace — free speech, lively debate, and the quest for truth and justice.

Michael George Smith

Michael Smith, University of California, Berkeley, was a founding member of the Campus Antiwar Network and one of the Berkeley 3 who faced down repression at that campus.