Student Publications
University of Houston
151C Communications Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-4015
713.743.5350

©1991-2007
Student Publications,
All rights reserved.

Last modified:

Contact:
ktruitt@uh.edu

Opinion

Students must rise up against unjust war

Timothy O'Brien
Opinion Columnist  

Students can make a major difference in the world around them by organizing on their campuses and speaking out, but historians will have a difficult time looking back at our generation and saying we stood up and made our world a better place. Students today aren't playing a role in holding our government accountable for its horrendous actions in Iraq. 

March 20 is the fourth anniversary of the day the war in Iraq began. Four long years have passed since President Bush and his administration sold the American public a phony bill of goods on the threat Iraq posed to our safety. From the crimes in Abu Ghraib to the weakening of our civil rights, the evidence is overwhelming that Bush has led us down the wrong path. The illegal war is a disaster and the Bush regime has damaged our international reputation and perverted democracy. 

It's time the lawbreakers in the White House are held to the same standard everyone else is. Students who are caught breaking the law are held accountable. If we don't pay our tuition then we aren't allowed to continue our education. The world can't wait for Bush to start another war in Iran. We should see major anti-war actions across campuses today where students organize and demand an end to the war and call for impeachment proceedings for President Bush. 

Most students, however, feel our country's actions in Iraq don't endanger them, so they blissfully go about their business of studying, working and partying. One difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that there is not a draft. But the war in Iraq does affect students. 

A large number of UH students work part-time jobs and take out loans to get a college education. Money is always an issue when we try to sustain ourselves through years of higher education. When the financial aid office doesn't have enough grants to fulfill our needs and the state doesn't allocate enough funds to meet UH's budget request, students will pay the difference. This fall we saw a tuition increase, and all UH students have had to dig deeper or borrow more to continue their educations. 

As of September 2006 the Iraq war cost Texas $30.9 billion, according to the National Priorities Project. Houston's share was $2.7 billion. To put that in perspective, the University's 2007 budget for our campus is only $716 million. Much student aid comes from Washington, and money wasted on a futile war can't be spent on education. The New York Times reported the Iraq war is costing us $300 million a day. The cost of fewer than three days of the war in Iraq could keep UH running for an entire year. 

Our generation has a choice. We can be scorned like the generation that laid down in the face of the Nazis or praised like the one that abolished slavery. Students need to respond to the Bush regime reading our e-mails, listening to our phone conversations and taking away our civil rights. 

As the World Can't Wait's steering committee says, "Driving out the Bush regime before 2008 should be the mission of this generation."

O'Brien, a Ph.D. candidate in history, 
can be reached at tjobrien@uh.edu.