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Posted on 02/10/2003 10:30:54 PM PST by TheMole
EUGENE - It was an event that somehow doesn't seem to fit the University of Oregon campus: A group of students on the steps of Johnson Hall supporting President Bush's tough stand on Iraq.
But about a dozen were there Friday, the site of countless peace demonstrations over the decades, inviting passing students to sign a petition asking the University Senate to refrain from taking a stand on the war.
The university's liberal reputation masks the diversity of opinion on campus, said Jarrett White, chairman of the University of Oregon College Republicans.
There are only about 1,300 students registered as Republicans, but their views ought to be taken into account by the Senate, said White, a 21-year-old business major.
Saddam Hussein presents a real threat, not just to his neighbors but to the United States, White said. He called an attack on Iraq the right thing to do legally and morally.
The demonstrators attracted Jessica Hardwick, a 20-year-old sophomore who took a break between classes to join them.
"I'm finally seeing a group of fellow students who share my point of view," she said.
The students, who started their rally at 7 a.m., had gathered about 100 signatures by noon, but they also attracted plenty who questioned them and the signs they held that read: "What are we waiting for?" "Drop the bomb on Saddam" and "Why Not?"
"Do you have any other justification for war than `Why not?' asked Rebekah Strong, a 20-year-old studying nursing.
Political science major Greg McNeill, who was holding the sign, said Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the United Nations outlined in detail Iraq's lengthy record of noncompliance and deception.
But Strong said she didn't regard the government as a reliable source when it came to justifications for war.
"Don't you remember the Gulf of Tonkin?" she said, referring to incorrect information that the North Vietnamese had launched attacks on the U.S. Navy in 1964. "The government lied through their teeth," she said.
Lucas Szabo, who was part of the Republican student rally, said the young Republicans don't want war.
"Most of us don't want it," said Szabo, a 22-year-old political science major and former anarchist turned Republican. But left unchecked and with an alarming arsenal, Saddam Hussein represents too great a threat, Szabo said.
What about the United States' arsenal of weapons, Strong wanted to know.
"Why should we go to war with them when we're not willing to disarm, either?" she asked.
A passing student yelled that she'd take the Republican students more seriously if they were the ones going to war.
Students across the street carrying pro-peace signs invited passers-by to sign a petition asking the university to take an institutional stand against the war.
Strong said she had earlier signed that petition, but after listening to the Republicans, she was changing her mind.
The University Senate decided in December not to take a stand on a war against Iraq. But faculty peace activists hope to reverse that.
While the opposing groups were mostly respectful, a brief fracas broke out when one pro-peace student approached the Republicans and the debate turned heated. Police were called and the pro-peace student was cited for harassment.
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