National polls show the American public strongly supports military action against Iraq, but many in academia remain opposed to President George W. Bush's plan for dealing with the Middle Eastern nation and are putting their names to an online petition objecting to a war with Iraq.
The petition was started by University of Minnesota faculty and is allowing professors and students to express their opinion. The petition has been greeted with strong support on several college campuses, including Dartmouth, where it has been embraced by the Dartmouth College Greens.
Bush supporters, though, claim that the amount of attention the anti-war movement is attracting does not reflect the actual proportion of the campus that shares the Greens' views.
The anti-war faction is a "vocal minority," said Matthew Raymer '03, a member of the Young Republicans. He argued that there is "overwhelming support for war" among Dartmouth students.
The petition started circulating on the Minnesota campus on Sept. 14. But since faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted the petition online on Sept. 24 at NoIraqAttack.org, nearly 20,000 people in academia added their names to the petition, and nearly 10,000 of them were faculty.
The visibility of those opposed to the administration's plan has increased significantly at Dartmouth over the past few days since the Dartmouth Greens launched a "Why War?: Think About it" awareness campaign.
Before the Greens began their campaign, over 100 people at Dartmouth had signed the petition online. In addition to these, the Greens have gathered 200 signatures.
Though the petition was originally intended for faculty, most of the signatures the Greens have collected have been from students. Almost 50 Dartmouth professors have signed the petition online so far.
Government Professor Daryl Press said that there was "wide-spread opposition amongst the faculty" and estimated that between seven and eight out of 10 faculty members oppose invading Iraq.
The Greens have been posting flyers both in dorms and around public spaces in campus. Each flyer contains one of eight arguments recently published in an article in The Nation entitled, "The Case Against War."
The Greens encouraged students to sign a paper copy of the same petition available at NoIraqAttack.org at tables both in the Collis Center and in Thayer Dining Hall and plan to send it to Bush.
Alexandro Kirigin '06, a member of the College Greens said that the group had been planning this campaign for a few weeks and hung the flyers as part of the "National Day of Student Action."
Kirigin also added that the Greens oppose the President's plan mainly for humanitarian reasons and not environmental ones. According to Kirigin, Bush's plan "just doesn't add up."
The Greens are also planning an anti-war rally within the next week. As of last night Kirigin estimated that they had a list of about 75 people interested in hearing more information about a future rally.
Yi Jin '06 was the first Dartmouth student to sign the petition online. She signed on Sept. 25 before the Campus Greens began their public awareness campaign. Jin said that the petition was discussed in her sociology class, and she fully agreed with it.
"The U.S. government is trying to do something against the rights of human kind ... it is just really, really evil," she said, adding that war with Iraq entail a great loss of life and could create international economic problems
But those who support the approach of the Bush administration disagreed.
"It's pretty clear -- we have to go in," Raymer said. There are no immediate plans for a counter-protest to the Greens because campus support for the president is so strong that a counter-protest "isn't really needed," he said.
