After listening to spirited arguments over the moral justification of pre-emptive military action against Iraq nearly 300 members of both the Dartmouth and Upper Valley communities voted overwhelmingly that such an attack was not justified.
For nearly two hours, students, professors and Upper Valley residents filled the seats, the stairwells and the floor of Cook Auditorium to hear Wall Street Journal Editor Max Boot and Princeton University Professor Richard Falk present arguments for and against the war.
Of the 272 votes cast, 217 supported the statement that "The United States is not morally justified at this time in waging preemptive war against Iraq." Three were undecided, and the remainder supported military action.
Among those who identified themselves as Dartmouth students, 71 voted against war and 29 indicated they felt war was justified.
Boot used former President Bill Clinton's actions in Kosovo in 1998 to set historical precedent for a military strike in Iraq, arguing that the United States has a moral obligation to both finish its military actions in Iraq and to build "a better Iraq."
"I do not want us to find out Saddam has nukes when we see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan," Boot said in response to accusations that U.S. intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was not strong.
In contrast, Falk argued in his speech, "Iraq under no circumstances poses a threat to the U.S."
Falk acquiesced that there are some circumstances that justify pre-emptive military action or loose interpretations of international law, but emphatically denied that Iraq was such an instance.
One of Falk's main fears about a U.S. attack on Iraq was the possibility that the United States would have to act alone. "We are not having a decent respect for others," Falk said of the potential for unilateral action.
But Boot said that the United States is already at war with Iraq, referring to the current U.S. policy of patrolling both the "no-fly zones" in northern and southern Iraq. "The question is how much longer we are going to continue," Boot said, "Our current policy of containment in not working."
Falk argued that it is dangerous to the international community for the United States to use deterrence as a foreign policy, because there is no one to deter the United States.
Falk's speech received a more positive reaction than did Boot's, and the audience applauded several of Falk's points.
After Falk said, "Why are smart people doing a stupid thing? The answer is -- oil," the audience broke into a loud round of applause. "And," he added amidst cheering, "oil is not a moral justification for war."
As his counter-plan, Falk believed that the "focus should not be on Iraq, it should be on mega-terrorism," Falk said.
Though the discussion remained resoectful for most of the debate, the tone occasionally became more heated. "Your position is that we can trust Saddam Hussein with nuclear weapons," Boot said to Falk at one point.
During the nearly hour-long question and answer period following the debate, a few audience members became verbally combative, especially in opposition to Boot's position.
Several audience members said the United States had no moral authority to attack Iraq because of its historical atrocities in treatment of African-Americans and Native Americans.
"There seems to be a lot of sentiment in this room for U.N. actions against the U.S.," Boot said in response to criticisms of past U.S. policy.
Boot and Falk did agree on some points including support for the United States military campaigns in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Both were also opposed to United Nations sanctions against Iraq, saying sanctions against Iraq had been responsible for more civilian deaths than Saddam Hussein.
The speakers were introduced by J. Bryan Hehir, the former dean of the Harvard Divinity School, who did not go into detail about Iraq but said a just war protects life and human rights, does more good than bad and occurs on a limited scale.
As the audience exited to cast their votes, some members of the Dartmouth College Greens lined the hallways outside the auditorium holding banners that read "Why War? Think About It."
