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Antiwar Network seeks support for Iraqi scholars

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by Ken Harris

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

A group of University of Wisconsin students called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and drummed up support for the Iraqi Student Project at a discussion forum Monday.

CAN members solicited support for the Iraqi Student Project, which will be on the ballot in today’s Associated Students of Madison elections.

The ISP would add $1 to each student’s tuition to provide full-tuition scholarships to bring five Iraqi students to UW. If passed with student support, the project would then be presented to the UW System Board of Regents, who has the power to create a tuition differential.

About 30 students attended the forum hosted by the Campus Antiwar Network.

UW freshman Huda Bashir said she was concerned about what would happen to minority groups in Iraq if the United States withdraws all of its troops.

CAN member and UW graduate student Paul Heideman said U.S. occupation can only hurt the citizens of Iraq, no matter what group they belong to.

“If you tell people, ‘I’m for troops pulling out,’ they say immediately, ‘What’s going to happen if troops leave? Heideman said. “The question I like to ask is, ‘What’s going to happen if they stay?

CAN member Todd Dennis, also a former member of the U.S. Navy, said the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq is important because the military is only harming the nation, and there is no chance of victory for the United States there.

“The occupation is a crime, and you can’t win a crime,” Dennis said.

Bashir, however, said she was concerned the U.S. has destabilized Iraq enough that the nation would not be able to protect its minorities from persecution.

“The country’s so divided now that if we were to give power to the Iraqi people, I feel like the Kurds and the Sunnis would get the short end of the stick,” Bashir said.

According to Dennis, the U.S. troops are only causing more pain and persecution for Iraq citizens the longer they are there.

CAN member Sam Stevenson also said the war in Iraq has hurt the U.S. economy and caused oil prices to rise, adding the war has cost more than twice what the worst predictions had estimated.

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Anonymous (April 1, 2008 @ 6:19am):

Why discriminate against citizens of Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, and other countries? Because CAN wants to make a political point...vote no.

Anonymous (April 1, 2008 @ 7:51am):

CAN member slanders American troops by bloviating: "The occupation is a crime..."

As Todd Dennis should know, the brave men and women of our American military are in Iraq at the request of the democratically elected Iraqi government.

Todd Dennis' military service does not endow him with any special privilege to spew enemy propanganda and slander his fellow soldiers and sailors (still serving in harms way) as criminals, ad hominem abusive.

Shame on you, Todd.

Anonymous (April 1, 2008 @ 8:08am):

CAN member Sam Stevenson spewed: "the war in Iraq has hurt the U.S. economy and caused oil prices to rise..."

Pernicious nonsense! The economy and stock market were booming until Nancy Pelosi and her merry band of taxaholics took office.

And Leftists should be ecstatic about higher oil prices, given the Goracle's desire to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. Wasn't the Iraq War supposed to be a big oil grab? Idiotarian Leftists can't have it both ways.

Oil prices would drop tomorrow if Dems would allow American oil companies to drill in ANWR or offshore. And gasoline and food prices would plummet if Dems didn't foolishly mandate refiners use corn based ethanol. There's your Leftist compassion for poor Iraqis (and the rest of the Third World poor) in artificially boosting food prices. Hypocrits.

Just wait for these nitwits to get Obama to complete Jimmy Carter's second term. Time to resurrect the misery index.

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