“All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections for those elections to be free and fair.”

President George Bush said that, and I agree with it. Free and fair elections cannot, by definition, take place under the occupation of a foreign regime. Yet Bush trumpets the recent Iraqi elections held under an American occupation 10 times the size of Syria’s. He holds one standard for the military that he oversees and quite a different standard for those he deems terrorist or evil. Thus, Bush is able to denounce Saddam Hussein’s military torture while sweeping American torture under the rug. How else can you explain the fact that the most rapid and far-reaching reform in military prisons after Abu-Ghraib was the prohibition of soldiers’ use of cameras? A clue: it has nothing to do with preventing torture-by-Polaroid.

Hypocrisy — not democracy — is on the march in the Middle East, and it’s only going to be stopped one way: through a groundswell of protest in Iraq and the United States that makes waging such wars one of two things: impossible or unprofitable.

To do your part, walk out of class, out of work or just out of bed at 11 a.m. April 14 and join the rally at Bascom Hill with those who are too outraged to stand for it any longer.

It’s called the Troops Out Walk Out and it’s being planned by Stop the War! There are two demands: troops out of Iraq and out of our schools. In place of military recruiters on campus we should have increased financial aid availability (with no war-strings attached) and it should be funded with the billions currently spent on the occupation of Iraq. If you’re not quite convinced, let me take up some FAQs.

If the troops leave, there will be chaos. Don’t we have a responsibility to Iraqis to clean up the mess we made?

This assumes Iraq isn’t currently in chaos and that the U.S. military can play a humanitarian role. Yet reports from Iraq consistently show that access to clean water, electricity and gasoline is unreliable at best, sparse at worst. The rate of infant malnourishment under American occupation is roughly double what it was under Saddam Hussein (7.7 percent in December 2004 versus 4 percent in March 2003). To boost the image of a post-occupation collapse into chaos, the Bush administration makes the insurgency out to be terrorism against civilians and journalists. However, of the 4,303 attacks by the insurgency between September 2003 and October 2004, only 180 were against civilian targets and eight were against journalists. In reality, the overwhelming majority of violence in Iraq is waged by the United States and the lion’s share of attacks by insurgents is against the occupation, not civilians. End the occupation and you end the violence.

The war and occupation has taken the lives of over 100,000 Iraqis — a conservative estimate made by the peer-reviewed British Lancet Journal several months ago. Then there are the thousands of American families who suffer the death or injury of loved ones. 1,529 American military deaths and 11,442 injuries are recorded as of this writing.

Leaving America to “clean up its mess” in Iraq is tantamount to leaving the fox in the henhouse.

The United States doesn’t wage occupations for different reasons than it wages wars. The goal in Iraq is the same it always has been: control the flow of Iraqi oil, limit trade tariffs and labor laws and set an example to the rest of the world that the United States will call the shots anywhere it pleases. Such an undemocratic mission requires a violent response to the inevitable resistance.

Doesn’t the military have the right to recruit on campus?

We have the moral and legal high ground when we challenge the presence of recruiters on campus for three reasons. The obvious reason is that tuition should be free because education should be a right, not a privilege afforded to those who are willing to risk death in a military that violates international law. Secondly the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy for gays and lesbians explicitly violates the University’s clause against discrimination. Further, the military is not a normal job because soldiers do not retain their right to quit or collectively bargain in such a “job.”

The movement to kick recruiters off campuses has already begun and activists are facing repression. Three students were expelled last month from City College of New York and police have arrested students on this campus for peacefully demonstrating against military recruitment. This intimidation needs to be countered by a show of popular opposition to military recruitment on campus.

How does the war affect me?

Aside from the direct hazard to those students or loved ones who are enlisted, the cost of the war siphons money from resources college students need. With Gov. Doyle’s latest budget proposal, tuition at the University of Wisconsin will have increased 56 percent since the invasion of Afghanistan. Federal and state budgets are seeing massive cuts in services like education, health care and jobs, while spending billions on war. Once upon a time the government was able to provide both guns and butter. Now that they are forced to make a choice, they have chosen the guns and left out the butter.

I agree with the demands, but millions around the world protested before the war and Bush invaded Iraq anyway. How will this walkout be different?

Successful movements aren’t made overnight, and, frankly, this walkout won’t be enough. By rallying around such an underrepresented set of demands, we give confidence to those who share our sentiment yet feel isolated due to the pro-occupation media. As in the 1960s, the student movement can shed light on the atrocities of war to lay the ideological foundation for resisting use of military might. Student protests against the Vietnam War gave confidence to antiwar soldiers. The ensuing soldier rebellion made the war impossible to wage and, in March 1973, the troops were withdrawn. Troop withdrawal may not be around the corner, but it isn’t as intangible as you may think. Join the movement. Walk out April 14.

Chris Dols ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in civil engineering and is a member of the International Socialist Organization.