SwiftVets.com

[olympian2004]

Ward Churchill says 9/11 victims were not innocent people

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
January 27, 2005

A University of Colorado professor has sparked controversy in New York over an essay he wrote that maintains that people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not innocent victims.

Students and faculty members at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., have been protesting a speaking appearance on Feb. 3 by Ward L. Churchill, chairman of the CU Ethnic Studies Department.

They are upset over an essay Churchill wrote titled, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens."

The essay takes its title from a remark that black activist Malcolm X made in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Malcolm X created controversy when he said Kennedy's murder was a case of "chickens coming home to roost."

Churchill's essay argues that the Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children killed in a 1991 U.S. bombing raid and by economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.

The essay contends the hijackers who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.

It states: "The most that can honestly be said of those involved on Sept. 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course."

The essay maintains that the people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets."

"As for those in the World Trade Center," the essay said, "well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."

The essay goes on to describe the victims as "little Eichmanns," referring to Adolph Eichmann, who executed Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.

Churchill said he was not especially surprised at the controversy at Hamilton, but he also defended the opinions contained in his essay.

"When you kill 500,000 children in order to impose your will on other countries, then you shouldn't be surprised when somebody responds in kind," Churchill said.

"If it's not comfortable, that's the point. It's not comfortable for the people on the other side, either."

The attacks on Sept. 11, he said, were "a natural and inevitable consequence of what happens as a result of business as usual in the United States. Wake up."

A longtime activist with the American Indian Movement, Churchill was one of eight defendants acquitted last week in Denver County Court on charges of disrupting Denver's Columbus Day parade.

His pending speech at Hamilton has drawn criticism from professors and students, including Matt Coppo, a sophomore whose father died in the World Trade Center attacks.

"His views are completely hurtful to the families of 3,000 people," Coppo said.

A spokesman for Hamilton College released a statement noting that Hamilton is committed to "the free exchange of ideas. We expect that many of those who strongly disagree with Mr. Churchill's comments will attend his talk and make their views known."

Controversial statements

In his essay Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, CU professor Ward Churchill argues that:

• The Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children who were killed in a 1991 bombing raid and for economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.

• Hijackers who crashed jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.

• The people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets."
_________________
Tony in Boulder, Colorado

[srmorton]

This is yet another example of "Brainwashing 101". Our colleges and
universities are havens for professors who advocate this type of radical,
leftist thinking. His major premise, that 9/11 was in retaliation for the
killing of 500,000 children in the first Persian Gulf War is wrong. I don't
know the exact number, but there were no where near that many total
civilian deaths, much less that many deaths of children. The US and
its allies took great care to avoid civilian casualties. Although some
civilian casualties are unavoidable and did occur, many of them were
due to the fact that Saddam placed civilians in or near strategic military
targets.

His idea that those in the WTC were not innocent victims going about
their daily lives is so outrageous that it does not even deserve to be
answered. The Pentagon does house the military arm of the US
government, but many civilians work there as well. The victims in
the Pentagon included those who would be considered members of
the ethnic groups for which he is supposed to be an advocate.

And what about the men, women, and children who were passengers
on those planes? How could they be considered as anything other than
innocent victims? I am all for freedom of speech, but this man should
not be allowed to continue to fill the "young skulls full of mush" at a
state-supported university in a RED state without being challenged.
I teach in a state-supported institution, and, though we have academic
freedom, the administration makes it very clear to us that some topics
are not suitable for classroom discussion. I am sure that someone there
has the authority to "counsel" Professor Churchill about his essay that
has already been shown to be hurtful to at least one student who lost
a loved one on 9/11.
_________________
Susan R. Morton

[olympian2004]

Ward L Churchill
Ethnic Studies
University of Colorado at Boulder
339 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0339
Ward.Churchill@Colorado.EDU
Office: 303-492-8852
Faculty Information
Official Title: Professor, Chair
Department: Ethnic Studies
Office Address
Mailing Address: 339 UCB
_________________
Tony in Boulder, Colorado

[MSeeger]

This point of view is hardly new nor surprising. This point of view was prevalent in many forums immediately following 9/11. Our liberal "brethren and sistern" were touting that same line of garbage.

If America got raped, then it was her own fault...she shouldn't have been wearing those clothes and provoking those people who raped her. That's bottom line what this kind of thinking boils down to.

And isn't it typical of the Left to promote those kind of exaggerated figures when talking of civilian deaths, while ignoring the fact that Saddam really did kill 300,000 of his people a year? And they wonder why people aren't jumping on their bandwagon and rising up in massive protest of the war in Iraq, like they managed to manipulate the young ones in the 60's and 70's into doing.

Maybe it's because too many of us grew up, and because we can tell the differences between the two. And because too many of us still remember that the same cant and rhetoric of the anti-war protesters then is still being used by today's anti-war protesters, only recycled.

I suspect even the most liberal New Yorkers are offended by this man. If they aren't, then they should be.

Maria
_________________
Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Gal. 6:7

[scotty61]

I think the left needs to get it's story straight. First we were told that the war in Iraq was wrong because Iraq had no connection to 9-11. Now we are told that Iraq was the reason for 9-11. I suppose we will be told next that 9-11 was plotted by Karl Rove.
_________________
John Kerry. A Neville Chamberlain for our times.

[Arty Guy]

By this guy's standard, we should have just dropped say, 20kt worth of nuclear weapons on Fallujah and been done with it. Save all the cost of rebuilding too.

[Arty Guy]

Pasted in from the Wall Street Journal, Friday, January 28. I am not an alumnus of Hamilton College, but I sure would not want to be in charge of their fund raising right now.

______________________________

There They Go Again
Hamilton College welcomes a cheerleader for the 9/11 attackers.

Friday, January 28, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

It's déjà vu all over again. Less than two months after Hamilton College tried to hire a former Weather Underground activist who was indicted in the 1981 Brinks murders, the Clinton, N.Y., liberal-arts college plans to showcase a cheerleader for the 9/11 attacks. Just the sort of thing parents pay nearly $40,000 a year in tuition and board to have their children hear.

At issue now is a panel set for Feb. 3 on "Limits of Dissent?" to be hosted by the college's Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture. Among the invited panelists is Indian activist Ward Churchill, who teaches ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While Mr. Churchill has caused controversy in the past--founders of the American Indian Movement denounced him as a "white" and a "fraud"--his screeds usually attract little notice outside obscure Marxist Web sites and the like.

On Sept. 12, 2001, however, Mr. Churchill performed an act of extraordinary crepitation, even for him. In "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," he saluted the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck the Pentagon and World Trade Center, asserting that the people who worked there ("braying . . . into their cell phones") and died that day deserved what they got.

Here's part of a key passage (full version available at darknightpress.org):

The [Pentagon] and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center: Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire--the 'mighty engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved--and they did so both willingly and knowingly. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."

Reached by phone Wednesday by Debra Burlingame--whose brother Charles was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which terrorists crashed into the Pentagon--Hamilton President Joan Hinde Stewart said she wasn't aware of Mr. Churchill's odious remarks about 9/11 until recently. But academic freedom is at stake, she added. The chairman of Hamilton's board of trustees, Stuart Scott, e-mailed Ms. Burlingame to say that the decision to invite Mr. Churchill was "a bad one" that made him "angry." However, "many who despise him feel he must be allowed to speak as a matter of principle. We have insisted that a person who opposes his rantings be on stage and empanelled with him."

Now that sounds like an edifying debate: 9/11 was good vs. 9/11 was bad. In a way, it's almost pathetic to see little Hamilton, with its at least 77% Caucasian student body, pretend to teach students about "diversity" and the real world by carting in rent-a-radicals to indoctrinate them in the theater of outrage. Except that it goes on all the time, at campuses everywhere, and the perpetrators are counting on normal people not to have the energy to constantly push back.

What Hamilton alums, now the targets of a $175 million capital campaign, will make of the latest stunt is anybody's guess. But this is a case where pushing back would be an effortless matter of not writing a check

[Jarhead]

Another radical leftist turd trying to destroy young impressionable minds.

Here is his contact info if you would like to send him a Christams card:

http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/faculty/w_churchill.html

http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/contact.html
_________________
Semper Fi'
Jarhead
USMC 71-74

"I am a bold Internationalist, I will only disperse American troups around the world at the discretion of the United Nations" - John Kerry

$UCK THE CORRUPT UNITED NATIONS - I am a Jarhead and I approve this message

[Arty Guy]

Here's a piece from the Caspar Wyoming newspaper about this guy.
_________________________________

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - A University of Colorado professor who compared the victims of the World Trade Center attacks to Nazis said he would not back down from the topic in a speech in New York state next month.

Two Colorado congressmen on Thursday said professor Ward Churchill should apologize for his comments, while the brother of a man who died at the World Trade Center called Churchill a ''nut case.''

CU-Boulder interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano said Churchill's views don't represent the opinions of anyone affiliated with the university but that he had a right to express his opinion.

''While I may personally find his views offensive, I also must support his right as an American citizen to hold and express his views, no matter how repugnant, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution,'' DiStefano said in a written statement.

Churchill, chairman of the ethnic studies program at CU, has been invited to speak next month at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., where news of his visit has ignited protests.

In ''Some People Push Back,'' a treatise he wrote shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Churchill said the 3,000 people killed in the twin towers weren't innocent victims. He said they worked for ''the mighty engine of profit'' but chose to ignore their role.

Churchill, an indigenous issues expert, described the World Trade Center victims as ''little Eichmanns,'' a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who carried out Hitler's plan during World War II to exterminate Jews in Europe.

He called Eichmann a technocrat who ''crunched numbers'' and made the trains that carried Jews to death camps run on time. Churchill said Thursday that those in the Trade Center were technocrats whose work was just as deadly.

Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., called the comments ''outrageous'' and urged Churchill to resign. He and Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said Churchill should apologize.

James Giaccone's 42-year-old brother, Joseph, worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald and died in the World Trade Center. Giaccone said he was outraged the college would invite Churchill to speak.

''I'm all for free speech but there has to be some responsibility that goes along with that,'' said Giaccone, of Long Island. ''The college shouldn't be a lightning rod for this kind of a nut case.''

Churchill's wife, fellow CU ethnic studies professor Natsu Saito, said her husband is popular with students. She said his statements sometimes make people uncomfortable but also force people to confront truths they would rather ignore.

''He does it because he really cares about all people, and everyone's kids, and their well-being. He has a very big heart, and I think that's what motivates his work. Because he tells the truth in a straightforward way, that is perceived as harsh,'' Saito said.

______________________

Comment from Arty Guy: Yes, and Hitler loved his dog too. That didn't keep Hitler from having the dog killed at the end.

[d19thdoc]

There are laws against sedition, just as there are laws against treason. The right to free speech does not extend to criminal activity. The biggest, and least appreciated, fallout from the Kerry-ite cadres of the 70's was raising the bar on these types of crimes to the point that laws against them are now all but meaningless.
They let Kerry and his VVAW/Commie cronies off the hook, so now there is precedent - this is just the latest example.
This scum should be in jail - permanently.
_________________
For The Honor of the Fifty-Eight Thousand.
"He Can Lose, But He Can Not Hide"

[FreeFall]

He's got a forum at his site if anyone wants to post.

[GenrXr]

If you would like to email the president of CU his email is, president@cu.edu

Got it from Joe Scarborough last night.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy

[FreeFall]

The guy has to take responsiblity for what he said. I hope some family members of 9/11 victims are there.

As far as free speech, you don't have a right to well FIRE in a public place for fear of starting a riot when people panic. So this guy isn't inflamming people by his words?

[blue9t3]

[quote="FreeFall"]He's got a forum at his site if anyone wants to post.[/qu

ote]

His site? or his e-mail? PM if you must.
_________________
MOPAR-BUYER

[FreeFall]

The forums are at the darknightpress.org site.