[Peace-discuss] My experience with the U of I recently

[Karen Aram]

I attended what was supposed to be a talk on Constitutional
Law last week at the COL U of I, by Prof. Anil Amar a
Constitutional Law Professor at Yale University, and the brother of the Dean of the College of Law U of I. 

I was planning to raise questions related to the firing of Professor Salaita for exercising his "freedom of speech" on social media, and bringing in Harold “Killer” Koh, to campaign for his client Hillary Clinton only ten days before the election in violation of Illinois statues.
 
It was Poli Sci 101 with Prof. Amar promoting his book and Hillary.  Due to lack of time, he only took questions. Two people asked questions related to issues and law
which he addressed with much discussion related to the electoral collage, former Pres. Lincoln and Obama, then progressing to disparaging third parties, blaming Nader for Bush and our current wars. He talked about how awful Trump is, and how moderate Hillary is and why we need her, even mentioning Tammy Duckworth as someone who should be supported.
I restrained myself from walking out, and raised my hand instead.
  
I asked "how can you support Hillary given her record as
Sec. of State, responsible, along with Obama, for the death
and destruction of thousands/millions of people of Libya,
Syria, Yemen, as well as Iraq?" and then asked again,
"having heard you speak yesterday on NPR, how can you
support our Constitutional Law Prof. President, Obama, who
has broken not only International law, but our laws, by
extending the Bush wars to as many as 8
countries”?  Then followed with "I came here
expecting a conversation on “Freedom of Speech”
instead I’m hearing a promotion of Hillary and the Democrats." 

He responded with “you’re
exercising your freedom of speech and I’m exercising
mine.”  He then attempted to defend his position. He was clearly
rattled, and floundering, though he was floundering all over the place from the very beginning, now worse. One of his most disturbing statements was in relation to his defense of Hillary and the destruction of Libya, “only five Americans died in Libya, emphasizing with fingers raised, "only five.”

I guess to some, only American lives matter. The millions of non Americans the US is responsible for killing with impunity, and no remorse, sadly, don’t matter.

He was then pulled off to another speaking engagement.