[Peace] Neo-Con Events (4/21, 4/24) - Students for the Defense of America

[msimon at uiuc.edu]

Hello all,

This is to bring attention to the two upcoming events 
sponsored by the campus registered organization, Students for 
the Defense of America.  Read the abstracts!  Scary!  It 
would be great to have a strong group from AWARE present at 
these events.    

For the 4/24 Robert Tracinski lecture, please email me if you 
plan to attend.  Tracinski is a prolific writer from the Ayn 
Rand Institute and The Intellectual Activist whose pearls of 
wisdom I'll post soon.  If the AWARE delegation is large 
enough, we might also consider flyering at the event.  

Thanks,
Mike Simon
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4/21/2003  Teach-in: "Winning the Wider War: What America 
Must Do Next", a series of short presentations and Q&A 
featuring UI professor of economics Fred Gottheil and several 
graduate students, 7:00pm, 160 English Building (Directions: 
west side of quad, along Wright, between Daniels and 
Chalmers)  

4/24/2003  Live speaker event:  Robert Tracinski, “The Peace 
Process War: How the ‘Peace Movement’ Created Modern 
Terrorism”  7:30pm, 151 Loomis Lab (Directions: north-east 
corner of Green and Goodwin)

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"Winning the Wider War: What America Must Do Next" 
A Teach-In 
Monday, April 21 
7:00pm 
160 English Bldg. 


"Failed Societies and Modern Technology: A Dangerous Mix," 
Fred Gottheil, professor of economics 

September 11th destroyed not only the World Trade Center, but 
the way we view our future. The "clash of civilizations," as 
much as many like to deny it, is upon us. This presentation 
will address the economic implications of terrorism, and what 
our proper response should be. 


"Terrorism, Rogue States, and Weapons of Mass Destruction," 
Susan Jellissen, graduate student in political science 

Many, including leading Congressional Democrats, have argued 
that the war on Iraq would detract resources from the war on 
terrorism, thus implying that there is a distinction in terms 
of "threat" to be made between the two. Threats to U.S. 
national security arise, however, not only from "terrorism", 
but from the confluence of terrorism, rogue states and their 
production or access to WMD. This presentation will focus on 
the strategies that can be pursued in order to eliminate 
these threats to American lives and prosperity. 


"The Right to Self-Defense," 
Ben Bayer, graduate student in philosophy 

The governments of free nations have the obligation to defend 
the rights of their citizens, an obligation that stems from 
the citizens' right to self-defense. This talk will discuss 
the roots and the implications of the right to self-defense. 
It will explain why only the governments of free nations may 
legitimately exercise the right to self-defense, why free 
nations maintain the right to invade and liberate threatening 
dictatorships, why this includes the right to 
take 'preemptive' action against threats, and why the 
possibility of innocent deaths in war ought not to be a 
primary constraint on the prosecution of wars of self-
defense. 


"Why They Hate Us, Really," 
Andrew Dalton, graduate student in chemical engineering 

Ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we 
listened to endless analysis and hand-wringing by Western 
intellectuals. These intellectuals insist that we discover 
the "root causes" of terrorism in the foreign policy of the 
United States. They ask, "Why do they hate us?" and provide a 
ready answer couched in terms of our nation's alleged 
oppression, hegemony, and interventionism overseas. However, 
the facts about terrorism and American foreign policy do not 
support this popular theory. Terrorism against the United 
States correlates weakly with actual American intervention, 
but strongly with the ideology of the terrorists--radical 
Islam in particular. This presentation will argue that 
terrorist ideas are the true "root cause" of the danger we 
face

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"The 'Peace Process' War: How the Peace Movement Created 
Modern Terrorism": A speech by Robert W. Tracinski 
Thursday, April 24 
7:30pm 
151 Loomis Lab (map) 

"In another era terrorist attacks would have been regarded as 
an obvious provocation for full-scale war. Yet over the past 
30 years, thugs such as Yasser Arafat and the Ayatollah 
Khomeini developed the new strategy of the terror war--a war 
in which terrorism is not a prelude to armed combat, but a 
substitute for it. What makes that kind of war possible? The 
contemporary 'peace movement,' which paralyzes the victims of 
terror and prevents them from fighting back with all of their 
overwhelming military power. In this talk, Mr. Tracinski 
examines the underlying meaning and deepest philosophical 
roots of pacifism, explains why such an obviously disastrous 
idea has such pervasive influence (even on political leaders 
who are not pacifists) and shows how the 'peace movement' 
determines the very nature of the terror war, from its 
broadest outlines to the day-to-day 'cycle of violence' of 
the Mid-East 'peace process.'" 

Mr. Tracinski is a nationally-featured op-ed columnist and is 
the publisher and editor of The Intellectual Activist, a 
magazine analyzing political, cultural, and philosophic 
issues from an individualist perspective. His commentary has 
been published in the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco 
Chronicle, Cincinnati Enquirer, Los Angeles Daily News, San 
Jose Mercury News, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.