Sept 17 2002
Peace Forum to protest war in Iraq 
By Kristen Martin 
Staff writer 

Political controversy may be as fundamental to a diverse
university of more than 34,000 students as parking
complaints, book-buying mayhem, and 15 minute
cross-campus walks from one class to another. The
omnipresent news coverage of a possible war with Iraq has
opened the door for another university tradition-
anti-war activism- to reappear.

Peace Forum, a student university group, is holding
regular meetings and planning to bombard the campus with
its anti-war views. The forum held its third meeting last
night and discussed plans to lobby congressmen and spread
fliers across campus.

"I think it's appropriate to have a dissent basically
anytime," said Tom Elington, a government teaching
assistant. "I would hope we have some students that
disagree with one another."

The group will attend a Woodley Park anti-war rally
tomorrow and is developing a mass e-mail campaign to
reach the student body.

However, the group is far from unified in its views.

"There are many different political views," said junior
philosophy major Melissa Cuerdon during last night's
Peace Forum meeting. "The only thing we agree on
fundamentally is that we don't want to go to war with
Iraq."

Opinions ranged so greatly that, even before group
members were able to discuss core issues such as
publicity and outreach technique, the meeting was bogged
down with lengthy debate on voting techniques. According
to group member Doug Love who attended the meeting,
however, this type of discussion is common for
politically founded groups.

"The enthusiasm for the project overrides it," Love said.
"They're finding their way very dynamically and I'm very
glad to see it."

Peace Forum is actively recruiting new members and may
find willing participants in a divided student body.

"My personal opinion is that something has to be done
about Iraq," said sophomore music major Matthew Chick, in
favor of the U.S. legislatures proposed military action.
"We elected [Bush] to be our leader so we should have
some faith in him.  Something needs to be done about Iraq
[and Saddam Hussein], they're just hurting to many people
with him in power."

Some students on the campus, though, either haven't made
up their minds or are simply indifferent to potential
military action. "I saw some anti-war things on
sidewalks," said freshman biology major Jasmine Jenkins,
readily admitting he still needs more time for personal
reflection. "But it's not disturbing me or anything."