WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2004
WAR! CONFERENCE
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Ex-Marine denounces military
By Erik Johnson ejohnson@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Former Marine Corps sergeant Chris White spoke last Wednesday at the Burge Union on his experience in the military and the United States' history of funding dictators.
White served from 1994 to 1998, mostly performing peacekeeping missions throughout the Middle East, but insisted that the military was unsuccessful in forming him into a "trained killer" during basic training.
"I still had the same values leaving as I had going in because I didn't understand the institution I was getting into,"
"Do we honestly value freedom universally, or just freedom here?"
Chris White Former Marine Sergeant
White said.
White spent much of his presentation questioning the motives of U.S. leaders in putting ruthless dictators in control of third-world countries. Specifically, he discussed the 1981 massacre of El Salvadorian villagers of El Mozote, where he said 500 people were killed by U.S. trained guerrilla forces.
In light of Fourth of July weekend celebrations, White also questioned what the United States values.
"Do we honestly value freedom universally, or just freedom here?" he asked.
White left the Marines in 1998 and later joined Veterans for Peace, a group of former military men and women working to end current wars and promote peace through political understanding. He now travels the country, mostly to traditionally Hispanic and African-American areas, where he said military recruiting was heaviest, to dissuade young people from enlisting.
Edited by Jay Senter
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WAR! organizers held workshops and invited speakers to examine the issues of globalization, oil dependency, radicalism, the United States' response to the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq.
Thursday's events were capped with viewing of select short films.
One film, modeled after The Lord of the Rings, portrayed Vice President
Dick Cheney as ruler of Mordor, Sauron and Big Oil as the evil wizard Saruman.
Friday evening featured WAR!'s two keynote anti-authoritarian speakers, Kazi Toure, the first member of the Black Panthers convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government, and longtime Native American activist and speaker Ward Churchill.
Toure said he first became "involved with the struggle" when he was 13 and
refused to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
From 1974 to 1984, Toure was a member of an underground resistance group known as the United Freedom Front.
He participated in 14 bombings and 10 bank robberies with the UFF, but defended his position as a resistance fighter.
"Our bombs were against huge multi-national corporations, not the people working there," Toure said. "We
always called 15 minutes ahead to warn the employees."
Toure focused most of his speech on the importance of prisoner support.
He said the failure of the Black Panther movement - a group he became involved in before the UFF - resulted from the failure of group members to continue fighting when other members were locked up or killed, and that any dramatic change must be achieved through active resistance.
"There's roles for everybody," he said. "I want peace. I'm not trying to ruin my life, but we have to recognize that the U.S. is a very violent country."
Churchill, co-director for the American Indian Movement of Colorado and longtime political activist, requested to be introduced to the 200 or so in attendance as "an international troublemaker."
In his speech, Churchill said change was not supposed to be a stable process. A movement, he said, was a process of flux and change, not a career path that could be accomplished with diplomacy and political bargaining.
"You're not going to vote this out of office, you're not going to petition this out of office and you're not going to candlelight vigil this out of office," Churchill said. "You're going to have to accept the limitations of those in power and beat them at their own game."
- Edited by Jay Senter