The Los Angeles Times reports that University of Colorado at Boulder professor Ward L. Churchill has resigned an administrative position after writings in which he compared Sept. 11 victims to the Nazi who helped plan the Holocaust were recently publicized:
The furor erupted last week over an invitation for Churchill to speak about Native American issues at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. A group of professors there raised concerns after discovering some of his writings, including one done shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
In an essay entitled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," Churchill called the workers killed in the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns" — after the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who helped mastermind the murder of European Jews during World War II. He said trade center employees were "technocrats of empire" working for the "engines of profit" and as such were inevitable targets.
"They were civilians of a sort," he said. "But innocent, gimme a break."
Professor Churchill issued a statement defending his writings. According to the Times, in the statement Professor Churchill said his views had been distorted but didn't deny using inflammatory rhetoric to make his larger point — namely that if the U.S. government didn't comply with the rule of law, it couldn't be surprised if it were attacked:
"I have never characterized all the Sept. 11 victims as 'Nazis.' What I said was that the 'technocrats of empire' working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of 'little Eichmanns,' " he said. "Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the allies."
He said the children, janitors, food service workers and firefighters killed in the trade center were not "little Eichmanns."
"According to Pentagon logic, [they] were simply part of the collateral damage," he said. "Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians or anyone else."
The professor's distinction isn't going to help him. Here is the relevant excerpt from "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens:"
The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course.
That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.
They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."
There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building 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. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. 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.
I am a big supporter of the first amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I will support anyones's right, even Professor Churchill's, to say or write just about anything. That doesn't mean I support or agree with what the professor wrote. Just because Congress is prohibited from "abridging the freedom of speech," doesn't mean there are no consequences when someone, even a professor at a public school, says something as offensive as that.
Professor Churchill has resigned his chairmanship of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado. That's a nice start, but it won't satisfy those who are offended by his ill-considered writings.
The Daily Camera reports that the resignation will cost Churchill about $20,000 a year. He earned $94,242 as a professor, and received a 21 percent increase for his chairmanship, CU spokeswoman Pauline Hale said. The Daily Camera didn't report that the Professor's term as Chairman was to expire in June, as did the Times.
Fox News reports that Hamilton College canceled a panel discussion featuring Professor Churchill.
Hamilton spokesman Michael DeBraggio said multiple death threats were made against both college officials and Professor Churchill.
Death threats against the professor are more despicable than anything he said. The best way to respond to statements as appalling as those written by Professor Churchill is to give them as much publicity as possible. The more people that become aware of such idiocy will reduce the author's following and credibility.
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