September 23, 2003. &Omega. FACULTY COUNCIL IRAQ RESOLUTION.

Chancellor Brehm was helpful when the Bloomington Faculty Council passed a resolution on the War in Iraq last spring. Let me recount that, a good practice when annoyed by someone. I suggested a "support the troops" resolution to BFC President Eno, who gave me the good advice that he didn't think it would have much chance of getting through with a strong enough vote to make it worthwhile. I asked him for an example of someone who he thought would probably be opposed, and he suggested Professor Marsh. She took my idea seriously, and rewrote my draft completely, but in a way that satisfied both of us:

As in any democracy, a wide diversity of opinion exists among the faculty of Indiana University, Bloomington, concerning the War in Iraq. However, we wish warmly to extend our sympathy and support to those men and women whose lives are caught up in this conflict:
First, the members of the IUB community -- students, staff, and alumni -- currently serving in Iraq. We commend their devotion to duty, grieve for their losses and those of their families, applaud their attempts to limit injury to innocent Iraqi civilians, and wish them a safe return to their country.
Second, our thoughts go out to those thousands of innocents in Iraq -- men, women, and (above all) children -- whose lives, homes, and families have been lost in or damaged by this war. We hope humanitarian aid may be speedily and generously delivered for their assistance, and wish all luck to those members of the extended IU community who are involved in that effort.
Third, we think also of the Arab and Iraqi students on this campus and on campuses across America, and of Arab- and Iraqi-American citizens of all kinds, for whom the conditions and precautions of war have created distress. We hope that our country will maintain its tradition of tolerance and respect for all.

I told Chancellor Brehm that we'd like to introduce the resolution if there was time at the end of the meeting, but that if it looked like it would get bogged down in discussion, we wouldn't pursue it. Since this was the last meeting of the year, with a heavy agenda, and this resolution was a last-minute idea, she could quite fairly have killed it simply by not giving it any time. But as it turned out, there was five minutes free at the end of the meeting, and the resolution's wording was acceptable to pretty much everybody (I think maybe there were some helpful minor changes, but everybody was in a cooperative spirit).

The lessons?

Even liberal professors who opposed the war were willing to say nice things about American troops.
It's possible for a local organization to write a sensible resolution that touches on foreign policy. Note that we kept everything tied in to Indiana University, the idea being that such a resolution was appropriate because the war was having a significant effect on some members of the University. We weren't trying to make foreign policy with the resolution.
It's possible for people with drastically different political viewpoints to work constructively together. I am very conservative; Professor Marsh is, I gather, much to my left, as Chancellor Brehm and most of the BFC probably is, but we came up with a worthwhile resolution anyway--one that was not even just a compromise, but that very different people could sincerely support in all its parts.

Reading it again, the resolution looks even better than it did at the time, since it turns out that our soldiers are spending more time helping civilians than they did fighting the enemy.

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