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February 25, 2003
University Lecture Series: Iraq Conflict
I had the opportunity of going to an interesting lecture this afternoon. The speaker was Tom Farer, Dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He is a prominent expert on international law, international organization, and conflict resolution. As far as I could tell from the context of his lecture, he's a democrat.
I thought his presentation was well put together. He gave a lot of good support for why the Bush administration is doing what they are doing. However, he seemed awfully non-committal. He did not give any good evidence as to why the U.S. shouldn't go to war, which led me to believe he is not at all against war in Iraq, but I can't even remember the number of times he said, "I don't know", "I could be completely wrong", or "I'm not sure". He admitted several times that he hadn't yet made up his mind about the issue, which caused me to wonder why he would get up in front of that many people and lead a discussion.
Nevertheless, I learned a great deal about what could happen after the war. He presented a few different scenarios, citing the outcomes of previous conflicts to back up each possibility. He seems to think the outcome of this war will decide whether the U.N. remains in power. He claims that the U.N. charter is reaching the end of its usefulness and that some things will need to change in global organization if we are to last through the next century.
All in all it was a very interesting lecture. He made a good case for why war in Iraq is justified, but again seemed very reluctant to say that war is necessary. I agreed with a few of his points, but found myself disagreeing with him more than agreeing.
This lecture was part of a series of lectures surrounding the Iraqi-American Conflict. I would really like to go to the rest of the lectures, and would invite all who are interested to come with me. The full lecture schedule can be found on the University website.
Posted by Joey at February 25, 2003 07:53 AM
Comments
There was an article in the Chronicle (University of Utah's daily newspaper) about the lecture yesterday. Click the link below to check it out:
Tom Farer Says Iraq Attack Wouldn't Be Pre-Emptive
(You may have to register before you can read the article—don't worry, it's free)
I thought the article was pretty well written. It gives you a good idea of what was said in the lecture. Let me know if you agree with some of the comments he made.
Posted by: Joey at February 26, 2003 02:37 AM