Valparaiso and the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War

[The author of what follows, professor of law Ed Gaffney, Jr., is, as some MOJ readers know, co-author with Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., of Religous Freedom: History, Cases and Other Materials on the Interaction of Religion and Government (Foundation Press 2001).]

University Community Marks Fifth Anniversary of Iraq War

Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr.
Professor of Law

On Tuesday, March 18, the Iraq War turned five years old. That is longer than the Civil War, longer than the American involvement in World War I, and longer than the American involvement in World War II. And far more costly to taxpayers than the expenditures for all three of these wars combined: more than a trillion dollars. It was not an early Church Father, but President Dwight David Eisenhower – former commander of the Allied forces in Europe in World War II – who called military expenditures on this scale “a theft from the poor.”

Members of the faculty, staff and student body of Valparaiso University observed the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War with a panel discussion at Christ College in the afternoon. In the evening, the Chapel of the Resurrection was the venue for a solemn commemoration of the dead, the wounded, and those who have suffered from this war.

The afternoon program had the feel of a Vietnam-era “teach-in.” The most notable difference was the graying of those in attendance. Chaired by Professor Sy Moskowitz of the School of Law, a panel of professors gave differing perspectives on the war.

Professor Beth Gingerich of the Business College suggested that – no matter who is elected to succeed President George W. Bush next January – it will probably take much more time to achieve full troop withdrawal than the 60 days bandied about in the current presidential campaign.

Professor Gus Sponberg, Chair of the American Studies Department, offered a parodic way out of the current chaotic condition: America should offer to airlift millions of Iraqis to our country and to provide them all with resettlement in a portion of the country suffering from a drop in population: the Plains states from the Dakotas in the north to Texas and Louisiana in the south. Sponberg’s “modest proposal” was quickly dubbed the “Fallouja to Fargo” plan. Its total cost, Sponberg noted, would be a small fraction of the enormous cost of the war in its first five years.

Noting that the price of a barrel of oil climbed past $110 per barrel recently, Professor Chuck Schaefer, Chair of the History Department, gave an introduction to the history of Western – first British and then American – interests in the oil resources of Iraq as a major signifier in this war.

Professor Brent Whitefield, another VU historian, offered a contrasting view. He urged restraint on withdrawal of troops from Iraq, on the view that the orderly transfer of authority matters more than a “cut and run” policy like the policy adopted by the Clinton administration in Somalia. He suggested that the American occupation of Japan offers a model for producing an amicable partnership that has endured long after the Allies forced Japan to abandon its conquest of the Pacific rim.

“We set out to illustrate diverse perspectives on this war,” Moskowitz stated, “and we achieved this goal.”

In the evening gathering at the Chapel of the Resurrection, the focus was more on the human costs of the war: less on the expenditure of our treasure and more on the shedding of our blood and loss of life by almost 4,000 of our own soldiers and by a vast number of Iraqi dead (at least 60,000 and perhaps as many as a half million), with at least two million displaced and homeless refugees.

The civic event featured Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders. Pastor Joseph Cunningham, Dean of the Chapel, welcomed all the participants to the gathering. Rabbi Shoshana Feferman of Temple Israel in Valparaiso, and Imam Mongy El-Quesny of the Islamic Center in Merrillville offered a reflection from their traditions. Dr. Fred Niedner, Chair of the Theology Department, read a poem by Wendell Barry that the farmer-poet wrote during the Vietnam War, but that could have been written yesterday about the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The names of all of the American soldiers and pilots, sailors and marines, who have died in Iraq were constantly being flashed up on the north wall of the Chapel, casting an eerie light on the sanctuary’s red bricks. Several members of the faculty and staff and local civic leaders – Jane Bello-Brunson, Lorri Cornett, Mary Ann and Joe Crayton, Stacy Hoult and Dan Saros, Tim Malchow, Carlos Miguel-Pueyo, and Tim Taylor – pronounced slowly and reverently the name of each member of our armed forces from Indiana who was killed in Iraq.

Professor Lorraine Brugh, Director of Chapel Music, led the Kantorei in an acapella rendition of a blessing from the Book of Numbers, “The Lord bless thee and keep thee.”

After hearing a brief part of John Donne’s famous 1623 sermon (“Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris”) – “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” – the respectful crowd listened to the tolling of the Chapel bells for five full minutes that seemed an eternity.

Then we went silently into the night, as moist rain fell softly over the living and the dead.