During Sunday night’s WSA meeting, Erik Rosenberg ’08, a member of Students for Ending the War in Iraq (SEWI), presented SEWI’s resolution calling for Wesleyan to divest from U.S. Department of Defense contractors. WSA members present at the meeting rejected SEWI’s resolution by a resounding 20-1 vote (with five abstentions).
This resolution, which called for Wesleyan to divest from General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Tyco, condemned the U.S. military and essentially any use of weapons.
During the meeting, Rosenberg pointed out that the three aforementioned companies make weapons and profit in times of war, but he did not detail anything else they do.
According to tyco.com, Tyco manufactures electronics for “computers, telecommunications equipment, industrial machinery, aerospace and defense applications, automobiles, household appliances and consumer electronics.” In addition to other services and products listed on tyco.com, Tyco manufactures medical devices worldwide and provides fire equipment and services in over 100 countries that “safeguard firefighters, prevent fires, deter thieves and protect people and property.” Any thinking person can see that an evil company such as Tyco is a socially irresponsible investment.
General Dynamics and Raytheon, the fourth- and fifth-largest U.S. Defense Department Contractors in 2006 according to marketwatch.com, are more involved with the U.S. military than Tyco. But there are competing military contractors out there, and as a WSA member suggested at the meeting, divesting from the three aforementioned companies would strengthen these competitors, a notion that Rosenberg rejected.
Even if these three companies were the only U.S. military contractors, Kevin Young, divestment would be unwise. The U.S. must have a strong defense in order to defend itself and defenseless people all over the world. There are people on this campus and throughout the country trying to get the U.S. military to assist in stopping the current genocide in Darfur. Would it be okay by you—socially responsible I mean—if our troops brought some weapons with them if they were sent to Darfur? What if these weapons are made by the military contractors that SEWI is trying to get Wesleyan to divest from?
I realize the U.S. has made its share of military mistakes, several of which were during Vietnam, but I do not know where you got you found the statistics that “perhaps three million people in Indochina” were killed by the U.S. military. Actually, men like Pol Pot killed nearly that many people after we retreated.
The quote you borrowed from Martin Luther King, Jr. describing the U.S. government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” is absurd. Do you truly believe that the U.S. has gone around the world killing innocent people since World War II, the last military conflict you deem necessary, ended? Should we have stopped building up our defense during the Cold War, faced with the threat of annihilation? Should we have stayed out of South Korea, which is now a thriving democracy because of our intervention? Was it wrong to fight communism in Central America during the ’80s? Was our successful involvement in the First Persian Gulf War unnecessary? Should the U.S. military not have gone to Somalia on a humanitarian starvation relief mission in the early ’90s, during which fighting broke out?
Moving on, to those who wrote in support of Young’s position using first-grade “weapons are bad” logic, I wish it were that simple, but it clearly is not. Enough said.
Joanna Arnow, you spent half of your response to me on a non-issue—trying to prove that I asserted “that Young submitted the Wespeak claiming to write on behalf of SEWI, without consulting the group,” “that SEWI members did not work on the article or consider its content,” and “that the Argus does not bother to verify the authors of Wespeaks.” You pulled all of these “assertions” out of one word (“supposedly”) that I used! I suppose (yes, suppose!) that my wording could have been clearer, but I was not implying and certainly not “asserting” that Young did not consult other members of SEWI. I was expressing my hope that not everyone in the group shares the exact views presented in the Wespeak that Young submitted. Someone can write on behalf of a group without consulting everyone in the group, and even you said that Young “solicited and obtained input from many people within the group,” with the key word being “many” rather than “all.” Yet you also said, “SEWI members take careful consideration before putting our names on a Wespeak.” However, the only SEWI member whose name was on the Wespeak was Young. Perhaps students who worked on the Wespeak with him should have added their names, but Young simply said he wrote on behalf of SEWI. The Argus verified that Young wrote the piece, and the editors were aware of SEWI’s campaign for divestment, so there was no need to further verify that Young wrote on behalf of SEWI, because we believed him. And since dictionary.com defines “supposedly” as “believed or reputed to be the case,” yes, Young “supposedly” wrote on behalf of SEWI.
Speaking on behalf of SEWI on Sunday night, Rosenberg acknowledged that he wanted Wesleyan to make an economic, political, and social statement by divesting from General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Tyco—setting an example for other universities to follow. He disagreed with the idea that Wesleyan is a non-political institution. Considering that Wesleyan is a University, and in order to maintain its status as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, it is not even allowed to participate in political campaigns or support or oppose political candidates, I would call it an “educational” institution rather than a political one. That’s not to say that Wesleyan as an institution cannot make symbolic statements—I just do not believe that divesting from military contractors would make the right statement.
Divesting from military contractors would make a statement condemning the U.S. military and defense, and it would negatively affect Wesleyan’s endowment, but it would not help end the war in Iraq. Instead of campaigning for divestment, SEWI members should think of a new name for their group.
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