Our generation carries the responsibility of ending the War in Iraq, James Thurber, Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, told students at an Honors Tea Talk last night.
Thurber's lecture on "Congress and the President: Cooperation and Conflict" transformed into a dialogue with the students gathered in the Honors Office over cake and tea.
"What advice would you give on Iraq?" he asked the audience.
Students responded with ideas ranging from talking to the troops overseas to opening up dialogue with Iran.
However, Thurber said students aren't getting angry enough about Iraq.
"No one's screaming about it," he said, pointing to not only the loss of life, but also the 9 trillion dollars of debt the students' generation will inherit to pay for the war.
"No one is feeling this war," he said. "We'd have people marching in the streets already if we had the draft."
Julie Munroe, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, said she appreciated how Thurber put the Iraq War in perspective.
"Because there isn't a draft, people aren't making as big of a deal," she said. "But even if you aren't majoring in politics, it's an issue everyone will face."
Thurber also said finding a solution to the Iraq War is complicated because the war's mission isn't clear.
"You can't fight a war without consensus over what the threat is," he said.
Thurber said neither spreading democracy "like a contagion" or finding weapons of mass destructions were the goals of the war.
"Do we have consensus about what the threat is?" he asked. "No."
Constantly asking for ideas, Thurber told the students to imagine what they would do if they were working in the White House.
"You need to bring truth to power," he said. "You need to stand up for what you believe in."
Phil Zakahi, a freshman in SPA, said he found the speech intellectually stimulating.
"I enjoyed that he challenged us," he said. "I hadn't really thought about what I would do but he seemed to have an answer or a question to everything."
Sara Scott, a junior in the School of International Service, also appreciated how interactive the talk was.
"I'd become desensitized," she said. "He made it more real for us"
