Forensic
team debates Iraqi war
By Karl Peterson
On-line Forty-Niner
The
Cal State Long Beach Forensics Team held
a debate Thursday at the Beach Auditorium
to resolve the issue of the United States’
pending invasion of Iraq.
About
150 people attended the event that was the
first of a series of exhibition debates
to be held on campus this year.
People
attended the event for various reasons,
ranging from those who were simply killing
time between classes to those who had strong
opinions about the issue. Some arrived to
simply acquire more information about the
issue with hopes of becoming enlightened
by information presented.
“I
came today because I didn’t have an opinion
and I wanted to get information,” said freshman
Cynthia Romanowski.
The
debate was mediated by the director of the
forensics team, Matt Taylor, and featured
juniors Audrey Mink, who won national championships
in extemporaneous speaking and parliamentary
debate last year, and Cori Johnson, supporting
the invasion of Iraq debating against team
president Jared Miller, a junior, and senior
Usama Kahf who opposed a possible invasion.
The
purpose of the debate was to inform the
audience of the issues involved in the possible
invasion.
“We
believe that the best way to arrive at an
educated guess is through the method of
argumentation,” Taylor said.
Mink
and Johnson contended that invasion and
regime change was necessary, citing Iraq’s
continued genocide, which has killed nearly
300,000 Kurdish and Shiite Muslims over
the past ten years. They also cited the
third generation rule, which states that
any person who dissents against Saddam Hussein’s
government could be punished as well as
any member of his or her family within three
generations, and the continued killing of
many detainees in Iraqi prisons. The two
also stated that civilian death would be
necessary to help the whole of Iraq and
they presented Afghanistan as a case where
regime change was beneficial to a nation.
In
a closely matched debate, the team of Miller
and Kahf contended that an invasion of Iraq
was only a ploy by President George W. Bush
to garner votes in the upcoming election.
They stated that the Iraqi military was
much less potent than it was before Operation
Desert Storm. They added that Iraq does
not present a clear danger and to assume
that it does could lead to destabilization
of the international coalition on terrorism
and could also breed anti-American sentiment
causing more terrorism.
The
debate was followed by a question-and-answer
session between the crowd and participants,
during which many audience members asked
questions and voiced opinions.
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