Hunter Patch Adams, the subject of a film starring Robin Williams, came to Princeton to give a lecture on Sept. 24. Adams is a true humanitarian and a revolutionary. He has given his life to help the needy and has traveled all around the world help those who need it most. Even more significantly, he has pioneered the art of using clowning as a method of healing.
During his lecture at Princeton, Adams spoke much about his medical work and had many positive things to say about the importance of fostering "compassion" and "love" for others. His speech, however, also included much commentary on American foreign policy that seemed unrelated to his medical work and that was for the most part misinformed, if not downright absurd.
For example, at one point while Adams was talking about his medical work, he suddenly out of the blue asked people in the audience, how many of them want to go to war with Iraq. Not many people raised their hands. Adams noted that this occurred in most other places that he lectured at. He stated that the American people don't want to go to war against Iraq and that it is simply the "corporate media" that keeps talking about and wants war. This, however, is not the case. The majority of Americans do support a war on Iraq. A recent Gallup Poll shows that 58% of Americans support the "use of US ground troops to remove Saddam Hussein." Likewise, a CBS News Poll on Sept. 24 noted, "57% say removing Hussein from power is worth the potential loss of American life and other costs, and the same number support it even if the U.S. incurred substantial casualties."
Many of Adams' statements were simply preposterous, if not offensive. For example, Adams stated that the USA Patriot Act, the counter-terrorism legislation passed by Congress in the wake of Sept. 11 attacks, had "parallels with Nazi Germany." Certainly, there are legitimate concerns about the effects the USA Patriot Act will have on civil liberties and I am not sure if I support it. But "parallels with Nazi Germany?" Does one expect that the USA Patriot Act is just a stepping stone for the Bush administration to establish a dictatorship, institute apartheid laws and start the mass murder of American citizens? Adams also mocked Ronald Reagan for viewing the Soviet Union as an "enemy" of the United States during the Cold War and absurdly claimed that President Bush was "happy" when the Sept. 11 attacks happened.
In addition, Adams opposed American military action in Afghanistan and accused the Bush administration of starting the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban because "Georgie," as he referred to President Bush throughout his lecture, "wanted oil." America, however, went to war in Afghanistan to protect the lives of its citizens in the aftermath of a grisly act of mass murder on American soil and to eradicate the Al-Qaeda terrorist network involved in the attacks and the fundamentalist Taliban regime that harbored it.
The notion that the United States went to war in Afghanistan for oil is debunked by Ken Silverstein in an article titled, " No War for Oil!: Is the United States really after Afghanistan's resources? Not a chance," in the well respected liberal political journal, The American Prospect, hardly a bastion of the "corporate media" or supporters of the Bush Administration. Silverstein notes that Afghanistan has "very small reserves of natural gas and virtually no oil" and while the Caspian region has large resources it is almost inconceivable that Afghanistan will serve as a transit corridor for the Caspian's resources given today's circumstances.
Adams talked much of the innocent civilians killed by the bombing and at one point stated that it was "easy to think of Afghans making 65 cents a day as the enemy." Yet, what Adams fails to understand is that there is a crucial difference between systematically targeting civilians for slaughter as Al-Qaeda did, and trying to avoid civilian casualties in a battle to protect one's national security. Moreover, it is the Afghan people who benefit from the overthrow of the brutal and oppressive Taliban regime that has systematically abused the rights of its citizens. Most Americans, don't think of "Afghans making 65 cents a day" as their enemy, but rather see them as victims of the Taliban regime, which is considered to be the true enemy.
In the question and answer session, I asked Adams what he thought about the notion that American military intervention to overthrow terrorist regimes and dictatorships such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq would do much to advance the cause of human rights in those countries and protect American national security. He replied, "That is what our dear president would want you to think." He went on to say that America was " the biggest terrorist" and claimed "millions" have died as a result of American foreign policy. America, he said had "no right" to be concerned about who rules Baghdad or to push for regime change, an assertion that seems to contradict Adams's message of universal humanitarianism. He then stated, "What are the hundreds killed by Saddam compared to the millions killed by America? " Saddam, however, hasn't killed merely "hundreds." Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, writing in the Wall Street Journal on March 22 states the case for Saddam Hussein to be tried as a war criminal like Slobodan Milosevic, noting that "some 100,000 Kurds, mostly men and boys, were trucked to remote sites and executed." This number does not include Shiite Muslims and Iraqi dissidents who have also suffered from Saddam's brutality.
In a column in the Prince last February, I argued that the United States must push for regime change in Iraq as America's current policy of containment has been ineffective in deterring Iraq from acquiring weapons of mass destructions and the threat of Saddam Hussein's regime is too great to ignore. I also noted that Khidhir Hamza, a man who led Iraq's weapons program, has stated that Iraq is very close to having a functioning nuclear device and that the overthrow of the Baathist regime would liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam's oppression. To be sure, there certainly are legitimate criticisms against the proposed war on Iraq. The United States has been criticized for its unilateralism and the doctrine of preemption, which many observers claim is a radical departure from established norms of international relations. Some have argued that going to war with Iraq would distract America from the "real" war on terrorism in Afghanistan against Al-Qaeda. However, it is absurd to say that an American war on Iraq would be an act of American "terrorism" and aggression against the Iraqi people initiated by the Bush administration in cahoots with the "corporate media" as Adams indicated many times throughout his speech. The Iraqi people would be the prime benefactors of an American invasion of Iraq, which would overthrow their oppressive dictator and rebuild their country.
Adams's assertion that America is "the biggest terrorist" is also highly problematic. While United States foreign policy is far from perfect and has included supporting the overthrow of democratically elected governments in places such as Chile, Iran, and Greece, it is also undoubtedly true that America foreign policy has liberated and protected the rights of millions. It was America that stopped the march of fascism in World War II and fought to contain communism on all front and liberate Eastern Europe. It was the America that led the international coalition to stop ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and saved the people of West Berlin from the slavery of Stalinism in 1948. This is hardly the profile of the "world's biggest terrorist."
Appreciating the sacrifice Patch Adams has made for his patients and the innovate ways of helping the needy that he has pioneered is something that we as humans whether centrists, rightists, or leftists ought to appreciate. Misinformed statements on American foreign policy that have little relevance to "Health and Humor, " the title of Adams's speech, however, tremendously detracted from what was otherwise a meaningful message.
(Additional material that was not run in print was amended to this story on Nov. 4th, 2002)
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