The Great Debate sparks strong reaction among students

By Whitney  Burbank

BOSTON- Boston University’s 27th Great Debate asked a question that is under deep consideration at the Whitehouse: Is the war the war in Afghanistan worth fighting? According to the vast majority of Great Debate attendees, the answer is no.

 The Great Debate, held Wednesday night at the Tsai Performance Center, featured two panels, affirmative and negative. Each panel consisted of two professors and one student. Journalism professor Robert Zelnick, mediator of the debate since the spring of 1999, introduced Thomas Johnson as the first panelist from the affirmative. 

Johnson, a faculty member of the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval Postgraduate School,  advocated for fighting the war in Afghanistan if there were to be a change in U.S. military and political strategy.

Johnson stated, “The war in Afghanistan is worth fighting only if we have well-defined goals and realistic political and military strategies to achieve those objectives- right now we have neither.”

He disagreed with the notion that more soldiers are necessary. He proposed that the troops currently stationed in Afghanistan be used to stabilize governance in rural areas.

 “A culturally adept policy would seek to reestablish stability in rural Afghanistan by reestablishing traditional village government systems and processes.”

Andrew Bacevich, a B.U. Professor of history and international relations, offered a strong rebuttal. He declared, “War is a great evil, a blight on human existence.” Bacevich, a former U.S. Army Colonel, argued war in Afghanistan was unnecessary.

Bacevich offered the counter-terrorism approach as an alternative to war, a combination of surveillance and targeted attacks, along with “outsourcing” techniques.

According to Bacevich, providing Afghani warlords with “material incentive” would keep Al Qaeda out. He said, “Together these two complementary approaches can keep us safe at a far, far lower cost then we will pay to a perpetual and quite unnecessary war.”

 Panelist  Marin Strmecki, White House foreign policy advisor to Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski from 1985 until 1990, he argued on Wednesday that the U.S. should not abandon the people of Afghanistan again, as it did following the occupation of Afghanistan by the then Soviet Union. 

Strmecki maintained that U.S. involvement with Afghanistan has already yielded benefits for the Afghani people. In a country with an adult literacy rate of 28 percent Strmecki said educational programs are being pushed to the forefront. 

He asserted, “Millions of Afghan children are going to school in Afghan institutions including girls who had never had an opportunity to go to school under the Taliban.”

Nick Mills, associate professor of Journalism at B.U., suggested that it was American involvement in Afghanistan that partially led to the empowerment of the Taliban.

“They took our money, they took our weapons, they hated us for it,” Mills recalled, ”We thought they loved us, but we couldn’t buy their love and respect. We didn’t understand them then, we don’t understand them really now.”

President Barack Obama must wrestle with the issue of understanding the people of Afghanistan as U.S. Commander General Stanley McChrystal pushes to increase military presence by sending at least 400,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Immigration: Pakistani in America

By Whitney Burbank

BOSTON- Shazia Khuwaja had difficulty dating boys in high school. It is hard to believe looking at the 20-year-old Boston University student as she reclines on her bed in her apartment. Her dark hair and complexion highlights her bright smile and almond-shaped eyes. It wasn’t braces or acne that caused her difficulty with the opposite sex. It was her parents.

Shazia’s parents are Pakistani, both raised in the province of Sindih. It took a while for Ali Khuwaja and his wife Rubina Khuwaja to adjust to the idea of their daughter dating. Traditional Pakistani culture frowns upon premarital relations with the opposite sex.

She told her mother and father, “You have to let me live how other kids live.” Eventually, they came around to the idea.

The hardships Shazia’s parents endured drove them to attain a better standard of life for their own family. Yet their extended family remains in Pakistan. Immigration laws make it difficult for them to gain U.S. citizenship or even visas.

Shazia’s father came from humble beginnings. He and his ten sibilings at times would be without clothing or shoes. Luckily he was a talented medical student and received his fellowship in America. In 1975 he became a U.S. citizen. Once he established his practice he and Shazia’s mother were married and in 1986 she became a U.S. citizen. 

Shazia’s mother wore the traditional “salwar kameez” over to America. An outfit comprised of loose trousers and a long tunic. She stared at a woman’s stilettos for the entire flight. Her shoes were unlike anything she had seen before. Shazia’s mother bought her first pair of heels as soon as she arrived in the U.S..

It was not an easy transition into a foreign culture for the newlyweds. Shazia remembers her mother having trouble with the greeting, nice to meet you, her mother would reply, me too.

Instead of fighting to fit into American culture like her parents did, Shazia clings to the remainder of her Pakistani heritage. No matter how long it has been since she last attended Mosque, Shazia always carries her tasbih.

Shazia reaches under the bed to grab a large purple handbag, she plunges her hand inside to pull out her tasbih. She hands me a string of beads. They are bright turquoise with small pink flowers on them. If she ever forgets Allah and the prophets, her tasbih helps her to remember them in her prayers.

Shazia has traveled to Pakistan eight times to visit her extended family. She was 13 the last time she went.

According to Shazia, “Everything [in Pakistan] was intense. There was intense poverty, intense Religion and corruption.”

She remembers long power outages that frightened her as a child. According to her father, who visited this year, his family in Pakistan now has a generator. Shazia admits the generator is progress, but it is still just, “baby steps.”

It is difficult for Shazia and her parents to see their family lacking basic needs like reliable heat and light in their homes. U.S. immigration policy makes it hard for family members to receive visas, let alone citizenship. The only time Shazia’s uncle and her cousin visited the U.S. was for cancer treatment. It took Shazia’s mother four years to get her mother a visa.

Shazia says, “I didn’t grow up with grandparents.”

She hopes someday soon she and her family will be able to visit each other more freely. Ideally she would like to see each of her family members visit her, here in America. 

“The system is too strict. It’s not fair and it has to be readjusted. I just don’t know how,” says Shazia. She will return to Pakistan in December for the first time in seven years.

Obama urges healthcare reform

By Whitney Burbank

BOSTON – “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” said President Obama as he urged Congress to reform United States healthcare in his speech last Wednesday. He said the healthcare bill would allow those with health insurance to keep it along with providing insurance at low competitive rates for those without it.

The bill would make it illegal for insurance companies to deny people insurance for a pre-existing condition or drop them for getting sick. He said that his bill would encourage fair and healthy competition among insurance agencies and cause them to get new customers. He insisted that by gaining customers and eliminating overhead costs of insurance the bill would pay for itself. Obama said that the bill would not contribute in any way to the national deficit and any budget cuts as a result of the bill would be publicized.

Obama expressed the goal of establishing a public option for those without health care. He said that only a small portion of the bill was dedicated to a public option and that it should not get in the way of the passage of the bill. He said he would be open to any suggestions made by Congressmen. Republicans responded by holding up copies of their own version of the healthcare bill. Republicans seemed resistant, but Obama encouraged bipartisanship and asked Congressmen stop their “bickering”. He insisted they focus on improving US healthcare in order to prevent the bankruptcy of small businesses and families as well as the unnecessary deaths of those without coverage.