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What Did Ward Churchill Actually Say?

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by Michael S. Leonard

Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor who sparked national controversy with a 2001 essay characterizing the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks as “Little Eichmanns,” was fired by the University of Colorado on Tuesday. I will not discuss at any length the merits of his argument, which pertains to the most loaded, sacred, and taboo topic of the 21st century United States, and I will not tell anyone what to think. However, without either defending or ostracizing Professor Churchill, I do feel compelled to dispell the blatant mischaracterizations of the essay in question that have become prevalent in the days since his firing.

Mr. Churchill did not “call the victims of September 11 Nazis,” as one recent article on ToTheCenter asserted. That is not only a misinterpretation; it is an allegation that does not stand up to the most elementary fact-check. He made an analogy, and the fact that his remarks have been taken so literally is proof enough that the SAT's recent removal of the “Analogies” section was misguided. Furthermore, characterizing Adolf Eichmann merely as someone “who helped carry out the Holocaust,” while technically accurate, misses the point entirely. This cursory treatment of the topic ill serves the discourse. It is impossible to know whether you agree with Professor Churchill or, in fact, whether he is “an anti-American socialist lunatic,” as one commenter recently described him, if you don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi bureaucrat eventually assigned to manage the logistics of mass deportation and execution that lay at the heart of the Nazi “Final Solution,” as the extermination of Europe’s Jews was officially termed. He escaped to Argentina after the war and was eventually arrested (in 1961) by Israeli intelligence agents, who transported him to Jerusalem for trial on charges of war crimes. In Jerusalem, Eichmann adopted the “only following orders” defense that had failed so many of his superiors at the Nuremberg trials 15 years earlier. After colleagues sent highly incriminating depositions from Germany and Austria, many of which portrayed Eichmann as an overzealous careerist who frequently went above and beyond his “orders” in the hopes of impressing Nazi superiors, Eichmann was convicted and hanged.

Hannah Arendt, a reporter whose coverage of the trial formed the basis for her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, turned the case study into a landmark thesis of political philosophy and mass psychology. Throughout the book, she treated Eichmann as the embodiment of individual culpability for the atrocities of a totalitarian regime. She pointed out that Eichmann was not an ideological anti-Semite; he was simply trying to out-perform rivals and advance his career. Arendt noted that he was not psychopathic, psychologically damaged, or distorted by hatred. She coined the term “the banality of evil” to describe the way in which people who abdicate their own moral responsibility can become desensitized to the immoral duties they perform as a matter of daily life. Eichmann had surrendered his moral autonomy by refusing to judge the laws or actions of the state he served, and so had the millions of other Germans who abetted the Nazi regime in general and the Holocaust in particular.

Arendt’s conclusions can be characterized as Existentialist: individuals must never simply obey orders or laws just because they are orders or laws. We all have a moral duty to be sure the taxes we pay are not funding autocrats, to be sure the paper we push does not facilitate genocide, whether on our own soil or halfway round the world. “It’s the law” or “I’ll be fired if I say no” is not a good enough reason or excuse. That was Eichmann’s excuse.

(A brief note of clarification: Other interpretations of Eichmann’s actions have been offered, but at issue is not what Eichmann did or why he did it. Churchill’s paper referred to Arendt’s “banality of evil” interpretation,” which is why I explained it.)

Ward Churchill’s paper trod on sacrosanct ground. We have been told by politicians, media pundits, and clerygmen that the terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11 “hate us because we're free.” That is baloney. Al Qaeda is certainly a terrorist organization, but it is not a nihilist group. In fact, there is no point in committing acts of terror if you do not hope to gain from them. Like the Irish Republican Army, Hamas, and the political anarchists of fin-de-siècle Europe, al Qaeda is an organization of political terrorists with political goals.

Like the other groups, their motivations are impure and complicated. In addition to having political goals, they are also anti-Semitic and radically opposed to the liberal values of the West. However, the reason they attacked the United States on September 11 is not that “they hate us because we’re free.” They wanted to attack the financial and military capitals of the United States because our government, industry, and military support the “infidel” government of Saudi Arabia, their Holy Land.

What Ward Churchill contended in his publicly condemned paper is that the people who worked in the Pentagon and the World Trade Center may only have pushed paper around all day, but that paper was doing something. That paper was helping to perpetuate the conditions that led to the attack.

And there is the analogy to Eichmann. Eichmann didn’t shoot, hang, or gas Jews; he just pushed paper around all day. But the paper he pushed around made the Holocaust possible.

Now, do I think Ward Churchill got it right? Not about the big questions. While I agree with Hannah Arendt about individual culpability in a mass-culture world, I think the analogy between Eichmann’s willfully enabling a genocide and the World Trade Center and Pentagon employees is more than a stretch, and it is highly offensive to many people for obvious reasons. But to say that he was calling the victims of September 11 Nazis is an outrageous misrepresentation of his position. And to note that he called them “Little Eichmanns” without explaining what he meant simply lowers the discourse and contributes to the current witch-hunt culture, which has had a major chilling effect on unpopular speech.

Whether you agree or disagree with Professor Churchill; whether you think he should be applauded or fired; whether you think he’s an intellectual or a quack, it is important to be informed and to judge according to the facts. Insinuating that he called the victims of September 11 Nazis because explaining what he actually meant takes too much time or effort only serves to make Americans dumber.

I think Ward Churchill made some valid points, and I also disagree with much of what he said. But should he have been attacked from all sides? Shouted down by opponents? Ridiculed and ostracized like a child molestor? Should he have been fired? Should university professors be told that certain topics are “off limits”? Should people be scared out of taking unpopular positions?

If they really do “hate us because we’re free,” they should be liking us more and more.

Comments

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#1 | rwahrens on July 26 2007 12:46:59

Mike,

Thank you for a well researched and well executed essay on this subject. I was suspicious yesterday when I heard about this on the news, because I have seen so many people's statements twisted beyond recognition in this fashion.

So thank you for helping me see what this story is really all about!

I believe that he should NOT have been fired. It is the job of our Universities to expand the boundaries of knowledge and test the limits of morality through discussion and philosophic debate. firing someone for taking a controversial position is wrong and damaging to the tenets of education.

... and, by the way, you are correct about why the muslim terrorists hate us!

#2 | seaman93555 on July 26 2007 13:02:17

Great piece Mike and thank you for your enlightenment on Churchill - I was blissfully ignorant of the controversy surrounding the firing and so did not post comments on the story.

You make a point that I agree with and feel it extends beyond the limit of your posting. What I find intriguing is, since 9/11, that Congress and the White House have painted al Quaeda, as the "great evil". I do not believe that it is a part of the human psyche to be on the side of evil, regardless of your beliefs in God, Allah, Buddah, etc. I believe they are simply following their instincts and beliefs to better the world "in their view." I was particularly intrigued with one thing you wrote -

They wanted to attack the financial and military capitals of the United States because our government, industry, and military support the “infidel” government of Saudi Arabia, their Holy Land.

I believe this statement is probably the most profound and moving, I have read on this site! Touche!

#3 | Nisha Chittal on July 26 2007 13:10:05

well said.

#4 | rwahrens on July 26 2007 13:25:40

Seaman;

It is human nature to think of oneself as good. We all do it. Additionally, believing in something bigger than ourselves, such as a religion, can also give us a leg up there, too.

But we have to be careful. It is possible, as religious people have done for centuries, to assume that whatever we do in the name of that religion, is good, too. We forget that there are, simply put, standards of behavior that, if crossed, put us beyond the pale of good behavior.

Killing innocent civilians is one of those. The Koran itself forbids that kind of thing in a holy war, which the jihadists claim to be conducting against us. It also forbids killing other muslims, and says that surrendering enemy warriors cannot be killed once divested of their arms, and thus, their ability to fight.

Yet, these people have done, and continue to do, all these things. So, can they legitimately claim to be holy warriors, as they violate the very tenets of the book they call holy?

I don't believe so. That is why I call them thugs. They use the religious beliefs of the ignorant masses of muslims to drum up support by twisting the teachings of that holy book to their own purposes.

I don't really think that these folks are really religious at all. They only claim to be.

#5 | seaman93555 on July 26 2007 13:55:55

rwahrens - good points made, it was little different in the days of the crusades, when religious zealots fought a holy war that ultimately could not be won. The same case could be made for Christian beliefs and forcing christianity upon the Native American Indians tribes. Where do we draw the line between extremists and religion?

There is little doubt that al Quaeda operates under a different set of rules, but we should not be validating their cause by using tactics that use the same techniques, as they do. In war there are always casualties and sometimes those extend to civilians - case in point Iraq. Our military have killed innocent civilians, so the case could be argued it has become a Holy War. al Queda has been around since the days of the 1950's, when the U.S. and Great Britain invaded Iran, using a coup to overthrow the Iranian leader.

#6 | rwahrens on July 26 2007 14:15:43

You are right, we should not be lowering ourselves to their level. If we do that, then they win.

I don't think our killing any civilians makes it a holy war. What makes it a holy war is when a recognized mullah or cleric issues a Fatwa to declare it one. That could happen in response to those deaths, but it didn't happen that way here.

By the way, Bin Laden organized Al Qaeda in the 90's. It did not get its start in the 50's.

Iran was one of the only countries in the area that had avoided occupation by either the Russian or the British Empires, but:

(from Wikipedia)

"In summer of 1941 Britain and the USSR invaded Iran to prevent Iran from allying with the Axis powers. The Allies occupied Iran, securing a supply line to Russia, Iran's petroleum infrastructure, and forced the Shah to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1951, a nationalist politician, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, BP) which controlled the country's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and began plotting to depose Mossadegh. Members of the British Intelligence Service invited the United States to join them, convincing U.S. President Eisenhower that Mossadegh was reliant on the Tudeh (Communist) Party to stay in power. In 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax, and the CIA took the lead in overthrowing Mossadegh and supporting a U.S.-friendly monarch; and for which the U.S. Government apologized in 2000."

It goes on from there to describe the overthrow of that regime and subsequent events in the US Embassy through today.

An interesting read.

#7 | rwahrens on July 26 2007 14:22:28

Oh, boy, we sure like to go off topic, don't we?

Oops!

#8 | zzxv on July 26 2007 14:29:19

I find it troubling that an essay written to suggest checking facts is met by a false assumption in the very first comment:

"firing someone for taking a controversial position is wrong and damaging to the tenets of education."

Churchill was not fired for taking his position. His position only brought attention to the FACT that he

"had committed plagiarism and fraudulent research in other writings"

which is the real reason he was fired. I agree that universities should expand the boundaries of knowledge and test the limits of morality through discussion and philosophic debate; however, such an exercise holds little merit when the professor is a fraud.

#9 | Me on July 26 2007 14:45:06

Sorry to interrupt the lovefest, y'all, but whoever this Michael Leonard character is has written one of the most left-leaning, terrorism-apologist, anti-American pieces of tripe I've seen outside of the mainstream press.

For all that Leonard spouts that the liar and bigot Churchill is misunderstood, Leonard is correct in only one way: Leonard misunderstood Churchill.

Anyone who cares to do the research that Leonard, a Churchill apologist, failed to do, will see that Churchill did indeed call the victims of 9-11 "little Eichmanns." Churchill later reaffirmed that statement, pausing only to clarify that he intended it to mean the people in the Twin Towers and not "passers by" on the streets.

Leonard's defense of Eichmann is so redolent of American neo-nazis that I wouldn't be surprised to find the numerals 88 or their corresponding letters, HH, tattooed on his forehead.

Leonard is correct in saying that one reason the murderous, bloodthirsty Muslim terrorists attacked us was because we support the Saudi government. However, he is incorrect when he suggests that it was because our military was on Saudi ground, because at the time, it WAS NOT.

In fact, due to politically correct expediency for the bigotry of Muslims and Arabs, we removed our troops as quickly as possible following the temporary hault of hostilities with the brutal dictator Saddam after the "first" Gulf War.

Moreover, Leonard also fails to comprehend the definition of the word "free." A free society has the right to place its citizens wherever they are welcome. And a free society has the right to invite those citizens of any other nation it sees fit into its territories.

A free society allows people of all faiths to coexist peacefully and does not advocate and practice the butchery of civilians, the "honor" killing of women, the subjugation of women or the imprisonment of those who would speak their minds.

The "society" that these brave Islamic "freedom fighters" that Leonard would have you not disparage would do the opposite of all that. Ergo, the bloodthirsty terrorists who murdered 3,000 innocent people on 9-11 DID ATTACK US BECAUSE THEY HATE US AND HATE OUR FREEDOMS.

Beyond that, Leonard, who still clearly has not done any research on the bigot Churchill beyond what he thinks bolsters the case for Churchill's anti-Americanism, FAILS ENTIRELY to explain exactly why Churchill was fired.

Churchill was not fired for his insensitive, ignorant and hatemongering remarks.

He was fired for deliberately lying about his ethnicity -- he claims to be an American Indian, when it has been proven that he is not; indeed the tribe he claims as his own has renounced him -- and he was fired for deliberately lying to his students, and he was fired for blatantly plagiarizing works.

But you don't notice this Leonard character talking about that, do you, because he's not interested in truth, accuracy or even seeking common ground with intelligent, thoughtful centrist Americans.

#10 | Peacemaker on July 26 2007 14:51:43

Churchill was exposed as the fraud he was, his actions resulted in his termination. He is the one responsible for the outcome.

Why it took so long is the great mystery.

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