As University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill once again finds himself at the center of a maelstrom, critics are outraged by his remarks about “fragging an officer” while others say the situation is being wrongly twisted.
“I’m a Vietnam vet, and just talking about it is disgusting,” University of Colorado Regent Pete Steinhauer said Thursday of the idea of “fragging,” the killing or wounding of a military officer by a subordinate. “It’s just despicable.”
Yet talking about incendiary topics defines Churchill, said his attorney, David Lane.
“No subject is off limits in an intellectual discussion,” Lane said. “This is one more attempt to vilify Ward Churchill.”
Churchill made the remarks June 23 in Portland, Ore., during a forum billed as a chance to support conscientious objectors in the Iraq war and to counter military recruiting pitches targeting students.
In the remarks, Churchill talks about ways to protest war but doesn’t appear to advocate killing officers. He acknowledges that many in the crowd would support conscientious objection and asks whether they would support “someone who hadn’t conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit.”
In comments that have caused an uproar on Internet blog sites and with conservative talk-show hosts, Churchill goes on to say, “Conscientious objection removes a given piece of cannon fodder from the fray. Fragging an officer has a much more impactful effect.”
Wednesday night, Churchill told The Denver Post he was not urging anyone to commit acts of violence. “I’m not advocating a damn thing,” he said. “That was a simple recitation of fact” – a point reiterated by Lane.
The statement regarding the impact of “fragging an officer” is accurate, he said.
“It’s an absolutely true statement,” Lane said. “He’s not saying do it. He’s making an observation.”
Not so, said Gov. Bill Owens.
“Words have meaning,” Owens said Thursday, “and when he’s called to account for his words, Ward Churchill has made a lifestyle of saying he was misunderstood and it was taken out of context.”
Even an observation about such a topic as “fragging” carries heavy ramifications, others say.
“I’m against this war. It’s a terrible mistake,” Vietnam War veteran Don Mills of Oregon said of Iraq. “But fragging – that road’s dangerous, and we shouldn’t be going down it.”
Mills is a member of a veterans peace group based in the Northwest that supported bringing Churchill to the forum, though Mills himself did not attend.
Longmont activist Glenn Spagnuolo said the First Amendment exists to protect speech that is controversial. “If you listen to the whole tape” of Churchill’s talk, Spagnuolo said, “he says, ‘What do you all think?’ If we can’t discuss these issues, what good is freedom of speech?”
Denver activist Mark Cohen said the continued scrutiny of Churchill is tiresome. “The press is just looking for every little thing they can find about this guy,” Cohen said. “Maybe it’s time to give it a rest.”
Thursday, Churchill echoed that sentiment. “They’re taking not much of anything and blowing it out again,” he said, adding that he was declining to speak further. “I’m not gonna play.”
Meanwhile, on the anti- Churchill “Pirate Ballerina” blog site, which first carried Churchill’s “fragging” statement, at least one reader threatened to kill Churchill for the remarks.
In an essay written shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, that created a furor earlier this year, Churchill called some of the victims in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center “little Eichmanns,” referring to the World War II-era German Nazi Adolf Eichmann.
Owens and others called for Churchill’s removal as a tenured professor, and since then he has been accused of plagiarism, academic fraud and falsely claiming American Indian ancestry. He is under investigation by the school’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.
Most CU regents declined to comment on whether there should be an inquiry into Churchill’s latest comments, but Regent Steve Bosley said the comments probably fall in the realm of free speech. “It will sure make a lot of people upset with CU,” Bosley said.
Staff writer Arthur Kane contributed to this report. Staff writer Amy Herdy can be reached at 303-820-1752 or aherdy@denverpost.com.
