Tonight at the McCormick Tribune Center, editor of The New Left Review Tariq Ali is speaking about imperialism in the Middle East and South America. The room is slowly filling up, mostly older individuals coming in to watch the lecture. It’s a fairly large crowd.
Someone takes the podium, and begins to speak. Silence. A representative from the department of French and Italian is introducing the event, and she goes on to thank several departments and groups in bringing Ali to NU. There will be a question-and-answer ssession, and a reception, where the speaker may sign a copy of his book. She goes on about why she is thrilled to have him here; the speaker gives a brief overview of his career. Apparently, the Rolling Stones were inspired by this guy. He may be best known for several articles, and his latest work “Pirates of the Carribean: Axis of Hope.” And the lecture begins.
Ali walks up to the podium. He talks about Paul Wolfowitz, specifically about what he said regarding the situation in Iraq. Ali says the United States should have accepted a resistance from Iraqis, and that people don’t like being occupied (gets laughs). He talks about 9/11 and how he warned the U.S. government that it shouldn’t get involved in the Middle East, but rather focusing on stopping recruits from entering the ranks of terrorist groups. His recomendations included lifting sanctions put on Iraq and “really exercising maximum pressure on Israel” in order to let some pressure off Palestine. Ali says the U.S. did the complete opposite. (more…)