This morning, as we arrived at South Quad to set up our display of American Flags to memorialize the 3,000 lives lost during the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, our club was met with the phrase “500,000 Iraqis murdered” in front of the site of the memorial. It did not ruin the memorial; we were able to smudge out the chalk to make it illegible and preserve the integrity of the display. What saddens us is that a member of the Notre Dame community felt the need to hijack a memorial for innocent humans who lost their life to push their own unrelated, unfounded and unnecessary political narrative. The Iraq war is certainly a controversial topic that we welcome open debate on. But there is a time and a place. Instead of hiding behind your chalk in the middle of the night, we welcome you to reach out to us by email, meet with us over coffee or a meal. We would like to hear you out, listen to the problems that you have with the United States’ doings in Iraq. Ideas are important. Debate is important. The only way for a productive political dialogue to take place is in the light. If you truly believe what you wrote, then you should have the courage to stand up and take ownership of your words in the light to defend them. The memorial of the 3,000 innocent men and women who died on 9/11 should play no part in the debate on the morality of the United States’ involvement in Iraq. It is safe to assume that many of them would have agreed with your stance on the issue. We wish you would have had the respect to leave them out of it.
YAF Executive Board
Clare McKinney
senior
Mimi Teixeira
senior
Caleb Parikh
junior
Matthew Bartilotti
junior
Steven Forte
junior
Will Jones
sophomore
Sept. 11
