Abele passes on Iraq trip
By Jacob Wise and Kendra Leffelman
IV Leader Staff, Jan.30, 2003
IVCC philosophy instructor Bob Abele was recently invited to attend a forum at Baghdad University in Iraq.
Abele was chosen to attend the forum because of a joint article in the New York Times in opposition of U.S. policy regarding Iraq.
The conference was to take place over a four-day period and cover prospects of peace in the Middle East, use of U.N. sanctions on Iraq and use of selective bombings over Iraq.
Forty American professors were invited to make the trip and many sought outside funding so that the trip would not be funded by the Iraqi university.
According to Abele, Bush’s push for war doesn’t hold any traditional or ethical criteria, nor does Bush meet traditions held in either the East or West for a justifiable war.
The IVCC administration supported Abele in his effort to make the Iraq trip, but several factors contributed to his eventual decision not to go.
Abele reconsidered his travel abroad because of foul ups in travel plans, the need to take unpaid leave for the trip and because the Centers for Disease Control required 15 inoculations.
Abele said the trip could have had a significant effect on IVCC students because it could increase student awareness of situations taking place in Iraq and the Middle East at this time, provoke discussion of Iraq and Middle East and become personal to students by knowing someone that traveled to Iraq.
Abele holds masters of arts in religious studies, theology and philosophy and a doctorate in philosophy.