Nader Mojibi-Yazdi remembers when his country was at war with Iraq.
The 21-year-old Bakersfield College student from Iran spent the first eight years of his life watching war.
“I was a kid and I was watching cartoons, and whenever Iraqi planes would come to the region, the cartoon would stop and it would have this red alarm on TV going on, and that alarm still scares me when I hear it, it still brings back memories.”
Mojibi-Yazdi, who is vice president of communications for the Associated Students of Bakersfield College, said while the United States is at war with Iraq, it is the Iraqi citizens who are the ultimate casualties.
“I do not support the war,” he said.
Besides Mojibi-Yazdi, other students at BC also disagree with the war.
David Gardner, 19, said, “We are doing it for the wrong reason.”
He is concerned because the United Nations was not on the side of the United States.
An international student agreed that it is not a good idea because most countries around the world are against it. He hopes it will come to an end soon.
“We don’t care about democracy right now, we care about the market,” said Andres Quarte, a student from Colombia.
The media are not showing enough of the suffering the war has caused, he maintained.
“We don’t show that, we don’t want to show that and we call that casualties.”
The U.S. government cannot turn back, now that it has spent billions of dollars for this war, he said, because it will only be humiliated.
Although there are students opposing the war, there are others who believe it is necessary.
“It should’ve happened a long time ago,” said Genaro Acevedo. “Take out our enemies before they get more powerful than you.”
Michael Barut, 23, said he supports the war.
“Saddam Hussein is a threat to the world and we got to do something about it,” he said.
Lauren Jones, ASBC bookstore senator, said although she has mixed feelings, she feels the United States needs to do something about Saddam.
“I don’t think we should have gone in without the U.N.,” she said. “That kind of discredits the U.N.”
Fire-tech major Charles Hill said Saddam should have been taken care of in the first Gulf War.
He also said everyone has a right to protest, but Americans should appreciate the soldiers fighting for freedom.
“I think the troops would want us as Americans to live our lives as normally as possible,” he said.
– Photo Editor Chris Keeler contributed to this story.