A gathering of students demanded a “total opposition” to the U.S. fighting in the Gulf Wednesday night.

About 40 people came to the Holmes Student Center’s Regency Room at 8:30 p.m. for the Marxist-Humanist Forum’s anti-war presentation. Peter Wermouth, national co-organizer of the News & Letters Committees, and Ali Atesh, an Iranian activist and Marxist-Humanist, spoke at the rally.

Wermouth said one of the reasons the U.S. is at war is because President Bush wants Americans to see military action as the only way of handling things in the future.

“Marxist_Humanists believe that there can be a different society. We want everyone to know that there is a second America that is opposed to this barbarism,” he said.

Wermouth questioned U.S. troops defending Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia is a country that has the least amount of women’s rights. Women there can’t even drive a car,” he said.

“Poor blacks and Latinos are the ones sent to fight and used as cannon_fire.”

Atesh said the U.S. has attacked many countries, such as Panama. This is no different than what Hussein did to Kuwait, he said.

“The war will not be resolved by simply removing Saddam Hussein. I think there are deeper solutions to the problem that need to be examined through the philosophy of Marxist_Humanism,” Atesh said.

DeKalb resident Diane Grant, whose husband is in the Gulf, disagreed with Wermouth about U.S. troops.

“Blacks and Latinos do not make up the Army … the vast majority (of the troops) are white,” Grant said.