Four NIU professors spoke out against the Gulf war to an audience of about 250 people in the Holmes Student Center Tuesday night.

“Read Saddam Hussein and George Bush—you may like the latter better than the former, but they are both terrorists,” said philosophy professor Sherman Stanage.

Along with Stanage, Middle-East political science professor Kurt Wenner, American Diplomatic History professor Carl Parrini and Soviet History professor Albert Resis gave their views and specialties about war at the two-and-a-half hour forum.

Wenner said he was concerned over how the United States would deal with Iraq after the war, citing three major ethnic groups fighting for power in Iraq.

“Suppose we knock off Saddam Hussein—who are we going to talk to? We may not be better off than before the war,” Wenner said. “In fact, we may be even worse off.

“Nobody is talking about what is going to happen when the war ends,” he said.

He also said the United States “knew in advance what was going to take place” through various speeches by Hussein criticizing the United States and Arab countries.

Resis said he was against any country sending troops outside their borders, especially in light of the “new world order” where the Cold War has evaporated.

“There has to be another way,” he said. “This is one of the most avoidable wars of the Twentieth Century. The United States has put him (Hussein) in an absolutely impossible position.”

Resis assured the audience that he does not support Hussein, but he said war was not the solution.

“While this is a just cause, this is an unjust war,” he said.

The audience of mostly students was quietly supportive throughout the forum, and none of the questions asked by the audience were critical of the speakers.

Parrini said sticking with economic sanctions would have worked, though it may have taken two or three years.

“I wish he (President George Bush) had waited, but he didn’t, and there we are,” Parrini said.

Stanage received the most applause during his often sarcastic speech about “being all you can be,” the revival of heroism, preserving the American way of life and terrorism.

“The new terrorism is against the Earth, the soil, itself,” said Stanage.