A slew of posters advocating that students think more critically about Iraq has popped up on campus, but are students listening?

Posted on various message boards, the posters encourage students to ask themselves questions such as “What if you were an Iraqi?” and “What if you were an American?”

With a bold black-and-white design, the posters focus on the theme: “This war is a bad idea. Voice your opposition.”

The possible war on Iraq has created controversy and debate ever since President George W. Bush first proposed military action against the country headed by Saddam Hussein.

Jeremy Zink, a junior computer science major, designed and distributed the posters with a mission in the mind. He wanted to raise awareness of the potential war.

“I just wanted to put something out there to make people think,” he said. “It’s not as simple as what we see on the news. I’m not even really trying to persuade anyone, just make them realize there is more out there than they might think.”

Zink started a campaign of education.

“I’ve seen some people looking at the fliers,” he said. “As long as a few people start to think for themselves, I feel that I’ve accomplished my goal.”

Tyrone Radford, a freshman electrical engineering major, said the posters caught his attention and influenced his opinions.

“They made me think about the issues,” he said. “Some of the posters show us Saddam Hussein’s perspective, and I can almost understand his viewpoint. I think we should give him more time for inspections, and not just go to war right away.”

The posters haven’t influenced everyone. However, when questioned, several students said they never had read any of the posters.

“I don’t look at the message boards much,” junior psychology major Shenita Lyles said.

John Korba, a junior Russian and math education major, said that although he noticed the multiple-choice questions on the posters, he thinks many students don’t take the time to read message boards.

“There are many posters on the boards, and they’re all different colors,” he said.

However, Korba said he approves of the posters.

“Political posters can be controversial, but they can be good because students don’t always take the time to investigate issues,” he said.

Radford agreed with Korba.

“If information is factual and put out to the public, it can help people look at different views, not just hastily make decisions,” Radford said.

Zink said the information he presented came from a great deal of research.

“This has been a recent project of mine. I really wanted to know more about this Iraq issue,” he said. “I generally spend about an hour a day on the Internet researching what’s going on about Iraq.”

New to political protesting, Zink said he wanted to try to get information out in a different way.

“I wanted people to take it seriously,” he said. “Not everyone pays attention to hippies.”