Ward Churchill "Defiant"

Reuters today covers an unapologetic speech by Ward Churchill. The speech is a 'more of the same' type of a speech, but one Churchill quote sticks out:

"Nowhere in there did I justify the killing of innocent people," he told Reuters. "Those words are not there."

Technically, Churchill's right. Instead he grossly perverted the meaning of innocent:

Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

By Churchill's own definitions, about 300 or so innocent people died on 9-11 (firefighters, service workers). Everyone else was fair game. If this is what UW-Whitewater wants to be associated with, so be it. In that case, as a UWW Alumnus, my money will never be associated with the university again.