If the claims of former Green Beret William T. Hathaway are true, then a new group of “peace” activists are trying to disable the U.S. military through sabotage. The agenda of this group isn’t limited to opposing war, though, as they ultimately want a revolution against the government and capitalism. And to make matters worse, Hathaway’s preaching isn’t limited to the far-left extremist fringe, as he is an adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany.
“Being peaceful doesn’t mean obeying a violent government, they say. They are helping soldiers to desert, destroying computer systems, trashing recruiting offices, burning military equipment, and sabotaging defense contractors,” Hathaway says of this new group of activists. These are not spontaneous acts of dissidence but a coordinated effort that involves “working underground in secret cells to undermine the U.S. military empire.”
Other acts of “protest” this group allegedly carries out include the sabotage of recruiting and ROTC offices by cutting telephone and electric wires, undermining military-related research at universities and smaller acts like the slashing of tires, theft of mail and putting glue into door locks. Chapter eight of his book, Radical Peace, is about a young woman whose friend is disabled after serving in Iraq and reacts by breaking the window of a military recruiting office with a rock. Chapter ten is about a man code-named “Trucker” who destroys government property, specifically by setting fire to military vehicles. All is permissible as long as the attacks do not cause bodily harm.
When FrontPage contacted Hathaway, he denied that he supported sabotage. “I understand the despair that drives them to it, and I don’t condemn them for it, but property destruction is not for me,” he said.
Hathaway and his colleagues’ motivation comes from a belief that capitalism and especially the U.S. military are fundamentally evil. His work is an attack on the integrity of all loyal servicemen. Chapter three consists of a discussion with a homosexual refugee from Afghanistan who argues in favor of moral equivalency between the U.S. Army and the Taliban, for example. Chapter 11 is about how a peace activist was assaulted by soldiers, causing her to decide to start “subverting from within” by becoming a military chaplain.
Another chapter consists of a talk with an Iraqi student whose brother is in Iran developing missiles to destroy American military aircraft, motivated by the abuses committed against their family by American soldiers. Unsurprisingly, Hathaway refers to him as a “resistance fighter.” The student is not challenged when she says, “Even fanatics like al-Qaeda aren’t really aggressors. They’re fighting a defensive war.” Hathaway confirmed to FrontPage that he agreed with the student, saying “Their [Al-Qaeda] violence is miniscule compared to ours” and called their struggle a “defensive war.”
Terrorist groups are given a light treatment while U.S. soldiers are portrayed as ignorant barbarians bringing misery to all of mankind. Another portion of the book is about a high school teacher named Judy Davis who, Hathaway claims, was fired and “blacklisted” for teaching that U.S. foreign policy provokes terrorism.
In one of the more strange ideas put forth by Hathaway, he argues that sexuality is responsible for war-mongering. “Understanding the effects that our culturally imposed gender roles have on us is crucial to understanding why we go to war. One attraction of war is that it is a substitute for eroticism; it is the ultimate sexual perversion,” he says. This is part of an overall anti-male, radical feminist message that blames fathers as the “spear carriers of patriarchy.” One disturbing element of the book is about a romance between a mother and her son who has come back from war, offering it as a lesson in breaking this patriarchal dictatorship on society.
“The point the couple is trying to make is that they discovered this kind of love is a powerful and effective way to subvert patriarchy and make men less aggressive and violent, and they wanted to share that by going public. They also feel that incest between consenting adults is a matter of personal liberty and should be decriminalized,” Hathaway explained to FrontPage.
The overall goal of Hathaway and this group that he praises becomes clear in the chapter about the Iraqi student. The student says “The communists were trying to build a different economic system, so the capitalists wanted to destroy them any way they could. Warmongers have always portrayed themselves as the only alternative to the brutal beasts out there. They generate fear to stay in power.”
Elsewhere, Hathaway writes in true Marxist fashion, “The conditions are caused by capitalism’s drive to turn the middle class into a white-collar proletariat.” And the solution is predictable: “Despairing over the prospect of endless war, they [the activists] are convinced the only way to bring peace now is to bring the system down, and sabotage is one way to do that.” He isn’t critiquing policy, he’s actively working to dismember the military and overthrow Western governments in line with Marxist philosophy. And he’s an adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany.
In talking to FrontPage, he said there were no ultimate goals but did not deny his support for a revolution that involves replacing the U.S. government.
“The general consensus of the group, including me, is that the current system needs to be brought down before anything new can be built. It is not open to fundamental changes but only to those that maintain its power. We all agree it is important to bring it down as peacefully as possible. This will probably be a long-term process of sedition, subversion, and sabotage over several generations,” he said.
Hathaway is now writing a book titled “Wellspring: A Fable of Consciousness” that argues that world peace can be achieved through something called Transcendental Meditation. In keeping with his previous theme, females are the ones “more able than men to lead us there.” He claims that credible studies prove that gatherings of people using this form of meditation have improved the economy and health and brought down the levels of crime, violence and accidents. The root cause of war, he says, is “stress in the collective consciousness.”
This could be dismissed as the ramblings of a bizarre, paranoid man detached from reality, but it must be reiterated that he is a professor in Germany and published author with an endorsement from Noam Chomsky. His reports about this group of saboteurs may be greatly exaggerated, but this must not lead to an overlooking of the damage that placing his propaganda in American Studies courses in Germany causes.
Hathaway confirmed to FrontPage that he is still an adjunct professor at the University of Oldenburg and the University of Bonn, teaching classes called “The U.S. Presidential Election,” “Contemporary U.S. Society,” “Changing Perceptions of the USA in the Homeland and Abroad,” “The American Peace Movement: Diversities in Resistance,” “The Alternative Media,” and “Radical Women Writers.”
German parents should not tolerate having a professor like Hathaway teaching their students about the United States and they should remember that their country would not be spared the revolution he preaches.
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