In an open and frank student forum the Tate lecture opened its 21st season to a standing room only crowd of more than 600. Students elevated the speakers and the interaction with direct questions about war, peace and the future of democracy.

David Gergen, Tom Friedman and Bernard Shaw candidly addressed the exploitive nature of U.S. politics and the deterrence of Saddam Hussein.

Gergen was slow to agree with Friedman that the threat of war from Iraq has been exaggerated for political purposes. Shaw added that war is an exploitable issue used to cover failures in congress.

“The democrats talk about the failures and the republicans talk about war,” Shaw said. “Two weeks ago we talked about the economy,” adding the hypothetical, “What are we talking about today?”

“I don’t worry about Saddam Hussein,” Friedman said, “I worry about the undeterables.”

Heavy on the American people’s minds is the threat Iraq imposes, but “Hussein is homicidal, not suicidal,” Friedman said. “He spent his life to continue his campaign – he is imminently deterrable.”

This does not diminish the threat.

“Saddam Hussein has been deterred for 10 years,” Shaw said.

“He loves life more than he hates us,” Friedman added. “Worry about the people that hate us more than they love life.”

Shaw said there are two political schools in dealing with Hussein. The first calls for the elimination of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. The second calls for removal of the Iraqi head of state, insisting on a regime change to a liberal democracy.

The panelists are uniformly for the second school.

“The systematic problem is the lack of democracy,” Shaw said. “That’s why they hate us so much.”

Shaw spoke of three deficits or universal aspirations. One being education, which leads to success. Another is freedom. The third, and all agreed critical for the future, is the empowerment of women.

Friedman pointed out that there is no Al Qaeda in India, the second largest Muslim state today. India is a democracy and women have much the same rights as men.

“We need to change the framework and the context within which people live,” Friedman said.

In looking forward we often fail to inspect ourselves. “We haven’t eliminated our own discrimination,” Gergen said.

Women’s rights are a recent occurrence in the U.S. and equality is far from fact.

L.C. Edmond, first-year corporate communications and religious studies major, asked the panel what his generation could and should do to dispel the hatred and threat.

“Is there something we can learn?” he asked.

“Politicians make profound statements about the world without traveling to other parts of the world,” Gergen said. “Become more global and be much wiser when you come to power,” he advised.