NEW YORK CITY, September 16 — Shouts of “David Petraeus you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” rang out as nearly 100 people protested against the former general and CIA Director as he entered the Macaulay Honors College to “teach” his seminar. City University of New York (CUNY) students and more than 20 professors and staff were joined by high school students and teachers.
The corporate media consider Petraeus to be a military genius, a warrior-scholar. In fact he is a war criminal. In Iraq he was put in charge of creating the Special Police Commandos, a paramilitary unit with thousands of troops known for exceptional brutality, and the establishment of 14 detention centers that tortured and killed prisoners on a daily basis. In Afghanistan, Petraeus terrorized the population with nighttime special-forces raids and drone plane attacks which killed thousands of civilians.
PLP students and professors helped plan and build the rally. Challenge was distributed and banners displayed. A comrade spoke about the need for building a better world, a communist world. Others advanced the need to build a massive international movement to defeat imperialism. We need to build this movement on every campus, in the cafeterias and in the classrooms.
While many people with various ideas spoke, one highlight was the remarks of two high school students. One spoke about the horrors of war and how war was “unnatural.” The second explained that she would probably attend CUNY, but that her mother wouldn’t be happy with her attending a school with murderers on the teaching staff.
Petraeus’s invitation to teach at CUNY is only one part of a plan to militarize the university. A social science division at City College was named after General Colin Powell and Reserve Officer Training Programs (ROTC) have been established at three campuses.
At a fourth campus, College of Staten Island professors are organizing to resist the administration’s imposition of ROTC on their campus (more on this next issue).
Last week after the rally, students chased Petraeus, screaming at him as he walked toward the subway. This time the NYPD whisked Petraeus into an SUV parked in front of the building. With an unmarked police car following, the vehicles moved quickly down the block where police cars with flashing lights were ready to clear the intersection. Despite these maneuvers, students were able to block the intersection and catch up with the SUV, chanting “Petraeus, Out of CUNY!” and “Every week David!”   
Yes, we will be back every Monday to harass this monstrous war criminal but we must certainly step up our daily campus activities to win masses of students to see that only by destroying capitalism can we have a decent future.