Students raise concerns over H.R. McMaster lecture at the University of Puget Sound
The University of Puget Sound in Tacoma will be hosting former national security advisor H.R. McMaster to virtually deliver the fall 2020 Susan Resneck Pierce Lecture in Public Affairs and the Arts.
The event at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8 is free and open to the public though attendance is limited.
The decision has been met with student concerns about McMaster’s background. In a statement on social media, the university’s Multi Identity Based Union (MIBU) condemned the selection. Among other concerns, the union pointed to allegations of human rights violations surrounding the running of a detainee camp in Tal Afar, Iraq in 2005 when McMaster was the commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
“Personally, we think that students can be exposed to new ideas, gain perspective and be healthily challenged in our dimensions of thoughts by speakers and individuals who have zero human rights violation allegations attached to their name,” MIBU said in the statement.
McMaster, a three-star general, took part in several tours of duty, served for 13 months in the Trump White House, has a Ph.D. in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has written several books. He also serves as Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank located at Stanford University.
In an email to The News Tribune, UPS president Isiaah Crawford did not address the allegations of human rights violations. Crawford said a committee made the recommendation.
“I appreciate that any one speaker, in isolation, does not represent the full scope of thought, opinion and values of the university community as a whole. We have a committee that recommends speakers for consideration in alignment with the terms of the endowment that supports the lecture series. I believe it is important for our students to encounter the living history of those who have significant influence in the world and the power to affect our lives and the lives of others,” Crawford said.
Jeffrey J. Matthews, a senior faculty member at UPS, said he recommended McMaster through an informal process to the Office of the President. The two worked together on a book some years back, Matthews said.
Matthews said he hadn’t known about the allegations of human rights violations until recently.
“I saw that article for the first time yesterday or the day before,” Matthews said. “I never heard of it before.”
The allegations were raised in a Univision story published in 2017 which contained reporting about overcrowding of detainees at the camp in Tal Afar under McMaster’s watch, in addition to concerns over lack of food or water as well as unsanitary conditions. Efforts to reach McMaster for comment were unsuccessful.
Matthews said had he known about the story, he would have emailed McMaster asking about it. He questioned why more publications hadn’t written the story though he didn’t dispute the original reporting.
“Like I said, I just found out about this, but as far as I could see, in what limited searching I was able to do, there is no record of it ever being in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune. There is zero reference to this allegation,” Matthews said. “There is no verification.”
The allegations hinge on a military eyewitness who said he witnessed “brutal” conditions at the camp.
In a phone call with The News Tribune, that eyewitness, retired senior U.S. military police officer Col. Arnaldo Claudio, stood by his original interview and statements from 2017.
“It happened and he (McMaster) knows it happened. There is no out of it,” Claudio said. “There are two stories of McMaster: McMaster the general, who at some point did something good, and there is the McMaster story of Tal Afar.”
Claudio said there are plenty of other military experts who could have been chosen for the UPS lecture series. He believes McMaster was given preference because he was in the Trump administration.
“Why they picked him is all politics. If he were not part of the Trump administration, probably nobody would care,” Claudio said.
Claudio pushed back against those who have questioned his account of what he saw at Tal Afar, saying there is no uncertainty in his mind.
“I was in Tal Afar and I saw it,” Claudio said. “If any of them would have been in Tal Afar, then maybe they would have a different opinion. The story is right there. There is absolutely nothing for him (McMaster) to run away from.”
The link to the lecture and the following Q&A, which Matthews will lead, will be made available prior to the event for all those wishing to take part.
