Editing Howard Zinn (section)

===Iraq===
[[File:Howard Zinn.jpg|220px|thumb|left|Howard Zinn speaking at [[Marlboro College]] February 2004]]

Zinn opposed the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq and wrote several books about it. In an interview with ''[[The Brooklyn Rail]]'' he said

<blockquote>We certainly should not be initiating a war, as it's not a clear and present danger to the United States, or in fact, to anyone around it. If it were, then the states around Iraq would be calling for a war on it. The Arab states around Iraq are opposed to the war, and if anyone's in danger from Iraq, they are. At the same time, the U.S. is violating the U.N. charter by initiating a war on Iraq. Bush made a big deal about the number of resolutions Iraq has violated—and it's true, Iraq has not abided by the resolutions of the Security Council. But it's not the first nation to violate Security Council resolutions. Israel has violated Security Council resolutions every year since 1967. Now, however, the U.S. is violating a fundamental principle of the U.N. Charter, which is that nations can't initiate a war—they can only do so after being attacked. And Iraq has not attacked us.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hamm|first=Theodore|title=Howard Zinn in Conversation with Theodore Hamm|journal=The Brooklyn Rail|date=Autumn 2002|url=http://brooklynrail.org/2002/10/express/howard-zinn-with-theodore-hamm}}</ref></blockquote>

He asserted that the U.S. would end Gulf War II when resistance within the military increased in the same way resistance within the military contributed to ending the U.S. war in Vietnam. Zinn compared the demand by a growing number of contemporary U.S. military families to end the war in Iraq to parallel demands "in the Confederacy in the Civil War, when the wives of soldiers rioted because their husbands were dying and the plantation owners were profiting from the sale of cotton, refusing to grow grains for civilians to eat."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tomdispatch.com/tomdispatch-interview-howard-zinn-the-outer-limits-of-empire/|title=Tomdispatch Interview: Howard Zinn, The Outer Limits of Empire|work=TomDispatch.com|date=8 September 2005|access-date=November 21, 2021}}</ref>

Zinn believed that U.S. President George W. Bush and followers of [[Abu Musab al-Zarqawi]], the former leader of [[al-Qaeda in Iraq]], who was personally responsible for beheadings and numerous attacks designed to cause civil war in Iraq, should be considered moral equivalents.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Prager|first1=Dennis|title=What the left thinks: Howard Zinn, Part II|url=http://www.dennisprager.com/what-the-left-thinks-howard-zinn-part-ii/|work=DennisPrager.com|access-date=20 March 2018|quote=DP: So do you feel that, by and large, the Zarqawi-world and the Bush-world are moral equivalents? HZ: I do.}}</ref>

Jean-Christophe Agnew, Professor of History and American Studies at [[Yale University]], told the ''[[Yale Daily News]]'' in May 2007 that Zinn's historical work is "highly influential and widely used".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/21049|title=Zinn calls for activism|publisher=Yale Daily News|date=2007-05-03|access-date=2010-01-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016182602/http://yaledailynews.com/articles/view/21049|archive-date=2007-10-16}}</ref> He observed that it is not unusual for prominent professors such as Zinn to weigh in on current events, citing a resolution opposing the war in Iraq that was recently ratified by the [[American Historical Association]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.historians.org/news/166/iraq-war-resolution-is-ratified-by-aha-members|title=American Historical Association Blog: Iraq War Resolution is Ratified by AHA Members|website=blog.historians.org|date=2007-03-12|access-date=2010-01-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110116074414/http://blog.historians.org/news/166/iraq-war-resolution-is-ratified-by-aha-members|archive-date=2011-01-16|url-status=dead}}</ref> Agnew added: "In these moments of crisis, when the country is split—so historians are split."<ref>{{cite web|last=Yu|first=Lea|url=http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/04/963/|title=Historian Howard Zinn Calls for Activism|work=CommonDreams.org|access-date=2010-01-28|archive-date=2008-12-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216133233/http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/04/963|url-status=dead}}</ref>