After receiving an award for a lifetime contribution to critical scholarship"" Thursday, historian and author Howard Zinn criticized a lack of historical perspective among Americans, saying it caused a ""hysteria"" that led to the war in Iraq.
Zinn said media coverage surrounding the war on terror failed to include lessons of the Cold War""when a fear of communism led U.S. citizens to embrace allegedly unjustified military actions, such as the war in Vietnam.
""Terrorism has supplanted communism as an attempt to get people to do things against their own interests,"" Zinn said.
Zinn claimed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are acts of terrorism because of the civilian casualties and manipulation of U.S. citizens' fears, but that the fear-mongering and fighting needs to end soon.
""At some point the United States is going to have to cut and run,"" Zinn said.
A World War II veteran, Zinn said he learned first-hand that, ""War corrupts everyone who engages in it.""
He said the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, as well as the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, during World War II, showed this corruption.
Zinn said the atrocities that occur during war, as well as the increasing number of civilians killed in war, should move people to try and abolish war.
""We need to think, and talk, and educate about the abolition of war itself,"" Zinn said.
Fans of Zinn, and those who knew him by reputation alone, attended the award ceremony and speech, which were sponsored by Havens Center, a Madison-based group that studies social structure and social change.
Local historian and activist Allen Ruff, who attended the event, said Zinn's histories, like the famous ""A People's History of the United States,"" show history from the point of view of ordinary people, rather than business and political leaders.
""He shows struggles for democracy, for equal rights, for civil liberties, that have always existed in this society, but are not addressed in mainstream histories,"" Ruff said.
Many attendees said they thought Zinn's study of history and egalitarian point of view gave great weight to his opinions, including Leif Martenson, a UW-Madison junior and English major.
""I admire him as a leftist intellectual, who is progressive and working to change America, based on his extensive and incredibly detailed studies of history,"" Martenson said.
