For many of the roughly 30 students in Bob Harper’s freshmen world cultures class, Baghdad is much closer to Bend High School than its geographical distance of 7,035 miles.

His students worry that Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, could obtain the means to unleash weapons of mass destruction on American soil.

”It would be the Holocaust all over again, only quicker,” said Lance Green, 14, on Thursday morning.

His 15-year-old classmate, Katie Cook, fears a global depression could result from a war with Iraq, ”like the Great Depression that happened between World War I and World War II,” she said.

And Eryn Sisson, 15, is afraid that a U.S. attack on Iraq could ignite World War III.

”When it really hits you, you realize it would be really dangerous, with a lot of killing,” she said.

In many ways, the divergent views of Harper’s class mirrors the national debate on U.S. policy toward Iraq. That is exactly what he wants to encourage.

”Even at the tender ages of 14 and 15, they’re not zealots,” Harper said. ”No one comes in here with blinders on.”

All of Harper’s students said they pay attention to the diplomatic dance being played out by the United States and Iraq. Their information comes from a variety of media – newspapers, television, radio and the Internet.

Harper seeks to cultivate skeptical minds in his students when teaching them about international affairs.

”I tell them that there is a high likelihood that lots of stuff they read will have some spin to it,” he said after the class. ”I tell them, you’ve got to be able to ferret out truth from fiction.”

He enables that skill by drilling in the lesson that ”just because you read it or hear it doesn’t make it God’s truth,” he said. ”Ignorance is not bliss. Knowledge is power.”

To ensure he doesn’t influence his students’ political views, Harper keeps his positions to himself.

”They make up their own minds,” he said.

That critical thinking is budding in Harper’s class became evident as they weighed whether the U.S. should launch a preemptive strike against Iraq to prevent the possibility of that country attacking the United States or its allies first.

The question elicited a nuanced response.

Some, such as Matt Rubin, 14, categorically opposes initiating a war with Iraq.

”Even if the (United Nations weapons) inspectors find weapons of mass destruction we shouldn’t go to war,” he said. ”We can take the weapons away without going to war.”

Rubin’s peers laughed when he explained simply that ”war is bad.”

But he expanded that wars ”kill lots of people,” recalling former President Jimmy Carter’s speech on Tuesday when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

”War may sometimes be a necessary evil,” Carter said in Oslo, Norway.

”But no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good.”

Ryan Linnert, 15, echoed Carter, reluctantly supporting military action to remove weapons of mass destruction – if they are found to exist in Iraq by inspectors.

”If we don’t, they could then launch them and we’d be saying, We should’ve gone in,’” he said.

Green, whom Harper describes only half-jokingly as ”a little hawkish,” has no reservations about a preemptive military strike.

”If we find proof we should kick some butt,” he said.

Some, such as 15-year-old Megan Barrett, agreed with Green – even if it meant the United States must act alone. But she gave a more measured response.

”If they do have nuclear weapons then they are a threat to us and our allies,” she said. ”We should have support from other countries.

”But if we can’t get support then we still have to do it. America is the strongest nation in the world and it’s our job to take care of things like this.

”If it’s the right thing to do then we can’t worry about who might hate us.”

But the possible Muslim backlash to an American attack on Iraq frightens some students.

Alyssa Zysett, 14, imagined that an American strike could so ”disturb and upset” the Islamic world that it ”could do something serious,” such as initiate more terrorist attacks within the United States.

Rubin went a step further.

”Think about it,” he began. ”It could make all the Muslim nations angry. It’s possible we could lose.

”We’d be fighting on their land that they know much better than us. It could be like Vietnam.”

Others, such as 14-year-olds Andy Dalton and Elise Steinhuff, criticized the U.S. law prohibiting government-backed assassination as misguided.

”It’s a bad law,” Dalton said. ”If you had a leader who wants to destroy a nation, we should go in and take him out.

”I don’t agree with having to kill tens of thousands of people to do it.”

Danielle White, 15, and Luke Smolich, 15, couldn’t morally differentiate between killing one person and killing thousands.

It’s wrong to kill people period, they said – but making a martyr out of Saddam Hussein by assassinating him would be a grave mistake.

Mike Cronin can be reached at 541-617-7836 or mcronin@bendbulletin.com