EDITOR'S NOTE: The following letter was submitted in response to an article in the Fall 2002 issue of the The Free Press: Questions that won’t be asked about Iraq.

To those of you who for whatever reason deem yourselves holier than thou, I am going to answer some of your questions. I don't expect you to read this and doubt seriously if you would understand it if you did. Liberals always ask questions that they really don't want answers to, but here goes. Let me preface this that I am a 50 yr old male and consider myself as a conservative, not necessarily a republican, and these are my opinions. Oh, by the way some of my answers are questions that I am sure no self respecting liberal has the integrity to answer!!!

1. Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War>> No we did not bomb them because we knew it would lead to virtual destruction of civilization

2. which just confirms that there is no real threat?>> What leads you to claim there is no threat?

Ever since the U.N. Security Council adopted its resolution about Iraq on Nov. 8, American politicians and journalists have been hailing the unanimous vote as a huge victory for international cooperation instead of unilateral action.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was close to ecstatic. "For a brief, shining moment last Friday," he wrote, "the world didn't seem like such a crazy place." The United Nations had proven its worth -- by proving its value to Washington. Among the benefits: "The Bush team discovered that the best way to legitimize its overwhelming might -- in a war of choice -- was not by simply imposing it, but by channeling it through the U.N."

But if the United Nations, serving as a conduit of American power, is now worthwhile because it offers the best way for the United States to "legitimize its overwhelming might," how different is that from unilateralism?

Behind all the media euphemisms and diplomat-speak, a cold hard reality about Resolution 1441 is already history: The resolution was fashioned to provide important fig leaves for domestic politics and foreign

"Who can doubt that the United States is an imperial power?" Thus writes James Chace in the latest edition of the New York Review of Books. "Empire is back," comes the echo from Professor Alan Wolfe. Suddenly, the word "empire" is everywhere, scattered through the opinion columns like rose petals before a conquering hero.

Of course the United States has been an imperial power for many, many decades, but when Teddy Roosevelt used to blare out the summons to imperial duty like a Roman matron admonishing youth, there was a certain embarrassment at his bluff speech. Congressmen bridled at the thought of ladling out too much gravy to the Army and Navy. Woodrow Wilson substituted more palatable Presbyterian pieties about burdens and duties. Then, FDR founded an even more appealing rhetoric with which to cloak imperial expansion: fighting other empires, a mission that conveniently brought an ever-burgeoning but unacknowledged empire in its wake, some of the most valuable oil-yielding portions ruthlessly excised from the British imperial cadaver after World War II.

You get what you pay for in life. What are you willing to pay for peace?

With George Bush as president, it doesn't seem to be a problem any of us will ever have to face again, but you can't be a pacifist only in peacetime. You can't be a pacifist by yelling at your tv set, or forwarding a million emails to everyone you know. Pacifism isn't that passive, it isn't that easy. It is, and always has been, by definition, a radical challenge to every element of worldly power and violence.

I'm in Iraq with a handful of other Americans: Eric Edgin, an Indiana college student; Nathan Mauger, a recent journalism graduate from Washington State; Farah Mokhtareizadeh, a Pennsylvania college student; Jon Rice, a history teacher from Chicago; Henry Williamson, a paramedic from South Carolina; and Joe Quandt, a writer from New York. More are joining us. By the end of October, we'll have over 30 people on our team. By December, our numbers will be over 100. We're here to tell the stories of the Iraqi people; to put our lives on the line to stop this war.

Living in Baghdad, you wouldn't know there was a war. The streets bustle

In a Sunday, September 17 Dispatch story, the paper sadly noted in their lead that “a spot on this top 10 list doesn’t necessary earn a university bragging rights.” What could the Dispatch be lamenting? OSU being named by Playboy as a “party” school? Hardly. It was, oh the shame, the fact that Mother Jones Magazine had listed The Ohio State University as one of the “Top 10 Activist Campuses.”

Hell, the Dispatch should’ve been proud that Buckeye students were ranked number 6. Sure beats last year’s 6-6 football team. The muck-raking magazine lauded campus activists for picketing and “successfully halt[ing] construction at Ohio Stadium for a day during the recent strike by the Communication Workers of America.”