Hanson: The two professors' proclamations sound like something out of a David Lodge novel. Note the use of the language of the self-important first person (e.g., "I also note with considerable satisfaction;" "I made reference to;" "I maintain again," etc). or the language of prevarication: "were apparently deemed," "it leads us to suspect," or "the main point seems to be." That an academic from the campus has deduced that Americans 7,000 miles away, sleeping in tents under scorching heat without facilities, and targeted by terrorists, have not "evinced a humanitarian attitude towards Iraqis" says it all. So again, we get more emotion and deductive rhetoric instead of reasoned analysis. 100 days after defeating a mass murderer in a country that has never held a single election but witnessed decades of genocide, and is presently full of Baathist holdouts, Shiite agents from Iran, and feyedeen from surrounding Syria and Jordan, we are supposed instead to be talking about "labor rights" in Iraq? If the professor is really concerned about such issues, I suggest he first turn his attention to the university, whose full professors sit on a pyramid supported by the exploitation of part-time lecturers and graduate students, who make a fraction of the pay of the former for teaching as many or more courses-a situation that really marks a "massive realignment" away from earlier protocols. More to the point: I have heard Ms. Sontag's prewar prediction that there would be tens of thousands of casualties in Iraq and yet no subsequent clarification or retraction when there was not. American pilots were not cowardly; there was no air defense in Iraq precisely because for 12 years at great risks to themselves an entire generation of Navy and Air Force pilots systematically and in obscurity took out much of Saddam's air defenses, components of which were sold to him after the 1991 war by Russia, China, France, and Germany. It is easy to say a pilot is a coward who bombs with impunity, less so when one is targeted by an array of missiles and AAA--which was often the case between 1991 -and 2003. Strapping yourself atop a jet engine, flying at 1000 miles an hour over enemy territory, and landing on 5 acres at night on a rolling sea is an inherently dangerous, not a "cowardly" enterprise and not to be confused with organizing lecture notes or speechmaking in the faculty lounge. War is wrong, and it may well be evil--but it is also sometimes necessary until the nature of man himself evolves. The American army freed France--not its intellectuals, who were happy from Vichy to send Jews to Germany as tribute; had we not fought Hitler, or offered military resistance to Stalin and his epigones, another 100 million would have died. I don't think the old Vietnam boilerplate-left-wing citation of McCarthism or praise of the duplicitous French (not "courageous," but especially shameless arms peddlers and abettors of rogue nations), or the image of brave intellectuals on the barricades-works on very many any more. Again, the recent targets of American military power have been fascists who have either engaged in mass murder or sponsored mass murderers. That we haven't rid the globe of them all is regretable--but it will require the type of blood, treasure, and overseas presence the Left usually associates with American hyperpower. What will they say should we shortly land in Liberia to eject another genocidal maniac-oil? Haliburton contracts? a mysterious pipeline? racist colonialism? proof of reckless and impetuous imperialism? or proof we cynically waited too long? The idea that the US is backing away from either Afghanistan or Iraq is absurd. The current levels of violence in Iraq are no higher than in Germany, Japanese- held territory, or Austria right after the surrender, when Americans were killed daily for weeks on end. That characteristic unrest is called the transition from war to peace (cf. our own Civil War and the months following Appomattox when private scores were settled, habeas corpus denied, and thousand of peacekeeping troops needed). The President's speech today was about liberation from tyranny, the pledge of American money and troops, and commitment to democracy--hardly the stuff of realpolitk or cut and run cynicism. The game is given away with the finale--" is inextricably linked to the most massive realignment of political and economic power in recent history within the United States." We are just coming off 8 years of a Democratic presidency. The ratio of federal dollars spent on defense versus domestic programs is the opposite from the Cold War (currently about 30/70 rather than 65/35); the tax rate on those making less than $30,000 has almost disappeared; entitlements are expanding not shrinking, and so on. As for this purported "realignment," whatever it is, apparently millions of the world's poorest want in on it-if current immigration trends are any indication. Exploited and impoverished Mexicans, for example, seem to vote by moving northward, not southward toward Cuba, Venezuela, or other socialist paradises.