Letter From The Editor
By Aiden Doherty

At this point, writing anything about the impending war in the Middle East seems like a waste of breath. The tide of war rises higher, and the steady drumbeat of campus opposition seems to fall on deaf ears. Although the average Pomona student may be roundly unconvinced by President Bush's case to the nation, the nation as a whole seems to accept his arguments. The country is still high-strung and testy, like a man who has been sucker-punched on the street and clenches his fists at every passing stranger. It's not so much that the average American has pored over detailed intelligence reports or political analysis, but that the idea of an imminent threat, particularly from a Muslim country, is something that goes down easy with the American public right now.

So be it. The nation marches toward war and the occupation of a second Muslim country seems inevitable. In the rosiest of scenarios America liberates Iraq from Saddam with a minimum of fuss, administers a benevolent occupation in the tradition of post-war West Germany or Japan, and within a few years Iraq becomes an enlightened, liberal democratic, pro-Western, free-market beacon of hope in the otherwise desolate wasteland of the Middle East. But perhaps a darker scenario will unfold. Perhaps the wave after wave of suicide bombing familiar to us from the troubles in Israel will come to characterize news reports from occupied Iraq. Perhaps, before the war even comes to a close, Saddam massacres an Israeli population with chemical gas, provoking a nuclear response from Israel and setting the entire Muslim world up in arms. Perhaps, as the Arab league so ominously warned, to invade Iraq would be to open the very gates of hell itself.