Hmmm...many many people--that is to say, Daniel Hugger, Daniel Silliman, Jonathan Metzger and Seraphim Danckaert--have written negative comments and refutations of my recent war commentary. Their many criticisms demand a response, but I unfortunately currently lack the time to reply in detail to each of their charges. Here, at least, are a few thoughts.

First, contrary to Mr. Silliman's assertions, I do not like war. It is ugly, brutal and horrific in all its forms. And most of all so in its latest forms as it has developed over the past century. It is first of all a desire to avoid war and preserve life that sparks my musings about potential methods to avoid nuclear holocaust.

Second, my suggestion that the United States is the only force capable of achieving any sort of nuclear disarmament, limitation and security worldwide is based in the fact of the utter impotence of the United Nations in pursuance of that end. My suggestion for a forced disarmament by a single police power is born of a search for an alternative to a bankrupt policy and fifty years of dashed hopes. There is enough cause for fear in the world in which we live today--I shudder to think of the perils of the world we will bequeath to our children and grandchildren in we fail to address the inescapable conclusion of today's nuclear proliferation.

Third, any claims that the United Nations is a legitimate or workable means of achieving world peace and security are nothing but balderdash. You should know better than that, Metzger. The United Nations gives equal voice to every nation in the world, and the most common interest shared by those nations is a desire to be rid of America's limiting influence on their ancient feuds with one another. The best thing I can say about the United Nations is that it provides the pithiest example of a bitter irony I can think of--the nations which have perpetrated the vast majority of histories atrocities, the nations deterred from continuing those atrocities by American might, lecturing America in the words of America's founding philosophies about the rule of law and national sovereignty. And we Americans, caring so much about doing the right thing, shrink and cower and back off, fearing the shrill, empty rhetoric of the impotent powers of the past.

Fourth, I am no imperialist. I would much prefer to sit in a nice, small nation that nobody cared about, living my life, raising my kids and striving towards God, than to live in a nation hated the world over for being powerful enough to save the world's ass whenever some potheaded dictator takes it into his head to raise hell. I refer readers to Kipling's Tommy. "Yes, making fun of uniforms that guard you when you sleep is cheaper than those uniforms--and they're starvation cheap...And it's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy, 'ow's your soul...but it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes when the drums begin to roll."

Whether or not America ever admits that she is an empire (and I doubt that it will), she will continue to serve as the backbone and muscle of the United Nations or whatever foolheaded council takes its place, and will continue to spill the blood of her sons and daughters on whatever barren battlefield the cowardly nations of Europe, Africa or Asia beg her to fill when their greed and moral turpitude finally leave them at the mercy of threats they ignored for far too long.

More later.