Thank God for Charles Krauthammer. Just when Americans are beginning to recover from the shock of the September 11 attacks and think rationally about the realistic threats that we face at home and abroad, Krauthammer is there to appeal to our darkest, most paranoid fears and make the case for lashing out blindly against all foes, real and imagined.

The scenario of multiple, simultaneous nuclear detonations across our country is truly terrifying, but it exists only in the imaginations of the administration's neo-imperialists and their allies in the media. Since I do not have Krauthammer's gift for diagnosing mental disorders from afar - a political abuse of his medical background that places him squarely in the worst tradition of Soviet psychiatry - I will refrain from speculating as to whether he is "delusional" or merely "in denial" about several basic facts :

1. There is no credible evidence that any state any where has ever passed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons to a terrorist group or intends to do so.
2. There are no nuclear-armed nations in the Middle East, aside from Israel.
3. The most likely source of nuclear weapons or material for terrorists is not "terrorist states," but inadequately secured elements of the former Soviet arsenal.
4. A "nuclear" attack on the United States is much more likely to come in the form of a radiological dispersion device ("dirty bomb") than a fission or fusion bomb. The former would cause few deaths, although it would undoubtedly create wide-spread panic.

Given these realities, why focus on the utterly implausible threat of a non-existent, terrorist nuclear arsenal? Perhaps the Iraq debacle has left Americans a bit too skeptical to sign on to the next campaign; the realistic threat of a chemical, biological or radiological attack that might kill a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand people is no longer sufficiently motivating. Something more is needed : a threat to our very civilization.

Hundreds of U.S. military personnel and thousands of civilians have died in Iraq because we allowed our fears to blind us to reality. If Krauthammer et al. have their way, many thousands more will die in Syria, Lebanon, Iran and God-knows-where-else, and Americans will not be one bit safer for it. Make no mistake, if we allow ourselves to be goaded by the radical right into wars of conquest against nations that pose no significant threat to us, we will not be "defending civilization," we will be taking a step backwards towards barbarism. And remember one more thing : if the people of Central Ohio send their young men and women off to fight yet another war, it is highly unlikely that the children or grandchildren of Krauthammer, Safire, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Cheney or Bush will be fighting along side them. That fact gives us cause to question how seriously these ideological warriors take their own propaganda.

James Toney
Columbus, OH