DAN SAVAGE: You are a pimp ["...And Pass the Ammunition," July 4]. A reactionary thug. Having found this tingling ape inside you with the tingling fists, you cry to Papa and poop and run screaming to the front. You putz. So there are people left in the world (perhaps we, opposing them, are indeed the minority) who still see violence as the logical means to an end, a solution as such. We would be fools to ignore this, it is true. But we live in a country that has traded lies for lives, and we are on top in the barter. It IS in the interest of prevention that the Left cries at the hypocrisy in our rage.

You miss the big point: We in this country have a habit of "buying" EVERYTHING, and that means a lot, because that is bullshit. We "bought" this country from the Indians, we "bought" Saudi Arabia and Israel and Guatemala in the '50s. And after this we can pay whomever we need to do our fighting for us. So just because your virgin fists got a taste of blood doesn't make it a novel idea, white boy. And leftists who tell people to let it go aren't protesting your piss-ass little hot flash, they are protesting a history, a cycle of violence we have actively promoted. They are saying we should stop.

Dalton, via e-mail

DAN SAVAGE: There was no reason to invade Afghanistan other than to make the Bush regime look like it was doing something in response to the WTC attacks. I would have been all in favor of a war if there were any constructive motives for it. But the motives for it were nothing but misplaced revenge and to take the heat off the Republicans for their complacency--and maybe to divert attention from the real sponsors of terrorism, our theocratic allies in Saudi Arabia. Maybe women are marginally better off in Kabul now, but I doubt that gays are any safer with our "don't ask, don't tell" Army standing by. And how many people were killed for this temporary reprieve from theocracy? Oh, I'm afraid that's classified information. Politically your Marshall Plan is down at the dead-letter office, somewhere underneath the anthrax investigation.

It's laughable that you suggest we need a national debate about invading Iraq. Where is the nation going to get the necessary information for a rational debate? From the press that is just now catching on to the ancient news about Bush's inside-trading career? The press that daily marvels at Bush's anti-environmental and anti-regulatory policies as if men from Mars have landed, despite his six-year record of nearly identical policies in Texas? I'm guessing you're one of those guys who wastes a couple of hours a week at work talking about what you'd do with your money if you won the lottery. Fat chance. Quit flapping your gums and find some real estate with a bomb shelter if you're really worried about conex bombs.

Let's restore democracy to America before we start talking about exporting it again.

Tim Carolan, via e-mail

DAN SAVAGE: To say that this war was inevitable is an understatement. This war has been going on for quite some time. Only nobody paid attention.

In 1994 al Qaeda and bin Laden fully and publicly announced their intentions (even describing flying airliners into skyscrapers on a webpage). They declared war literally and symbolically, on webpages, on videotape, and with C4 explosives.

We wrung our hands and answered with cowardly and ineffective cruise missiles and not troops. Why? Because, for the Right, young Americans are too good to die. And for the Left, everybody else (as victims of supposed U.S. oppression) are never bad enough to be killed. BULLSHIT.

My fellow liberals LOVE to blather about how 9/11 didn't happen in a vacuum and, though we should have "some kind of military response," bombing and invading Afghanistan, or anywhere else, would be immoral. It's a nice ironic Nerf-covered world for these people.

Yes. It didn't happen in a vacuum. There is over 500 years of history behind 9/11. Not just the 50 years the U.S. has been poking its novice nose in the Middle East. Yes, feeling sorry for Afghanistan is justified. Bombing Afghanistan had more to do with utility, distraction, and the Central Asian pipeline than al Qaeda.

For me Afghanistan will do for starters. As long as we conclude by making it the most prosperous country in Central Asia.

I'd rather the killing be done by us decadent westerners with our terrible concepts of pluralism, equality, and reconciliation than the other guys who believe no such thing and won't be talked into believing. Unless a gun is pointing at them.

Todd Christensen, via e-mail

DAN SAVAGE: Thanks to you a thousand times over. At least now when my lefty friends scowl at me, and cringe in imagined pain at my evil, imperialist, ways, I'll know at least one other person from the political left has similar opinions and isn't afraid to intelligently and concisely express them.

Liz, via e-mail

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: In what will surely rank as one of this paper's most hilariously inept errors, last week's issue featured an alarming blunder smack on the cover. Said blunder: the Who bassist John Entwistle's name was misspelled as "John Entwhistle." Rest assured that we hate our stupid fucking selves.