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Guest Editorial By Kirk Stump

As a college student, I am right in the middle of what I see as a hostile environment. While I wasn’t alive in the 1960’s, I’ve learned that those opposed to the war in Vietnam would go to college, in an effort to avoid the draft. I suppose one could, then, see the current connection between the political left, and the collegiate environment. In that day and age it was the radical thing to do to go to college. That was fighting the system. Today, that is the system, we’ll call it institutionalized activism. That alternative lifestyle has become the norm, and it is all around me.

It is an incontrovertible truth that Saddam Hussein was an entirely violent and wholly murderous dictator. The political left has chosen either to ignore this in favor of spinning the conversation the direction of Dubbaya’s WMD problems, or to call it “their problem.” And that is the argument I’ve heard here in my very educated environment from my very learned peers and instructors. It is, in fact, the only argument I’ve heard.

Is it not these very people who have proclaimed themselves the defender of the little man? I’m not claiming that “The Butcher of Baghdad” wanted to become the butcher of the world (although I don’t doubt his indifference to human life as a whole) but is it not enough that he gassed the Kurds? Is it not enough that he killed countless thousands, and tortured an innumerable lot?

Why are we “over there?” Because we can be. Because we were there once, and we left a country to be torn apart by a terrible dictator with absolutely no regard for human life. And now it’s time for us to step up. It is our responsibility, as those who can, to help anyone in need.

In conclusion, if you want to be different, try standing up for what is right, even if it isn’t the conventional opinion. If you want to be different, be genuinely different. And you really don’t have to wear those thick-rimmed glasses and eat salad to have a valid opinion.