The question on whether our country should forcefully remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq is important. Not until I read Jason C. Miller's column ("Peaceful solution might not be possible in violent country," SN 1/27) did I feel the support for a forceful removal was so under-represented.

I don't believe we have the right to kill anyone, let alone innocent people who are part of a country they were born into. This war would not be one of our proudest moments. However, I agree with Miller's column and feel too many people are living in an ideal world rather than a real one - an ideal world that, right now, regrettably doesn't exist.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take a rich, powerful country to utilize the potential killing power of biological or chemical warfare. All it takes is a small house-sized lab with the right people under the leadership of a dictator willing to use them. Saddam is a real threat, regardless of what inspectors find; this was proven in his past, with both Kuwait and his cruel treatment toward his own people.

I don't think of it as massacre so much as rebuilding what Saddam has already destroyed. The price paid in blood for peace has to also be paid in the sweat of rebuilding a country.

And, who knows, we may gain a strong ally, trading partner and global participant out of it, such as we did with Germany and Japan after WWII.

Jared Riley
computer science sophomore