SAVAGE IS A SCHIZO GAY REPUBLICAN

DEAR MERCURY: Has Dan Savage lost his mind ["Say Yes to War in Iraq," Dan Savage, October 24]? He ends his pro-war editorial with edicts--Reform your societies! Liberalize! Democratize!--as if Dan himself were to be the dictator of the American-led military government he wants in Iraq. Here's what Dan is missing: George Bush Jr. is going to be the next tyrant of Iraq, not a sex columnist with a fear of flying. Bush is not going to install a queer-friendly democracy in the middle of the Koran belt. Bush is not going to bomb his business partners in the Saudi royal family.

Could gay Republicans please stick to writing about sex, and not their schizophrenic politics? Thanks.

Theodore Peneye

SAVAGE PUTS THE "ASS" IN "COMPASS"

TO THE EDITOR: It's interesting to see the stupid side of Dan Savage. Dan's pitch for war rests on a set of ridiculous assumptions. The main argument seems to be that we'd be liberating the Iraqi people. Of course, he presents no evidence that they wish to be "liberated," much less be "liberated" by us. He also presumes that, somehow, it is acceptable to our fellow nations of the world that the U.S. unilaterally decides to invade whomever it chooses in the self-proclaimed cause of liberation.

Dan postulates that Iraq is part of a preposterously named "Islamo-fascist" movement, and then laments that we aren't attacking Saudi Arabia in addition to or instead of Iraq, pointing out (for once correctly) that the Saudi's are more active in supporting Islamic fundamentalists than Iraq.

What Dan ignores is the fact that we haven't linked Iraq to terrorist activities, that Iraq hasn't threatened the U.S., and that the Moslem and Arabic worlds are violently opposed to our attacking Iraq. The latter is of particular importance since by attacking Iraq (as opposed to combating terrorism) we will fan Arabic and Moslem passions to the point of creating more terrorists and terrorist attacks. It's ironic to hear Savage claim that by opposing the U.S.'s emerging "global bully-boy" posture, the left has lost its "moral compass." Dan Savage wouldn't recognize a "moral compass" if it bit him in the ass.

Francis Ferguson

SAVAGE IS DUMB AND REPETITIVE

TO THE EDITOR: Not only was Mr. Savage's article articulating ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW in terms of propaganda, but he was making a complete ass of himself.

Ask Mr. Savage to take a vacation to reacquire his brain in Afghanistan a country we "helped out" only ONE YEAR AGO yeah, they're doing just peachy. Wonder why we haven't heard about them lately? Because now they're overrun with warlords and drugs and people are even more afraid than they were before.

Maybe when we're done salvaging our new found best friend, Iraq, we can turn to some other lucrative place like Africa and "help" them out before anyone notices we've completely fucked those we're supposedly trying to benefit.

Jenna Roadman

SAVAGE IS A DUMB GLUE SNIFFER

MERCURY EDITORS: Perhaps in the future when you print something like that crap by Savage about "peace sometimes being worse than war" you could denote it with a heading such as, "Dan has started mixing barbiturates and alcohol again, sorry" or "Dan received a promotion to the Office of Influence" or "Dan gets all his information from C-Span while sniffing glue."

Joshua Cinelli

SAVAGE IS A BIG, DUMB, GAY BUSH-LOVER

TO THE EDITOR: Savage holds Saddam Hussein up as an example of America finally taking one of its evil dictator friends to task, but fails to discuss what prompts our government to take its present anti-Iraqi position. There are plenty of evil dictators persecuting and abusing their people, whose countries do not sit on the world's second largest oil reserves.

People on the left, Dan, have been dying at the hands of organized greed for centuries. You may not call it war, but then your arguments are mostly semantic anyway. It's sad to see influential people, especially those oppressed for years, finally achieve acceptance, then so quickly become the lap dogs of the very powers that were abusing them. Wake up, Dan. Bush doesn't care if you wave his flag. He hates your godless homosexuality. He thinks you're a pervert. Do you see how ironic it is that you appear to be trying to get into his bed?

Patrick Smith

CONGRATS TO PATRICK for winning the Mercury's "I Hate Dan Savage Letter of the Week!" Patrick will receive two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater, courtesy of that war-mongering Bush lap dog, Dan Savage.