The Dartmouth Beacon

The Dartmouth Beacon especially commends the efforts of the Student Activities Office for inviting Town Hall workers to campus on Oct. 12 to register students. Though stories circulated of town clerks neglecting to verify student ID cards, the evening ran smoothly and most students were pleased with the process despite the long lines.

Jim Larimore, Dean of the College, also sent out a campus-wide email on Oct. 6 with information specific to students on how to register in New Hampshire.

I hope that given ample opportunities to register to vote, students have done so. Though one cannot register in the ten days immediately prior to the election, New Hampshire still allows same-day registration.

Despite the best efforts of Dartmouth, voter registration still retains one glaring stumbling block. Legal residency in the state is a reasonable prerequisite to voter registration, and New Hampshire law does include this stipulation. Legal residency, however, carries with it a certain responsibility on the part of the citizen that is extraneous to voting or domicile claims.

According to the New Hampshire Secretary of State (www.sos.nh.gov), a new resident of the state is required to acquire a NH driver’s license (at a cost of $50) and transfer motor vehicle registration within sixty days of establishing residency. If this is not done, violators face “fines, administrative penalties, or loss of driving privileges.” Though one’s ability to vote is not affected by the law, the consequences of voting are real if a resident fails to comply with the law.

We thus encourage student residents of New Hampshire to write your local state representatives and urge the repeal of this motor vehicle law, and to find out if you have been affected or will be affected by this law.

Probably one of the most compelling reasons to oppose the War in Iraq has become the failure of the Bush Administration to find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Given that even senior leaders of the administration have acknowledged the lack WMDs in Iraq, many opponents of the Administration now seem certain that Bush has been lying to America all along—and that the deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians have been in vain.

Yet the media has failed to make one important distinction regarding the justification for the war. Coalition forces did not invade Iraq because of their possession of WMDs; they invaded because of the credible threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the world because of his decades-long efforts to acquire WMDs. The available intelligence was obfuscated by Saddam's refusal to allow UN weapons inspectors into key sites. At the time, his secrecy could only be interpreted as reinforcement of American concerns. This bluff also demonstrated his contempt for the UN's conviction to go through with their strongly worded resolutions.

And some indications of a weapons program were definitely discovered. The CIA reported that “dozens of WMD systems were found” as early as October 2, 2003. The US secretly transported two tons of uranium in June from Iraq, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Also in June the Washington Times reported that engines used in banned WMDs were found in Iraq. Most recently, on Oct. 11 Reuters reported that satellites detected that weapons-making facilities, and equipment used to manufacture WMDs have been dismantled and are currenly missing—potentially in the hands of terrorists.

It is most interesting to note the peculiar words of two prominent opponents of the Administration regarding this threat.

"We know that [Saddam Hussein] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an oppressive regime…He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he has continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction…the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real.”

Yet regardless of what Sen. Kerry’s position is currently, the fact remains that the War in Iraq cannot reasonably be opposed on the grounds that no WMDs were found. We did not go to war with the certain knowledge of the presence of WMDs, but with a very credible threat of unknown capacity and known hostility. President Bush remained strong in his convictions of the justification of war, rather than retreating when the threat seemed less politically advantageous. As a result, the Iraqi people are increasingly benefiting from the fruits of freedom, even if the threat to American intersts turned out to be more of Saddam's bluff than Saddam's bombs.

Bruce Gago '05
Editor-in-Chief