When sixty American intellectuals signed their names to a letter entitled 'whatwe are fighting for,' published by the Institute for American Values,some readers hoped to hear a voice of reason, some alternative to the Americangovernment's newest foreign policies following Bush's invention of an 'axis ofevil' in his union address. Instead they found that these intellectuals not onlyneglected to formulate alternatives to these aggressive strategies, but in factgave the US administration their total support for the 'war against terrorism.'Many of the academics who signed this letter -Huntington, Fukuyama, Etzioni,Skocpol - are considered 'public intellectuals' in the United States, and areheld in high regard as examples of how prominent individuals can combineintellectual and political activity. All of them, have, however, at the veryleast utterly failed to fulfill this important responsibility by signing thisletter. For what is an intellectual if not someone who produces realalternatives to the current state of affairs and to official policies which havecreated the disastrous status quo at first place?