Matthew X. Ryan's letter ("Liberals deserve thanks for undermining liberty," Sept. 11) really made me think. I used to be a member of the NEA, one
of the two major teacher unions, and I'm trying to figure out why I didn't receive any of the money he thinks the federal government gives to teacher unions. To the best of my knowledge, I'm not aware of any past or present bills that proposed giving federal funds to teacher unions. If Mr. Ryan could enlighten me and other readers as to which teacher union programs the government is funding, I'd be really interested.

Furthermore, Mr. Ryan seems unaware of past U.S. policy toward dictatorships. It was of course U.S. dollars that supported Saddam Hussein's regime during the Reagan and Bush years, including the years of his most extreme use of chemical weapons. It has been U.S. policy in several Latin American countries to aid and abet several dictatorships.

I applaud Mr. Bush if he has finally discovered that coddling authoritarian thugs rarely succeeds as a long-run strategy. But I fear that Mr. Bush's newfound respect for human rights arises because his stated reason for going
to war -- to dismantle Iraq's WMDs --seems like a lie, not to mention extremely expensive both in lives and money.