Letters

Why Can’t I See My Kid?
Re your report on the plight of fathers who are shut out of their children’s lives by divorce or the legal system [Sept. 27]: The high divorce or separation rate for marriages in the European Union is well known. In a romantic situation, things develop very rapidly. You get to know and love each other, you marry after six months, and then comes the first baby. After all those developments, you find out that your partner isn’t the right person, as you believed at the beginning. Don’t know what to do? Divorce, of course. And then the difficulties start. For the couple as individuals, it’s often not such a big problem, but the main victims of a divorce are the children. Therefore it’s good advice to wait a while to have kids and see whether a marriage will turn out to be one that is likely to last a long time. Children have the right to a stable family, with a father and a mother who can live together in harmony.
Elfriede Sommer
Salzburg, Austria

I would like to thank you for finally acknowledging what so many fathers are going through in the court system. The U.S. has the same problems — Detroit has one of the worst programs there are. My husband has been fighting for equal parenting time for almost seven years. We have won only Tuesday evenings, every other weekend, every other holiday and four weeks in the summer. Tell me how that allows him to be an active parent in his daughter’s life? The courts should not be allowed to dictate the amount of time a child spends with a parent. Maybe if the judges and mediators were only allowed to see their children for this allotted time, they would rethink their actions.
Name Withheld by Request
Detroit

Who Owns the Truth?
It is laughable and tragic that CBS’s failure to authenticate documents affirming what we all already know about George W. Bush’s questionable National Guard duty would be used by some as proof of liberal bias in the media [Sept. 27]. If the media were truly leftist, they would be clamoring for the indictment of Bush and John Kerry for launching an illegal war on Iraq and for crimes against humanity perpetrated against the Iraqis. CBS’s Dan Rather may be an idiot, but it’s an insult to true progressives to label him a leftist. He’s just one more in a line of celebrity journalists.
Ronald O. Richards
Los Angeles

Why Are We in Iraq?
As a soldier’s mother, I say bring the troops home from Iraq now. The truth is that the American public was deceived by the Bush Administration about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq [Sept. 27]. And now our leadership is stubbornly adhering to a destructive course. Many Americans do not want our troops there. They are stuck in a quagmire largely of our government’s making. There ought to be honest and compelling reasons for the risks to our service members and for the hardships imposed on their families and our communities. So far, the explanations given for the occupation of Iraq do not rise to that standard.
JoAnn Sohl
Palisades Park, New Jersey, U.S.

The New U.S. Ally
Your item about how Syria and the U.S. are holding talks to try to keep insurgents from crossing Syria’s border into Iraq was both informative and amusing [Sept. 27]. President Bush famously said, “You are either with us or against us” in the war on terrorism, but by cooperating with Syria, a well-known harborer of terrorists and a suspected developer of weapons of mass destruction, Bush seems to have changed his mind. Sounds like a flip-flop to me.
William Pass
Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.

Political Reality or Fantasy?
Joe Klein’s column “Bush’s Iraq: a Powerful Fantasy” [Sept. 27] was accurate and frightening. It was scary not because President Bush is living in a fantasy world but because so many Americans are blindly following him. The Republican strategy to win this election is to incessantly spread fear. From NASCAR dads to security moms, the consensus seems to be that they don’t care whether Bush is lying to them. They will wrap themselves in that dishonesty like a security blanket because they want to feel safe. If dads and moms want to truly protect their children, however, they should start acting like responsible adults and demand answers that have a basis in reality.
Sandra Basile
Barnegat, New Jersey, U.S.

I left Hungary in 1956 as a 20-year-old refugee. I was escaping from a totalitarian regime and the oppressive demagoguery of its political leaders. I could no longer stand to listen to the meaningless platitudes about the great success of the latest Five-Year Plan. I settled in the U.S. to get away from that. But I have now been living in Europe for the past several months. When I see President Bush on TV declaring that Iraq and the world are safer and the U.S. economy is recovering, I get an eerie sense of déjà vu. For the first time since leaving Hungary, I have a feeling of helpless frustration when listening to the leader of my country. I thought only dictators could afford to shamelessly lie to their people. I thought I had left all that behind 50 years ago.
Peter Stangl
Calvisson, France

To Withstand the Wind
After reading about the damage that recent hurricanes have caused in Florida and other coastal states [Sept. 27], I think we need to set up stricter building codes in hurricane-prone areas. For decades, California has had earthquake-inspired codes that have undoubtedly saved Americans millions of dollars in insurance premiums. It’s time for those who wish to live in Hurricane Alley to build houses that are more wind- and water-resistant so my tax dollars don’t have to subsidize federal insurance for their beachfront housing.
Dobb Mayo
Holland, Michigan

Spain’s New Man
In his interview with time, Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero claimed that “sexual equality is a lot more effective against terrorism than military strength” [Sept. 27]. To repeat an old saying, That’s like comparing apples to herrings. There is a reverse spin on Zapatero’s view: only a few weeks ago, two female Chechen terrorists blew up two airliners over Russia, possibly to avenge the deaths of family members killed by Russian soldiers in a war of independence. What on earth does terrorism have to do with gender equality? Also, Zapatero said he didn’t want “to be a great leader” but “a good democrat” instead. That’s almost like a man suggesting that being a good — and occasionally strict — father is less important to him than being a loving husband. If Zapatero aspires to be a successful European politician, he should focus less on political populism and more on substance.
Werner Radtke
Paderborn, Germany

It’s high time that prime minister Zapatero stopped smiling so much and started governing the country. So far we have been treated to a series of proposals and projects that have been test-marketed. Depending on public reaction, those proposals have been modified, put off or canceled altogether. The talk on the street is cautious, and uncertainty is common: Will we end up as the Disunited States of Spain?
Monica Flores
Madrid

Big and Fuel-Efficient
Michael Elliott’s welcome feature on our report Winning the Oil Endgame [Sept. 27] had a headline, “Kicking the Big-Car Habit,” that did not correctly reflect the thesis of the team at Rocky Mountain Institute. We support Americans’ right to drive any type of vehicle they want, but we suggest they be offered safer and more fuel-efficient choices. Ultralight but ultrastrong materials now remove the contradiction between big and efficient: cars can be big but also light and safe, saving oil and lives without compromising comfort or pep. For example, a midsize SUV made of carbon fiber could cut fuel use by 72%, and the vehicle’s extra cost could be repaid from fuel savings in about three years. Our proposals would expand car buyers’ range and freedom of choice and increase automakers’ profits and competitive strength.
Amory B. Lovins, CEO
Rocky Mountain Institute
Old Snowmass, Colorado, U.S.

Let the World Vote
Simon Robinson’s “a modest proposal: Global Suffrage” suggested that Americans should let the rest of the globe vote in the U.S. presidential election [Sept. 27]. Robinson expressed exactly what I and many other Europeans feel: since the U.S. President is the most powerful person in the world and every decision he makes — not only in matters of foreign policy — influences the lives of all citizens of all countries, why shouldn’t we have a say in his election? We would then be certain that George W. Bush, the most divisive U.S. President in recent history, would not be re-elected.
Jacques Scohy
Brussels

A Mushroom-Shaped Cloud
There is a lot of speculation about the explosion in North Korea that produced a mushroom-shaped cloud [Sept. 27]. Although Pyongyang denies it blew up anything nuclear, I wouldn’t mind if North Korea acted as a counterweight to the U.S. People the world over are supposed to accept the opinions and directions of the West and to follow the American way of life. Different viewpoints, which used to be valued by democratic societies, are not very popular these days. Therefore it is good when other nations and cultures try to resist domination by the West. The North Korean government feels threatened by the U.S., so it is highly understandable that a little country aims to protect itself. That, of course, could best be achieved by developing nuclear weapons.
Tahir Niap-San
Kuala Lumpur