Quotes of the Day
In "Closing Down the Dark Side," Mark Kukis says there is a problem with how the suspected detainees at a shutdown Guantánamo would be prosecuted if brought to the U.S. [Dec. 8]. If this were done, he says, "avowed terrorists" might walk away "on a technicality." In light of recent Supreme Court decisions making the writ of habeas corpus available to Guantánamo detainees, this is precisely how those detainees are to be tried, regardless of venue. To downsize a constitutional right into a technicality in the field of American jurisprudence is equivalent to considering gravity a technicality in the field of physics.
Franklin Morse II, SUTTONS BAY, MICH., U.S.
Lame Duck? That's a Quack
Joe Klein's parting shot at a president who once had an approval rating in the high 70s and still has an approval rating twice as high as Congress's is out of line [Dec. 8]. Armchair quarterbacking is a national sport, and while I recognize that Klein leans a bit to the left, his column shows a stunning lack of perception. To paraphrase a political line from the past, "It's the security of the people, stupid." This President, like all Presidents, has his faults, but the economic results of a decade-plus of putting people into homes everyone knew they could not afford — and then having the whole house of cards fall — is not as much his fault as it is his responsibility, because of the timing of the event. Klein can and should do better.
L.E. Dura, FENTON, MICH., U.S.
You absolutely hit the nail on the head. I almost cried. I am not an educated man. I have a high school education. I have always taken comfort in knowing that the person in charge of the country — and in many ways the world — is smarter than I am. I don't honestly believe, though I have tried to, that this has been the case for the past eight years. It seems that George W. Bush never really got it. It was all just a photo op: "Hey, look where I am, Dad!" It is a shame that so many people had to die because of such childlike whims and lack of caring. I was born in the South, and I have seen a lot of ignorance and intolerance. I now live in Northern California, so I have seen both sides of the coin as far as American culture and attitudes go. I don't think Bush ever took the opportunity in all his travels to see America or, for that matter, the rest of the world. He was never in touch. Thank you for your piece. It struck a major chord with me.
Gregory S. McCoy, GUERNEVILLE, CALIF., U.S.
Klein mentions the expressions on Bush's face. Among the hideous 9/11 images better erased from the memory is the one when Dubya is first told. He is sitting in a little straight chair surrounded by children at the school he is visiting. An aide comes over and whispers the foul facts in his ear. His face registers bafflement, incomprehension, terror, helplessness. Klein has it "forlorn." Yes. In an instant the most powerful man in the world sitting in a little chair has learned the world will never be the same again because there are people in it willing to do what they had just done. Briefly I felt sorry for him. I had only to absorb the enormity of what I was watching; he had to do something. Let us hope President Obama never has that look on his face.
Terry Collcutt, BLETCHINGLEY, ENGLAND
Bush's greatest error was in retaining Alan Greenspan, who served too long. His greatest legacy will be the security of the American people and upholding Christianity in the aftermath of 9/11. It is clear that religious terrorists now keep to their own backyards. America's bankruptcy is shown in many ways: grasping for an unorthodox presidency, effectively nationalizing the economy and cutting off its nose to spite its face. The rhetoric around Bush sounds very like what we heard about Reagan, who is now being hailed as a great President.
Wikus Hanekom, STELLENBOSCH, SOUTH AFRICA
Klein talks about Bush's "intellectual laziness," which suggests Bush had the intellect, but was too lazy to use it. Why doesn't Klein call a spade a spade? Actually, the problem is that Bush didn't have the intellect in the first place; he is a stupid man, plain and simple. And America was stupid to elect him in the first place, and then stupid beyond belief to re-elect him in 2004. Without romanticizing Obama, it seems to me that he's intelligent; America has partly redeemed itself by electing him. Unfortunately for Obama, he has to sort out the mess that eight years of stupidity have left behind. I don't envy him in the slightest.
Alex Potter, CLAREMONT, SOUTH AFRICA
Defining Defiance
Richard Corliss states in his review of the movie Defiance, "Not all Jews under Hitler's boot were passive victims" [Dec. 8]. Almost all of Hitler's Jewish victims were civilians with families. They had no army, let alone guns, and were often betrayed by their local government. The vast majority had no chance to fight and nothing to fight with and probably thought they would live to see their families again, not knowing what evil awaited them. Calling them or any defenseless people "passive victims" — even to refute such a notion — is ignorant, rude and insulting. It would have been more accurate and thoughtful to have said that some Jews found a way to fight back, and did.
Richard Allen Cohen, CHICAGO
Local Philanthropy
Re: The Jet Age [Dec. 8]. it has always been fashionable for magazines like Time to exclusively profile Western saviors "parachuting" into Africa, Asia and other "helpless" parts of the planet to rescue people from hunger, disease and natural disaster. By featuring on Time's cover a Chinese philanthropist, working creatively and energetically within China, it is my hope that you will inspire other global media organizations to focus more on homegrown solutions and solution providers. Bono, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates (and I dare say Madonna) are doing a great job in Africa. But surely there are African philanthropists and social entrepreneurs who also deserve a spot in the limelight — even if the power of their checkbooks is nowhere near that of the aforementioned?
Tolu Ogunlesi, ABEOKUTA, NIGERIA
Despair in Zimbabwe
I have watched the downward spiral in Zimbabwe for more than 20 years [The World, Dec. 8]. Robert Mugabe and his gang ensured the country's downfall, and the crippling of its citizens and its political opposition to a point where no solution is possible however hard Morgan Tsvangirai works. The world leaders (including Thabo Mbeki and most political leaders in Africa) chose to ignore the real problem: Mugabe — a corrupt and possibly mentally unstable power freak. My appeal to the world is to get into Zimbabwe now and help put this country and its struggling citizens on the road to recovery. World leaders should not wait for 2009 just because the festive season is at hand. There are many other crisis areas in the world, but someone must take seriously the remark made by Jimmy Carter: The crisis is much worse than we ever imagined.
Theo Vermaak, WITBANK, SOUTH AFRICA
Mumbai Attacks
Another heinous act of terrorism has been committed in India [The World, Dec. 8]. It is disgusting to observe that our political leaders, instead of rising above political lines in the fight against this common evil and cooperating in the investigations, indulge in political oneupmanship with an eye on the forthcoming elections. A great tragedy, apart from the loss of a large number of innocent lives, is the killing of the chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Hemant Karkare. He was heading up the investigations into earlier bomb blasts and had started to reveal some startling information on the complicity of some very high-profile and well-placed extreme elements of the majority community, including a senior serving member of the army. His investigation, which had already given a new twist to the entire discourse on the fight against terror in India, is another casualty.
T. Maryam, NEW DELHI
- Defining Defiance; Local Philanthropy; Despair in Zimbabwe