TIME's cover asked, "Who is Shinzo Abe?" [Sept. 18]. The answer was beside the point, for all the difference that would make. Since Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is an unopposable force, the prime ministerial race was virtually uncontested. After perusing a menu of populist issues, Abe championed the Japanese abductees of North Korea very late in the day. The LDP has chosen to turn a blind eye to so many other problems that nobody could pretend that he and his fellow parliamentarians are not completely calculating in what causes they address. If that were not so, real issues like mercury poisoning, tainted blood supplies, asbestos-related illnesses and hundreds of other skeletons in the LDP cupboard would never have been denied or deferred decade after decade.
David John Wood
Chikushino, Japan
Rarely do journalists fail to play up Abe's blue-blood heritage and the fears he stirs up among liberals. TIME's story was no exception. Will Abe act like a hawk or a dove toward Japan's neighbors? The media like to stereotype politicians, especially those with mystique. But let's remember U.S. President Richard Nixon. He began his career as a crusading anticommunist but turned out to be the statesman who reached out to the Soviet Union and Red China. My concern is not whether Abe will patch things up with Japan's neighbors but how he will resuscitate the economy to revive Japan. Although I'm no cockeyed optimist, I believe that a pragmatic tactician like Abe may deliver. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Wan-hay Paul Li
Hong Kong
Torture on Trial
Ron Suskind's viewpoint [sept. 18] on the CIA torture of detained al-Qaeda operatives made clear that information obtained through torture or physical abuse is rarely of any use. When the President announced he was going to review our policy on torture, that should have been a rather short review. The U.S. is a signatory to international treaties and agreements that prohibit the use of torture or inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and belligerents. If we lower our standards to the level of the enemy, we can expect the same treatment for our own prisoners of war.
Raymond R. Mead
Whetstone, Arizona, U.S.
As the U.S. commemorated the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. government continued to hold several hundred people in an illegal prison at Guantánamo Bay. Don't Americans realize the damage they inflict on their own image, democracy and ultimately Western civilization? If we ever come to a "clash of civilizations," as some historians have suggested is possible, or to the religious war imagined by others, we will owe that exclusively to the hypocrisy and criminal behavior of the U.S. government.
Roberto Hollnagel
São Paulo
Suskind asserted that the CIA's torture of "high value" al-Qaeda operatives was wrong, using the tired old refrain that prisoners of war deserve a certain amount of dignity. But members of al-Qaeda target civilians in the most horrific ways. On 9/11, thousands of people in the World Trade Center, in the Pentagon and on Flight 93 were burned or crushed to death. The lucky ones died instantly, but there were surely many others who suffered excruciating pain for hours. Al-Qaeda will never give up, so it is critical to get information from its members that could prevent another attack. Do we need to see more Americans die before people stop showing concern for the well-being of suicidal, psychopathic killers?
Pierre Gauthier
Pointe-Claire, Canada
In order to have an intelligent discussion and decide what we will and will not tolerate, we need facts, not political correctness. When I think of torture, I think of ripping out fingernails or sending electrical current through the body. I believe that most Americans are against any interrogation methods that cause excruciating pain. That is far different, however, from duress or discomfort. I am not against our government using a variety of interrogation techniques, such as loud music and uncomfortable surroundings, especially when that could save U.S. lives.
Julie J. Marlay
Ottumwa, Iowa, U.S.
A King's Vision for Peace
In TIME's Sept. 18 interview, King Abdullah II of Jordan claimed that "the Lebanese war dramatically opened all eyes to the fact that if we don't solve the Palestinian issue, the future looks pretty bleak for the Middle East." The Lebanese war had nothing to do with the Palestinian issue. Hizballah's leaders and their masters in Iran are seeking to destroy Israel. Any solution to the Palestinian issue that falls short of Israel's destruction will leave many Muslim elements unsatisfied; they will strike again, only with better and more lethal weapons next time. Abdullah knows that truth. But he would never say it. It's more convenient—and much safer—for him to blame Israel.
Stephen Listfield
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
The U.S. could solve the Palestinian issue by creating a Marshall Plan for Palestine. It would tell the hatemongers of the Muslim world that the U.S. doesn't exclusively support Israel. If the Palestinians in refugee camps knew that they had a future as something other than suicide bombers, they would grab the chance. It surely wouldn't be difficult to get the European Union, OPEC and the U.N. to help pay the tab.
Ronald W. Birmingham
Suffield, Connecticut, U.S.
Ford's Uphill Road
Re "Ford: Just Fix the Car" [sept. 18]: as a former Ford Maverick owner who remembers the gas shortages of the 1970s, I was appalled when the first SUVs rolled off the line. I was even more appalled when people started buying them. How could Ford have such a short memory and be so shortsighted at the same time? What is so hard about producing a fuel-efficient car with sleek lines that will go more than 100,000 miles [161,000 km] without falling apart? What is so difficult about being consumer friendly? What is so difficult about offering a 100,000-mile guarantee and toll-free roadside assistance? Greed captured U.S. car companies 30 years ago, and Ford is being destroyed by it.
Joseph P. Nolan
Waterbury, Connecticut, U.S.
Of Royal Chromosomes
You owe Japan's princess Masako an apology for reporting that she "failed in her one traditional duty: to produce a male heir" [Sept. 18], as if that were actually within her control. The only failures here are in your demeaning statement that this is her one traditional duty and in forgetting that it was her husband Prince Naruhito who determined the sex of their child, a daughter. Blame him!
Peter Basmajian
Hong Kong
I lived in Japan for 30 years, so I was not surprised at the lack of details from the imperial court pertaining to the conception or birth of the royal heir. But I was perplexed and disappointed that TIME echoed the themes of Princess Kiko's "miraculous pregnancy" and the birth of a "miracle boy" with as much awe as if they were an immaculate conception and a divine birth. I expected TIME to report the factual aspects of such joyous news.
Dolly Koghar
Bangkok
The Legacy of 9/11
"The Nation that Fell to Earth" [sept. 11], Niall Ferguson's fast-forward history of 9/11 from the vantage point of 2036, neglected to mention that the Iraq invasion was illegal and that, as a consequence, George W. Bush is a war criminal. Ferguson also left out Abu Ghraib, the killings at Haditha and the concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay. When people look back on this decade, they will see that Bush and the neoconservatives destroyed the ability of the U.S. to champion human rights, freedom and democracy and made it morally bankrupt.
John Devere-Loots
Kloof, South Africa
Ferguson's story overlooked the U.S. government's likely adverse reaction to the ascent of Iran, Russia and China. Will the U.S. be able to recognize and accept that democracy and freedom as interpreted by those new global powers will be significantly different from those of Western models? And will the U.S. really be willing to share power in a way it has never done before?
Lee Ah Chai
Singapore
What We (Haven't) Learned
In reference to Nancy Gibbs' article "What We've Learned" [Sept. 11], what it appears we have "learned" is that the state of America's democratic institutions is less than healthy, that the media continues to play too big a role in elections and opinion forming, that too many Americans are still woefully ignorant of the world they live in, and that the panaceas of materialism and generalized anxiety medications have replaced the strength of individual character and an abiding American skepticism of Washington. What it appears we have learned is that we have learned little post-9/11.
Randy Davis
Shanghai
Persistent Pathogen
Last month's spate of infections from E. coli bacteria traced to prepackaged spinach harvested in California was only the latest outbreak of exposure to the dangerous microbe. TIME's Aug. 3, 1998, cover story concerned an epidemic that spread when E. coli contaminated the water in Alpine, Wyoming:
"Tammy Lowery couldn't see the blood vessels rupturing in her gut, but the way she was feeling, she didn't have to. Lowery had been sick for five days, growing steadily worse as the week wore on. First had come the stomach pains. Then the bloody diarrhea. Then the paralyzing cramps. She had laid off food for a while, figuring the problem would pass. It didn't. Finally, as July 4 approached—when Lowery should have been at the Alpine, Wyoming, gift shop where she works, preparing for the crush of campers and tourists who make the Independence Day weekend such a busy one—she noticed that her son Sean, 5, had come down with the same symptoms. That did it. Struggling to get to the car, Lowery drove Sean to the office of Dr. Donald Kirk, a physician who serves many of Alpine's 470 year-round residents. She got there just in time; shortly after she walked into Kirk's waiting room, Lowery passed out on the floor." Read more at timearchive.com.