Letters to the Editor
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‘Powell Calls for End to Intifada’
In his telecast to the Arab world, Secretary of State Powell essentially called for an end to the intifada because it was not working.
Mr. Powell asked rhetorically, “What has it accomplished for the Palestinian people?” “Has it produced progress toward a Palestinian state? Has it defeated Israel on the battlefield?” [“Powell Calls for End to Intifada,” Foreign, September 30, 2004].
In other words, if the Palestinians had got something out of it, it would have been okay to murder and seriously cripple a few thousand innocent civilian Jews and to also be responsible for the innocent Palestinian civilians killed because the Israelis had to protect themselves. This is amorality writ large and it has no place coming from a high level spokesman of our government. Not to morally condemn the methods of the intifada given that the Palestinians had every opportunity to make progress peacefully is something we expect from a French politician, not from the American secretary of state. When accused by an interviewer of blaming the Palestinians, Mr. Powell essentially pulled a Kerry saying, “There are victims on all sides….” But, of course, the truth is that it is only the Palestinians who are to blame.
At the end of World War II, would Mr. Powell have counseled the German people to give up their virulent anti-Semitism because it had not helped them win World War II?
DAVID M. O’NEILL
Manhattan
Mr. O’Neill is an adjunct professor of economics at Hunter College.
‘Clarity Will Win Presidency’
I enjoyed Andrew Ferguson’s article “Clarity Will Win Presidency,” but I’m afraid that in an effort to pinpoint the issue that underlies all other issues in the upcoming election, Mr. Ferguson oversimplified and underestimated [Opinion, September 29, 2004].
He oversimplified by concluding that, although President Bush’s handling of certain questions may be simple-minded and crude, in debates and elections, clarity wins. While I agree that “clarity” is essential for success in debates and elections, it is not just verbal clarity that is essential, as Mr. Ferguson implies, but also moral clarity. For a candidate to have verbal clarity in communicating his positions, he must first have moral clarity to form these positions.
Besides being too “subtle and complicated” for sound bites, Senator Kerry’s answers reflect a lack of such moral clarity. “On-the-one-hand; on-the-other-hand” or “Yes, but…” type answers, when offered as explanations for a position, may give us some insight as to a person’s thought processes and inner dilemmas, but when offered as the position itself, they show a lack of moral conviction.
On the other hand, sorry, it was too good to pass up, Mr. Bush’s responses may sound simplistic – as opposed to “simple-minded” according to Mr. Ferguson – but they reflect a clear sense of good or bad, right or wrong, at least in Mr. Bush’s eyes, which are the kind of eyes one would want in a leader. Chances are that when faced with difficult issues, Mr. Bush grapples with inner dilemmas just as Mr. Kerry does, but unlike Mr. Kerry, Mr. Bush’s strong moral convictions enable him to make decisions and take firm positions, when needed.
Mr. Ferguson underestimated by implying that the poll results cited in his article are lopsided because of the perception that Mr. Kerry’s answers are too complicated. Too complicated for whom? The general public? Although I am willing to concede that most of the general public may not be as intellectually nimble as Mr. Kerry, “regular folk” are capable of discerning hot air from substance.
Poll results do show, however, that Mr. Kerry’s efforts to pull the wool over the eyes of the intellectuals and sophisticates here in New York may be succeeding, but these efforts do not seem to be yielding significant results with the majority of people outside New York.
RONNI SHALIT
Manhattan
Bush Will Stay On Offense
There’s lots of post-debate spinning and suggestions for what the president should have said [“Bush Vows To ‘Stay On The Offense’ As Kerry Promises ‘A Fresh Start,’ ” Josh Gerstein, Page 1, October 1, 2004].But no one has yet suggested how President Bush should have responded to this statement by Senator Kerry:
“Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq in order to go out to people and say that America has declared war on Islam. We need to be smarter about how we wage a war on terror. We need to deny them the recruits.” Here’s how Mr. Bush should have responded to that:
Most people have already heard how Osama bin Laden used to point to the abrupt American pullout from Somalia after we experienced the slightest of setbacks, and used that to prove to his lieutenants that America wouldn’t mount a real retaliation against Al Qaeda for the attack they were planning on September 11.
But perhaps fewer people are aware that Mr. bin Laden’s most prominent recruiting blurb throughout the 1990s was that America was a safe target for terrorism because it didn’t have the resolve and courage to go into Iraq during the Gulf War to topple Saddam Hussein.
Islamists actually believed that Saddam had won that war. Mr. bin Laden reminded his cohorts that Saddam continuously fired missiles with impunity at American planes enforcing the “no-fly zone.”
So, Mr. bin Laden recruited his murderers on the rationale that we didn’t invade Iraq. Now Mr. Kerry believes he’s recruiting them because we did invade Iraq. It’s self evident that actions by terrorists and their supposed justifications are independent of what we do, and only naivete would lead one to think otherwise.
GARY KRASNER
Holliswood, N.Y.
Libertarians Win Hearing
I read with interest the story by Josh Gerstein entitled “Libertarians Win a Hearing in Debate Case” [Page 1, October 11, 2004].
I commend Mr. Gerstein and your paper for such in-depth reporting on a vital issue during this presidential campaign. The New York Sun has made a very favorable impression on me.
GEORGE WHITFIELD
Seoul, South Korea
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