LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, Oct. 2
By:
Grieving doesn’t know
national boundaries
To the editor:
My friends and I have spent the last two weeks grieving for the victims in New York. But these feelings are not new to me as they are to most of my American friends. I have felt the same way for much of the past 20 years. Being from Iran, the first time I experienced this sense of grief and loss was during the Iran-Iraq war. As a teenager in the 1980s, I cried equally for the Iraqi and Iranian victims of that war. As I grew older, other man-made tragedies elicited my empathy: the U.S.-Iraq war, the genocide in the Balkans, the plight of the Palestinians and so on.
Throughout it all, nothing depressed me more than the U.S. attack on Iraq. In this case, a whole country was bombed back into the preindustrial age. The infrastructure necessary to civilization was shattered, and 9,000 homes turned into "collateral damage." That destruction, combined with comprehensive economic sanctions that have prevented reconstruction, led to the death of over a million people. The United States justified its actions by citing the misdeeds of the Iraqi ruler, Saddam Hussein. However, the Iraqi people did not deserve punishment for the behavior of their ruler, any more than the innocent Americans in the World Trade Center deserved punishment for the misdeeds of their government.
During the attack on Iraq, the American media simply regurgitated their government’s rationalizations. So, while most Americans may not have been able to point to the Middle East on a map, they knew that the United States was defending human rights, freedom, democracy and decency. Flags were displayed widely. All were urged to "support our troops." There was considerable pride in how successfully Iraq was crushed and its troops wiped out. On the campus where I lived as an undergraduate, the mood was upbeat, even jovial. While I mourned, some of my friends literally partied. The last thing on anybody’s mind was the Iraqis who perished.
A decade later, flags are ubiquitous again. This time, however, the mood is somber. There is dignified sympathy for the victims of the terrorist attack, and there are touching acts of kindness in the face of suffering. In moments of abandon, I imagine that this awakened empathy will permeate the artificial boundaries of national borders to engulf victims the world over. I imagine that the American people will prevent unjust policies and acts of brutality by their government abroad. But then realism sets in: I know the media will continue to uncritically present a rosy image of the U.S. foreign policy. The public will take it on trust that their government does right. And I will grieve again.
Behnam Sadeghi
Lockhart Hall
Princeton University
Princeton
There’s no need to
‘understand’ killers
To the editor:
After reading your editorial of Sept. 25 ("U.S. needs to understand why it is a target"), how can you say that the president’s comments were emotional rhetoric?
In what way do the terrorists agree with the American freedoms President Bush listed in the speech you excerpted? Do the Taliban, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Iranians, Saudis, Iraqis, etc., etc., promote freedom of religion? How about freedom of speech? The right too assemble or vote?
Get real! These evildoers are at war with our way of life and our civilization. The only need to understand them is the intelligence needed to eliminate them.
It is appalling that you would try and call for "understanding" killers when over 6,000 innocents were murdered in our own back yard, including Princetonians. Not everything has a rational explanation; some things are certain. These are bad people and we’re the good guys.
Lou Gerber
Stone Cliff Road
Princeton
Garden tour evokes
spirit of generosity
To the editor:
I want to thank you for publicizing our efforts last Friday, when we held an open house in the garden for friends, neighbors and anyone else who was inclined to stop in. The idea came to me when I saw that the "Peace" rose had suddenly burst into bloom the week following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I wondered if others would also find solace in the garden, and in its regenerative powers.
It was a very successful and upbeat day; it seemed that everyone enjoyed being together. I hope it helped people put aside the numbness and fear we tended to feel following this dreadful attack.
I want to thank my very good friends from the Princeton YWCA Grad Group and my neighbors, who helped me with this impromptu event, and who provided so many wonderful things for our guests to eat.
We welcomed over 100 people, many of whom spent several hours in the garden. As a result of their generosity, we will be contributing over $5,000 to the United Way Sept. 11 Fund for the victims’ families. I think this was a totally great effort and thank Mother Nature for giving us such a marvelous day. The garden did its job well!
That evening, I went into New York to spend the night with my son. As I looked out of the window of his apartment, the towers no longer dominate the skyline. In their stead was a cavern emitting a surreal amount of light, as people worked around the clock to clear the site. There is no way I can understand the hate that caused these attacks. I guess I can just continue to hope that we can find a way to end the hatred and put the world back together.
Liz Hosny
Battle Road
Princeton
Israeli policies
are self-defeating
To the editor:
In Steve Bloom’s letter to the editor (The Packet, Sept. 25), he states his objections to Thomas Corwin’s earlier letter analyzing some of the roots of the anti-Americanism that is widespread among some in the Middle East. Mr. Bloom wrote, "One would have thought that … the classic Jew-haters and Jew-baiters would have waited."
I am outraged by this characterization of people, like myself, who are deeply sympathetic to the plight of the Israelis, but believe that its policies toward the Palestinians are misguided and self-defeating. I have been interested in the Middle East for over 50 years and have lived, traveled and worked in many of its countries, including Israel.
I wonder how Mr. Bloom would characterize the many Jews in Israel and in the United States who also do not agree with their government. Are they classic Jew-haters? I am thinking of people like Norman Finkelstein at DePaul University, whose mother was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Maidanek concentration camp, who said on Sept. 13, "The tougher answer is to recognize the humanity in these people (the non-Jewish people in the Middle East) to acknowledge their suffering and degradation and, toughest of all, to take a hard look at ourselves and the responsibility we bear for their torment."
I sympathize with the frustrated supporters of "Peace Now" in Israel and the United States. They are, unfortunately, a minority, although a sizable one. Most are Jewish, most have first-hand knowledge of the actualities on the ground and most believe that the Israeli government’s repressive policies toward the Palestinians are dangerously wrong.
Certainly, the last 50-plus years of these policies have been unsuccessful. Since the Jews have suffered greatly over the centuries, it is emotionally satisfying for many in the United States and Israel to believe that all evil lies with the Palestinians. The Palestinians have certainly done many bad things in their desperation to regain the territory taken from them by an enemy that is immensely more powerful. What is generally unrecognized in this country are the daily humiliations and oppressions inflicted on innocent Palestinians, ordinary men, women and children, in the theory that beating them down will cause them to abandon their aspirations to live a normal life.
I hope we can all open our minds and our hearts to the problems on both sides and strive to find some ways of resolving them, or at least reducing them.
Wood Tate
Elm Road
Princeton
Heed the president
and return to normal
To the editor:
The president spoke to the nation on Sept. 20, delivering an inspirational, eloquent and methodical speech with a call to all Americans to join hands in fighting the scourge of terrorism. He appealed to the world to join the forces of freedom and liberty as we face the enemy of terrorism and the great sacrifices and challenges that are ahead of us for the preservation of our most cherished values and ideals.
I know that all fellow Americans will rally behind the president as he needs the nation’s guidance and full support from all of us. In our own community, adjacent towns and other parts of New Jersey, we have suffered heavy losses of innocent lives and many of us are affected by the loss of friends, acquaintances and neighbors.
Let us hope that we could move forward as the need to return to our normal lives becomes imperative in order not to allow the enemies of our great institutions to defeat us. We will continue as a great nation to defend our way of life, promote democratic values, expand market economies, protect our constitutional guarantees and, above all, safeguard the protection of life, properties and human rights. We must prevail.
Jack Marrero
Cherry Hill Road
Princeton
Make first strike
a humanitarian one
To the editor:
Despite the absence of a "hot" U.S. war, the threat of it is having a strategic effect only Osama bin Laden could ask for. It is creating thousands of Afghan refugees, most of whom currently hate the Taliban, but because of our threat to their homeland, many are being turned into Taliban supporters and potential new terrorists.
An alternative and, we believe, a very effective way to respond is opposite to the way our enemies expect. Make our first strike humanitarian. Let American generosity support an airlift of food, shelter, water and clothing into Afghanistan. Let it be delivered behind the Northern Alliance secured areas, so the Afghans can safely go to their countrymen for aid, not to U.S. personnel. There they will find friends of the United States, not enemies; freedom, not repression; and aid clearly stamped with the mark of the United States of America. And let us do it with the same kind of saturation TV and news coverage we have had for the past two weeks to ensure that the whole world knows what we are doing.
For those old enough to remember our massive airlift over West Berlin during the height of the Cold War, our response to the Soviet blockade was a similar effort with many positive results both within and outside the U.S.A.
We ask all who agree with this to let their representatives know, write letters like this to newspapers, talk on the radio call-in shows, e-mail your friends and do everything else to let the world know that there is more than one way to respond to vicious terrorist aggressions.
We are not pacifists and want the instigators of the New York and Washington bombing and their supporters caught and punished with whatever force it takes. But let us not repeat the past and create more and new enemies as we punish the present ones.
Bob and Diane Levine
Linwood Circle
Princeton
Response to terrorists
must be international
To the editor:
The destruction of the World Trade Center was such a horrible event there are really no words that can be used to label it. Our response, therefore, has been to resort to old terms like "acts of war," "first war of the 21st century" and "declaration of war," which then lead to old and inappropriate ways of thinking.
This bombing was a monstrous international crime committed by a small number of people here and abroad who had acquired extensive knowledge and remarkable planning skills and ability, and who had remarkably strong discipline. A nation can’t declare war on a small number of people. Nations declare wars on nations, and then endeavor to destroy large numbers of military personnel and equipment; frequently in modern war large numbers of innocent civilians and cities are destroyed.
Crime, however monstrous, must be fought as crime using procedures and weapons that have worked in the past and developing new ones appropriate to a new, increasingly global world. As an international crime, it must be fought by many countries both allied and opposed in the past, with international leadership.
Our country had a leadership role in founding the United Nations, because we had learned the risks of living as if countries could operate as entirely independent sovereignties. We should assume this role again in strengthening and encouraging international organizations to search out and judge those who were responsible for this crime.
This is not a time to simply repeat that we are the greatest nation on the face of the earth, and behave with the arrogance that has led so many to distrust, or worse, hate us. It is not a time to threaten unspecified nations solely because they don’t side with us. It is not a time to consider suspending those freedoms and safeguards that have contributed as much to making us a free country run by elected representatives; this only makes us look weak. It is a time to rally and coordinate with the major international effort necessary to bring the culprits to justice. It is a time to strengthen the international agencies and courts which we have worked to weaken in the past, so that they can fulfill their necessary role in judging and punishing those responsible for this crime.
This is a great nation faced with a great international challenge centered on our country. The Congress and the federal government have taken what appears to be hasty actions in preparations for war that can not be easily undone. But they should give much more careful consideration to any future actions. They must show that we have learned from past mistakes in undertaking unilateral actions that have led to wars that have devastated our young people and innocent civilians in the countries where we fought the wars.
The development of new international crime-fighting procedures and institutions will not be quick or easy. We have already been told that the presently proposed military solutions may take several years, which seems optimistic. We must take time to insure that our resources are directed to solutions more likely to be effective in a new world and more likely to win dedicated support not only from other countries, but also of the people in these countries.
Richard W. Watkins
Glenview Drive
West Windsor
Three youngsters
show spirit of giving
To the editor:
Diana Kane, Victoria Covert and Sarah Golightly, three 13-year-old friends who are students at John Witherspoon Middle School, decided that they needed to do something in response to the events on Sept. 11.
They spent their Rosh Hashana school holiday collecting money for the Red Cross disaster fund. They collected $615.75 in town, on the Princeton campus, at Wawa and at the dinky station.
The cash was taken to the Red Cross office on Alexander Road the next day.
Thank you girls and donors.
Marlene Czarnowski
Harris Road
Princeton
Sometimes the worst
brings out the best
To the editor:
Sept. 11 has forever changed the way we feel about our world. Those horrifying moments are etched in our memory. But along with the unbelievable reality that there are people who can cause such devastation and harm, something incredibly good has also happened. Our nation, like no other time in my lifetime, has come together.
Most of us have never known, until now, what it really means to "stand united." And I have been so fortunate to find that goodness right in my own neighborhood and home.
On Sept. 22, my 9-year-old daughter, Carly, decided it was important to do something to help those so personally effected by the terrorist acts of Sept. 11. She did what she knew she could do she set up her small lemonade stand, as she has so many times before. Only this one was different. Her sign said, "Fresh Lemonade! All the money goes to the Red Cross. Any donation would be great! SAVE AMERICA!" And then, her older sister, Emily and a few of her friends (thank you, Alex and Stephen) sat outside with Carly, "selling" lemonade. In only a few brief hours, they raised over $200, all of which is being donated to the Red Cross.
I can only begin to describe how thrilled they were to know that they had done something so meaningful at a time when we all feel so stunned and helpless. And we want to thank every person who stopped that Saturday morning and gave whatever they could spare change saved in the kitchen tin can to a $100 bill. It was one more example of seeing the best in human beings during the worst of times.
Priscilla and Dan Scheiner
Murray Place
Princeton
Now is the time
to come together
To the editor:
Following President Bush’s lead, the Civil Right Sub-Committee of the Princeton Human Services Commission encourages all citizens to report suspected bias crimes to the local police or to the Office of Bias Crimes and Community Relations in the N.J. Division of Criminal Justice at (800) 277-BIAS (2427). You can also call our director, Cynthia Mendez at (609) 688-2055, for assistance and support.
We condemn any attempt to blame persons or groups other than the perpetrators and their supporters. We heartily commend the many individuals and groups, eager to realize the promise of our diversity, who work to overcome the divisions caused by economics, race and religion.
We encourage widespread participation at our upcoming community dialogue. The topic for the evening will be "Princeton’s Race Relations: Then, Now and Tomorrow." The community dialogue will be held Oct. 16 at Princeton University’s Frist Student Center starting at 7 p.m. The community dialogue is part of the Princeton YWCA’s "Week Without Violence" activities.
Let us all go forward committed that we will emerge from this night more unified, stronger for the right and more appreciative of each other than ever before.
Cynthia Mendez
Executive Director
Princeton Human Services Commission
Witherspoon Street
Princeton
Speak out to preserve
Opossum Road bridge
To the editor:
Opossum Road bridge is on the agenda for the Oct. 4 meeting of Montgomery Township Committee, 8 p.m., in the Municipal Building, 2261 Route 206.
There has been a lot said already about Opossum Road and its bridge, so much the Township Committee is weary of hearing about it, but how best to preserve this 150-year-old stone-arch bridge has never yet been gone into. Everybody has been talking about traffic, ignoring the fact this bridge is unique, that the proposed restoration is not a restoration at all but a replacement. It is to be of different materials, have different parapet walls on the sides and even the approach may be altered. The one thing which will be effectively preserved is its hindrance to traffic because it will still be only one lane, about as wide as a garage door.
Opossum Road bridge is on the National Register of Historic Sites. There is not another one like it anywhere in New Jersey. It is a charming survivor of a bygone age in a beautiful setting and it deserves far better protection that governing officials propose to provide. Thursday night is our opportunity to tell them so in unmistakable terms.
Jessie Havens
Ludlow Avenue
Montgomery