Letters

A Strike at Europe’s Heart
“Terrorism is a virus that eats deep into our life. It cuts across all the lines of nationality, race, religion and social background.”
Agboola Kehinde Lateef
Lagos, Nigeria

Your coverage of the commuter-train bombings in Madrid accurately summed up what happened and its consequences [March 22]. It is still shocking to think about the horror. Some people hold Prime Minister José María Aznar responsible for the attacks and view them as retaliation for his decision to join the U.S. in the war against Saddam Hussein. But many Spaniards do not blame Aznar. Can people really believe terrorists attack only “guilty” nations and leave “innocent” countries alone? Do the victims deserve to die because of what their country has done in Iraq? We must stand together against any kind of terrorism, no matter who receives the blow.
Ignacio Echenagusía
Madrid

In their hour of unprecedented tragedy, millions of Spaniards gathered in city streets throughout their country to hold a candlelight memorial vigil. The whole world looked on with sympathy and great admiration as Spaniards remained calm in the face of disaster.
Bala Sugavanam
Vienna

Perhaps Americans can learn from the Spanish people. Barely two days after the devastating train bombings in Madrid, Spaniards took to the streets demanding more information from their government and accusing it of not being forthcoming. They demonstrated that they have no tolerance for the loss of Spanish lives that resulted from their government’s policies. But after the devastating attacks of 9/11 and the deaths of hundreds of service members in Iraq, Americans are reluctant to question their government about the validity of the war in Iraq and about how 9/11 could have been prevented. Anyone who expresses doubt is called unpatriotic. But good citizens should question the decisions of our elected representatives and participate in the democratic process.
Mark Mizrahi
Newport Beach, U.S.

Unhappy Anniversary
One year after the invasion of Iraq, the world doesn’t seem a safer place at all [March 22]. The bombings in Madrid show that al-Qaeda is more organized than ever, and the murderous attacks by terrorists all over the globe show that they are everywhere. Whether Americans were told the truth about Iraq from the get-go is something for the investigative commissions to decide, but it is horrifying that the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis and hundreds of coalition troops have served only to increase the threat of global terrorism. When will it end?
Becky Burgwin
Pittsburgh, U.S.

George W. Bush speaks of democracy for Iraq, but what about peace for every Iraqi? The Shi’ites also seem to be looking the other way. They contest the proposed federal structure. Iraq should be helped to create a police force and secret service that will fight the gangs of insurgents. If Iraqis cannot neutralize those killers, outside troops cannot help. Also, the U.S. and its allies need to explain in Arabic to the Iraqis what the coalition forces are doing in their country: bringing peace. Distrust of the U.S. military is growing, not abating. This is a public relations failure that must be corrected.
Edouard Prisse
Amsterdam

Who Knew What When?
In “Bush and 9/11: What the World Needs to Know” [March 22], columnist Joe Klein was playing politics with the tragedy of 9/11. Klein poses some questions that members of the intelligence community would ask President Bush if they could. But it’s the Clinton Administration that should be answering all the questions. President Bill Clinton had several years to deal with al-Qaeda after the devastating car-bomb attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. For Klein to suggest that the Bush Administration should have done in eight months what the previous Administration was unable to do in nearly eight years is totally unrealistic.
Thomas Kraft
Peoria, U.S.

It is disturbing that the Bush folks did not act on the outgoing Clinton Administration’s warnings about the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The gall of Bush using 9/11 imagery in his campaign when the disaster might have been averted is incredible. Bush is indeed a war President; the trouble is, he fought the wrong enemy.
David Litton
Austin, U.S.

On Sept. 14, 2001, President Bush stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center and struck a pose with a veteran fire fighter. If that was Bush’s most memorable day, then something was wrong from the beginning. Turning up three days late, after being whisked around the country for his own safety, isn’t my idea of heroism. Winston Churchill would have donned his helmet and been there on 9/11, regardless of security concerns.
Jean Lamore
Paris

Implacable Hatred
Bravo to former Presidential adviser Richard A. Clarke for his Viewpoint “The New Terrorist Threat” [March 22]. As Clarke noted, “[M]aybe we should be asking why the terrorists hate us.” That seems like a better idea than blindly lashing out at them. If we had intelligently examined the reasons for fascism in the 1930s or communism during the cold war, perhaps we would have been better able to understand and deal with them. If we comprehend what drives otherwise apparently intelligent and moral people to kill themselves and innocent victims, we can alter the circumstances and perhaps our behavior. That does not mean kowtowing to terrorists, but it does mean realizing that we might be at least part of the problem.
M. Kelly Tillery
Philadelphia

Where has Clarke been? The terrorists hate us because they are militant Islamists and they want to convert us to a Taliban-like country with Islam as the official religion. Terrorism is their weapon. It’s incredibly naive to think it possible to reason with such people.
John F. Barnes
San Antonio, U.S.

Westerners like to think terrorists hate us because of our freedom and our money. But that rationale ignores political reality. We should determine what we are doing politically that is strengthening hatred, and then we can truly start fighting terrorism. Of course we will always need the military and a strong defense, but to use armed force without examining the underlying causes for attacks is not enough, especially in this fight.
Christos Talanoez
London

Using the Mute Button
re “Raising the Volume,” on how the U.S. Presidential race has heated up to a fever pitch [March 22]: I am disheartened that candidates have not outgrown their need to attack one another so much that no matter who is elected, we can’t feel confident that the right person was chosen. Although I plan to read editorials and news reports, I intend to press the mute button on all political TV commercials and spin commentaries until after the election.
Jean McGraw
Lawrenceville, U.S.

Identity Politics in Taiwan
Independence for Taiwan is a vexing issue for a variety of reasons [March 15]. An often overlooked but profound problem concerns the ethnic groups living together on the island. The Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang vie for votes—from the Hakka, Taiwanese, mainlanders, aborigines and other groups—with promises of recognition and, in some cases, special treatment. But neither party has yet defined a common identity that all here can share. In Taiwan, identity comes before independence.
Paul Oliver
Chunglin, Taiwan

A Good Thing Gone Bad
Your report about Martha Stewart’s conviction for obstructing justice and other crimes, “Not a Good Thing for Martha” [March 15], stated that “Stewart was no ordinary Jane who traded on inside information to make a quick buck.” But that misses the point. Ordinary Janes would not have had access to the stock-price information that was given to Stewart as a direct result of her wealth and position. That’s why it’s called insider information. The rest of us are just trying to level the playing field.
Nancy Parker
Englewood, U.S.

Stewart failed to learn from the travails of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton: it’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up. Martha is not going to jail for using insider information to sell stock; she’s going to jail for lying to federal investigators. She forgot that even rich people are not above the law, especially in a presidential-election year.
Andrew C. Rigrod
Sherman Oaks, U.S.

I don’t know any shareholders who wouldn’t sell a stock if they learned it was dropping in price, regardless of how they found out. The Justice Department said the problem was not the sale but the lying. True, lying is wrong, but Stewart’s lies were without intent to harm. This was a very, very selective prosecution. If the Justice Department is going to indict and prosecute every person who lies, it had better start recruiting lawyers. The real damage comes now. How many people will lose their jobs in Stewart’s company because of this great legal “success”?
Juan F. Montalvo
Wellington, U.S.

Whew! Now we can all sleep better since the feds got Martha Stewart off the streets. Middle Eastern terrorists are still at large, O.J. Simpson is free, but they got Martha. I hope she has a good recipe for sacrificial lamb chops.
Gary Taustine
New York City

A Scene of Carnage
Spain once suffered another terrible, unexpected and punitive attack [EUROPE, March 22]: the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. On April 26, 1937, German airplanes launched an all-out assault to help Generalissimo Francisco Franco break Basque resistance to his Nationalist forces, an event Pablo Picasso memorialized in his famous antiwar mural. TIME reported on the bombing in our May 10, 1937, issue:

“Guernica, a village of 10,000 souls, has a small munitions factory and barracks on its outskirts. Guernica is also the traditional capital of the Basques … Last week the German planes came over in waves, blasting the houses from their foundations with heavy bombs, loosing showers of glittering deadly aluminum incendiary bombs to turn the “Holy City” to a furnace. Skimming the roof tops, fighting planes followed with all machine guns popping, harrying terrified peasants through the fields, sending them sprawling in their own blood. Over 1,600 men, women and children were killed … Said [a Catholic prelate]: ‘I saw the bombing and burning of Guernica, one of the terrible crimes of this age. I walked through streets thick with blood, and saw bodies of the dead, many of them dismembered.'”