LIFE AFTER BUSH

A good series of articles on our future relations with the world. I take issue, however, with a position in the "Losing Minds" article. Subsistence farmers in the Third World are not and should not be exporting their crops; they should be growing their own food. The premise that we should get them into the international market so they can make money, rather than feeding themselves, is colonialism at its most rampant. What are they going to do with money? Buy a computer or an iPod?

William J. Trabucco, BSEE ’67

YOO'S WAR

Amid all the discussion regarding the power to torture and detain military prisoners without charges, has there been any thought about the effects of the power to torture and the use of torture upon the lives of persons who carry this out?

Barbara S. Snyder ’52

As monstrous as it was, september 11 was fortunately a one-hit affair. Countries like Spain and the U.K., not to mention France and Germany, have experienced longer and more erratic terrorist threats at home than we have. Had they taken recourse to Dr. Yoo’s solutions they would today be authoritarian dictatorships and not the democracies they are. We must never lose sight of two immutable principles: Information obtained under torture is unreliable, and any tyrannical policies instituted to protect democracy are doomed to destroy those democracies.

Robert F. Illing ’55

To those who oppose using coercive techniques to get information from terrorists, the question I have is: "If Osama bin Laden is captured, how soon does he get his lawyer?"

Kenneth E. Coates ’77

Terrorism and violence in the middle East have their roots in the festering Palestinian- Israeli conflict and the war in Iraq. Without these two problems, there will be no violence in the Middle East and we will have no enemies in that part of the world.

Jamal F. Zeid ’62

How many americans would have to be killed by terrorists before torture to stop the killing would be acceptable?

William H. Silcox ’47

The reality is that the policies professor Yoo has advocated have failed miserably in reducing terrorism. By overreacting and isolating ourselves from most nations in the world, we have only succeeded in reducing our real security and terribly damaging our integrity and credibility as a beacon for freedom, democracy, and Christian values.

Richard Edelstein MA ’81

Sometimes drastic situations require we break laws and codes of society for survival. But institutionalizing beating information out of prisoners is going too far. All citizens are at risk when torture is deemed a lawful activity by agents of the government.

Vince Rubino ’01

John yoo’s rationalizations for the torture of prisoners and the abolition of their (and our) civil liberties are deservedly abhorred by the majority of the campus community and, I believe, by the American people. This makes it all the more important that we safeguard his (and our) right to free speech. Quentin Hardy reports that protestors shut down one of his classes and that he canceled an appearance because of the threat of violence. If we engage in or countenance such actions, we become, just as those who advocate depriving detainees of their constitutional rights, the mirror image of what we oppose.

Professor Morton D. Paley

An assumption underpinning john Yoo’s and the administration’s desire to expand executive power is that after 9/11 we’re fighting an enemy so new, and so threatening, as to justify radical new rules of war and detention. Is al-Qaeda more of a threat to the U.S. than, say, the Japanese in World War II or the Soviet nuclear threat were? No. Is it because al-Qaeda targets civilians that makes it different? Not really; occasionally the U.S. has targeted civilians, for example, Hiroshima and Dresden. Because al-Qaeda is not a government or a nation it is a difficult enemy to fight. The torture of prisoners, unlimited detention without charges, and secret prisons are the means of totalitarian regimes. And typically those regimes justify their crimes by citing external threats that are said to be extraordinary.

Robert Goss ’78

ABOLISH SEX ED?

It is common sense to me that parents need to talk to their teens about sex—just as we have ads that say talk to your kids about smoking and they will listen—the same is true about sex. More and more, it seems like parents want to push that onto the teachers.

Mrs. Kathleen Hanes

Do i detect a note of disapproval in Michael Castleman’s reference to how America "sells everything with sex"? I wonder why he would object. If it is all right to sever sex from its natural procreative purpose and appropriate it for one’s personal gratification, then what is wrong with exploiting it for other selfish ends?

Andrew Sorokowski ’72

Michael castleman’s article revealed what most of us should have known intuitively, that the education of our children is primarily up to us, the parents. It is unfortunate that his instructions to his own children seem to focus solely on physiology, and not on the social, emotional, and lasting consequences of sexual involvement. Becoming a better lover is not a matter of exploration and experimentation with a little lubrication. What I hope to teach my children is the more difficult choice of devotion and commitment. They make for better and lasting foreplay.

Yong Lee, MD ’81

Your article on moving to parent communication instead of sex education programs [is] an interesting idea, but so far not substantiiated. And, indeed, there are a number of both community- and school-based programs that have been found to be successful at either delaying sexual activity and/or increasing contraceptive use. As a parent of now-young adults, I was, however, also impressed with your focus on pleasure and openness with your kids.

Rick Zimmerman, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Louisville Center

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