Other People’s Mail, Pages 69-70

Compiled by Kate Hilmy and Andrew Blakely

Obama’s War Escalation

To the Los Angeles Times, Dec. 3, 2009

At last, a president who speaks to us as if we are adults. It seems clear there are no good choices regarding Afghanistan, but we know the president listened to multiple points of view and required participants to provide alternatives and data to justify those alternatives.

I have believed we should get out now, but the president made clear that the situation in Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons, is a key element driving his decision.

No matter what he decided, he would be criticized, but at least we did not have to listen to another “rousing” call to battle. He laid out the mess we confront and did not sugarcoat the problems.

I don’t like his decision to add more troops, but I can accept that it may be the best of the bad choices available.

Catherine Burke, San Gabriel, CA

Voices on Afghan Plan

To The New York Times, Dec. 2, 2009

Many of my fellow progressives disagree with President Obama’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. In my view, he deserves the benefit of the doubt on this decision.

The reckless assault on Iraq was based on hubris, ignorance and an absurdly Pollyannish view of the likely consequences (not to mention the lack of a clear connection with any national interest of the United States). Both this country and the Iraqi population have suffered deeply as a result.

In contrast, President Obama has been forced to choose among a series of bad options in Afghanistan. He has done so with admirable deliberation and thought. He may or may not have made the right decision. Time will tell. But the process by which he reached his determination cannot be faulted, and I believe that it is premature to say, without knowing the eventual outcome, that it is wrong.

Richard Cohen, Davis, CA

Obama Explains His Decision

To The New York Times, Nov. 30, 2009

Many people who supported or worked for the election of President Obama as one who could help bring about hope, change and peace in our nation and the world are sadly disappointed in his pending decision to send more United States troops to Afghanistan.

Polls show that almost half of Americans oppose committing any more troops, escalating rather than withdrawing militarily, in what is considered an unproductive and unnecessary entanglement in that impoverished, beleaguered and war-torn country.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as Allied commander in Europe during World War II experienced the devastating cost, suffering and destruction of war, once observed, “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.”

There are indeed better, wiser, more productive ways than war.

(Rev.) David W. Long, West Chester, PA

Mr. Obama’s War

To The Globe and Mail, Dec. 3, 2009

Konrad Yakabuski (“Obama Picks His Fight”—Dec. 2) writes: “Few who voted for Mr. Obama, and fewer still among those who did not, could have imagined that the defining act of his first year in office would consist of an escalation of U.S. military engagement abroad.” Few indeed, unless you count those who listened to what he said during the campaign.

Markham Cook, Toronto, Canada

On the Ground in Afghanistan

To The New York Times, Dec. 4, 2009

I recently returned from six months in southeastern Afghanistan, working as a cultural adviser to the military. One thing I discovered is that the National Solidarity Program [NSP], which Mr. Kristof accurately lauds as one of the few success stories in Afghanistan, is no longer functioning in insecure areas.

Most of the nongovernmental organizations tasked with administering the NSP, including the International Rescue Committee, have pulled out of insurgency-plagued rural areas. The Afghan workers who are still trying to carry out the NSP complained of corruption, overdue project funds and unrealistic demands being placed upon them.

One result is that people have not been paid for work they did on NSP projects, further increasing their resentment of both the Afghan government and the international community.

In areas most affected by the insurgency, development must be preceded by security, as I was told countless times by the Afghans living there.

Ted Callahan, Norwich, VT

Welcome Israelis Into Palestine

To The Independent, Nov. 21, 2009

Colin Nevin thinks it is unfair that some Arabs live legally in Israel as citizens, but Israelis who have colonized the West Bank are deemed to be “illegal” (letter, Nov. 17). He is also concerned that the Palestinian state, if formed, may not admit Jews.

I agree completely. The Israeli colonists in the West Bank should be offered Palestinian citizenship. They will provide a useful leavening to Palestinian society, enriching and broadening its culture and stimulating its economy and politics, as the Israeli Arabs do in Israel. They will, of course, be subject to Palestinian laws, planning regulations, taxes, and (possibly) conscription; but that should pose no problem, if their desire to live in their adopted country is genuine. Or they can return to Israel.

Robert Sather, Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire, UK

What Goldstone Report Missed

To The Washington Post, Nov. 19, 2009

The Nov. 15 editorial “War unchecked” declared that conclusions about Israel’s military operations in Gaza last summer by the esteemed jurist Richard Goldstone were based on “scant evidence.” But the editorial also parroted Israeli propaganda, for which neither The Post nor Israel has given any proof. How can The Post ignore numerous reports with mountains of corroborating evidence from widely respected humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the Red Cross/Red Crescent and Human Rights Watch?

I was in the Gaza Strip in the summer, and I can tell you that the Goldstone Report was kind to Israel in its conclusions. The utterly incomprehensible extent of the destruction in Gaza would lead any rational observer to conclude “that disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy” by Israel.

Furthermore, the editorial failed to consider the sources of the present conflict: namely, the continued Israeli occupation of Palestine in the West Bank, the brutal apartheid system the Palestinians are subjected to daily, and the illegal siege of Gaza being waged by Israel and Egypt.

Matthew Thomas Miller, St. Louis, MO

Israeli Goods in UK Stores

To The Independent, Nov. 17, 2009

I have recently returned from taking part in the olive harvest in the West Bank. In my encounters with the Israeli army, I was told that it was “protecting farmers from settlers.” In reality, this amounted to preventing farmers from picking olives on their own land (by declaring it a “closed military area”), and failing to prevent settlers from leaving their illegally occupied hilltop to harass the farmers.

The group I was with had an interview with the local headmaster, who told us that his greatest concern was the pollution of the water-table by untreated sewage flowing from the settlement. Since our departure I have heard that settlers have cut down 95 olive trees (Maan news agency, Nov. 13) and raided the local village. They were escorted by the army, who fired tear gas and stun grenades.

Some of our supermarkets are complicit in supporting the Israeli occupation by labelling settlement products as being from the “West Bank.” In a letter I received today from Morrisons, I am assured that the facility which produces its dates employs Palestinians and Israelis and is located in the “Jordan valley (Israel).” Morrisons appear not to know that the Jordan valley is occupied West Bank and that any facility which employs Palestinians and Israelis is a settlement. Palestinian workers must get up at 3 a.m. to get through the checkpoint by 6 a.m.; they are paid $11 for eight hours’ work; they have no contract or union, and they include children aged between nine and 15.

I have given up buying any Israeli goods. The Palestinians I met approved.

Peter G. Liddell, Hitchin, Hertfordshire

A Friendly Brew

To The Economist, Dec. 3, 2009

You told a tale of how “hummus can promote peace,” when Israeli and Syrian negotiators came together in a “moment of heartfelt agreement” that the chickpea dip served to them by their American hosts tasted awful (“An emotive issue,” Nov. 14th). After the 1991 Madrid peace conference, Arab and Israeli negotiators convened at America’s State Department to start talks, but the different Arab delegations couldn’t agree on the modalities for actually talking to the Israelis.

One morning, after several days of unsuccessful attempts to break the ice and get the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to sit at the same table with the Israelis, the habitual American coffee-cart was wheeled in. After both Abd al-Salam Majali, the senior Jordanian delegate, and myself had tasted the unappetizing brew that goes for coffee in America, I remarked: “Don’t you think that this coffee is terrible?”, to which he enthusiastically agreed. From that moment on the talks started, culminating eventually in the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.

Zalman Shoval, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Tel Aviv, Israel

Swiss Vote Shames Europe

To The Independent, Nov. 1, 2009

Propaganda by the far right has given Europe a grave and disturbing result in the Swiss referendum vote to ban minarets.

The issue is not Islamic but rather one of human rights, equality and fairness. A single group of people have now been denied the right to practize a faith equal to others. We have troops fighting and dying for these very principles; and yet our developed, civilized and educated European neighbors have voted in favor of a motion more akin to a developing nation with an illiterate population.

Sid Lassi, Birmingham, UK

Land Mine Lunacy

To the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30, 2009

I am ashamed that the Obama administration may not join more than 150 countries in banning land mines—a huge atrocity that mankind (an oxymoron in this context) continues to inflict on our mangled planet. How can America condone the continued planting of land mines when we grieve over our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan being killed daily by crude versions of the devices? Such hypocrisy!

Land mines kill or maim people every day. There are reportedly more than 110 million mines worldwide, and the cost, beyond lost lives, is staggering: medical costs, land unable to be farmed, removal costs and injuries to animals. Pictures of flag-draped caskets and one-legged children on handmade crutches are too heartbreaking to bear.

President Obama—not in my name!

Lloyd A. Dent, Studio City, CA

A 9/11 Trial, in the Shadow of Horror

To The New York Times, Nov. 17, 2009

Re: ”˜’U.S. to Try Avowed 9/11 Mastermind Before Civilian Court in New York’’ (front page, Nov. 14):

The decision to bring the 9/11 plotters to trial should make us all proud. As President Obama said at Fort Hood, ”˜’We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes.’’

Recall also what President John F. Kennedy said: ”˜’We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept.’’

It may have been possible to fashion alternative venues, and this does provide a forum for the defendants to speak, but a regular courtroom demonstrates the United States commitment to justice. Our ideals will win.

Jeanine Meyer, Mount Kisco, NY