Letters to the Editor

Champion of ordinary people

I just want to thank you for your editorial on Friday, “Re-elect Frank Wolf.”

The Virginia congressman’s opponent has implied that Mr. Wolf rates high only with ultraconservative groups and organizations such as the National Right to Life Committee and the Christian Coalition.

That statement is only half true. Mr. Wolf is also respected by common folk.

Mr. Wolf’s chief of staff, Dan Scandling, said last summer that “[Wolf] is going to run on his record, talking about the things he’s accomplished, not things he promises to accomplish if elected.”

Mr. Wolf has longevity and proven integrity. He has served the 10th Congressional District for 24 years with distinction and always with an awareness for those people living in need.

He has earned a reputation as a champion for the common man. His intense concern for homelessness and for those people living in socially at-risk situations makes him a superior congressman. His innate ability to bring people together, both Republicans and Democrats, to solve problems is legendary.

Ordinary people know Mr. Wolf is the real deal.

MARK GUNDERMAN

Good Shepherd Alliance

Homeless Shelters

Sterling

’Evidence to the contrary’

Gene Tarne, communications director for Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics, in his Sunday letter, “Adult vs. embryonic stem-cell claims,” discredited Morton Kondracke’s “disinformation” (“Emphasis on research,” Commentary, Oct. 19) regarding partially successful spinal-cord repair clinical trials using adult stem cells in Portugal.

Mr. Kondracke said there was nothing to the claim; Mr. Tarne provided conclusive evidence to the contrary: Two wheelchair-confined American women can now walk with braces.

Perhaps vice presidential candidate John Edwards confused the type of stem-cell research when he promised that if John Kerry is elected president Mr. Kerry will get people out of their wheelchairs by pouring millions into embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR). It is already happening using adult stem cells.

Mr. Kondracke made a number of other misstatements in his column. He claimed that ESCR is in its “infancy” and that clinical trials with adult (postnatal) stem cells treatments have been “hyped.”

Actually, ESCR has been under way for decades without one treatment of any patients, but adult stem cells have been used to treat patients with 56 different diseases. (See https://stemcellresearch.org)

Mr. Kondracke also said that ideology (i.e. respecting the lives of newly formed human beings) is preventing ESCR. Experimenting on human beings is as despicable when it is done on unborn human beings as when it was done by Nazis. Every human life without exception must be respected, regardless of age, or none will be respected.

JOHN NAUGHTON

Silver Spring

U.S. too hard on India

With the revelations in “Indian scientists sanctioned for assisting Iran on nukes” (Nation, Friday), it appears that the U.S. sanctions on the two Indian scientists as well as threats of more sanctions show it is playing diplomatic hardball.

For an American official to compare the two Indian scientists to Pakistan’s nuclear rogue A.Q. Khan is like comparing a parking violator to a serial bank robber. In fact, one of the two Indian scientists, Shri Ch. Surendar, has never been to Iran according to most reports, while the other, Y. Sivaraman Prasad, had originally been to Iran as part of a team of experts on behalf of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In addition, Mr. Prasad had only been to the IAEA-safeguarded Bushehr facility, while the nuclear weapons-related work in Iran is mainly associated with the unsafeguarded facility in Natantz.

Comments by U.S. officials both in The Washington Times and elsewhere indicate two possible rationales for the sanctions, given the flimsy nature of the evidence of any proliferation.

One seems to be a desire to warn all nations, including allies, that any kind of nuclear cooperation with Iran will invite the wrath of America.

Also, there are many elements within the American nonproliferation bureaucracy who are unhappy with the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) program, which seeks to liberalize American high-tech, space and nuclear energy cooperation with India.

By timing the sanctions while high profile U.S.-India NSSP negotiations are happening, these nonproliferation hawks may be sending a stern warning to India not to expect too much from the NSSP program.

Finally, the United States must realize that India and Iran have a longstanding relationship. Those ties had been dormant for the past half-century due to the Cold War and the Islamic revolution in Iran.

It is only of late that the ties have started blossoming, due to a shared interest in regional stability and energy independence.

While India is unlikely to be supportive of Iran were the latter to do anything reckless or violate international treaties, India is also not likely to be intimidated into abandoning its carefully nurtured relationship with Iran through crude actions like sanctions with dubious justifications.

Given the fact that the United States has been willing to be very generous with serial proliferators such as Pakistan and China and even rewarded them after being caught in the act, the United States will do well to engage India on Iran instead of resorting to ham-handed moves.

KAUSHIK KAPISTHALAM

Atlanta

Time to defuse tension

In “China and Taiwan’s future” (Op-Ed, Oct. 13), Harlan Ullman reports that the United States seeks ways to deal with potential crises. Indeed, the tensions in the Taiwan Strait have reached a sufficiently dangerous level that many countries around the world are worried. Beijing and Taipei should try their best to defuse the tensions.

Mr. Ullman points out that messages from Republic of China President Chen Shui-bian’s national security adviser appeared in page-long advertisements in the New York Times and The Washington Post on Oct. 4.

The advertisements criticized the United States’ one-China policy and supported the Taiwan separation movement. According to Chinese newspapers, Beijing expressed objections after the national security adviser voiced his opinion at a symposium at the Hart Senate Office Building on Oct. 8. These actions would not help defuse existing tensions.

During the past few months, both sides conducted war exercises. Miscalculations and accidents might result in a military conflict.

Beijing and Taipei should not take any provocative actions. So far, the U.S. policy to maintain the status quo in the strait has worked alright. Even something purely symbolic, like changing the nation’s name from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan, may cause a war.

JAMES T.H. TSAO

Senior editor

Journal of Asian Economics

Washington