Letters to the Editor

Displacing the dominance of dead, white men

Suzanne Fields, writing about the PC-washed textbooks of today’s schoolrooms (“Textbook terror in a visual age,” Op-Ed, Monday), falls for the oldest trick in the book. The “watchdog” group American Textbook Council is a partisan group determined to remove evolutionary theory from science texts and reaffirming the position of Western Europeans to the course of human history.

Frankly, this just shows that Mrs. Fields has no clue about current educational teaching techniques and theories on learning. That and the fact that she is not willing to acknowledge that our history books have been dominated (rightly so in many cases) by white Europeans whose own atrocities were glided over like so much historical dross.

If current textbooks aren’t sufficiently anti-Islam or pro-capitalist, then perhaps it is Mrs. Fields’ own personal biases on display here rather than an institutional bend toward a PC world where our children don’t know right from wrong.

ROB DETERS

Madison, Wis.

Mickelson’s Masters

The Masters golf tournament was exemplary and masterful (“Masterful final round provides fitting ending,” Sports, Monday) in four ways.

First, it was a consumer winner in that there were no commercials. Second, the club was a winner with its decision not to bow down to the National Organization for Women. Third, so many great plays and shots on the final round would not have been covered as well if NOW had had its way, because commercials would have interrupted the coverage. Fourth, Phil Mickelson was an added bonus as winner to make the final round “masterful.”

Congratulations, Masters.

G. STANLEY DOORE

Silver Spring, Md.

Them’s fighting words

The former director for multilateral and humanitarian affairs in the Clinton administration’s National Security Council, Steven J. Naplan, has a letter in Friday’s editions in which he states that “Mr. Clinton gave more than 10 major speeches” on terrorism and “made extensive references to terrorism in more than 60 other speeches.” This is the defense of the Clinton administration’s handling of terrorism.

The World Trade Center is bombed, and Bill Clinton talks about terrorism. The Khobar Towers are bombed, and Bill Clinton talks about terrorism. The U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are bombed, and Bill Clinton talks about terrorism. The USS Cole is attacked, and Bill Clinton talks about terrorism.

Yes, Bill Clinton talked the talk.

JOE COSTANTINI

Fairfax

Trickle down AIDS relief?

In his Thursday Op-Ed column, “Activists against Africa,” Robert Goldberg chastises the World Health Organization (WHO) for facilitating the use of generic AIDS drug combinations. His premise is that generic AIDS drug combinations are necessarily of lesser quality than their more expensive brand-name counterparts. The only supporting evidence he provides is a widely disputed study focusing on the treatment of malaria, not AIDS.

About one year earlier, Mr. Goldberg wrote: “If President Bush wants to stop the AIDS epidemic … he should scrap his proposed $15 billion plan to seed the African continent and the Caribbean with AIDS drugs and spend the money elsewhere” (National Review Online, Feb. 7, 2003). Are we to believe that Mr. Goldberg, who one year ago opposed devoting any U.S. dollars to global AIDS drugs, suddenly cares about the quality of those medicines?

In that same National Review editorial, Mr. Goldberg wrote that the Bush plan would “ignore Africa’s own failure to focus time, attention, and money on the horrific public-health situation, which can only be addressed through economic growth and free trade.”

So, the United States should turn its back on the millions of people who have AIDS and hold our breath until “economic growth and free trade” solve the AIDS crisis?

Mr. Goldberg has every right to voice his preposterous opinions on the AIDS crisis, but what possessed your paper to publish them?

REP. SHERROD BROWN

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington

Passing the buck in Arlington

I am deeply troubled by Arlington County Board Chairman Barbara Favola’s cavalier dismissal of her obligations to enforce the law (“Are the suburban counties inviting terrorists?” Page 1, Monday). She asserts that monitoring illegal aliens is the federal government’s role: “It isn’t my job” to screen immigrants, she claims. But is it her responsibility?

I moved to Virginia six months ago from Arizona, where I have seen how the effects of illegal aliens on American society are increasingly asymmetrical. Although one migrant may take only one job from one American, demands for health care and education are closing hospitals and disrupting schools; large proportions of illegal immigrants also join gangs, deal drugs or perpetrate more heinous offenses. All of these cause far greater costs to far more people, immigrant and native alike.

Yet Miss Favola’s lack of vigilance could result in much worse. Several countries have found terrorists in their midst, living on the largess of their welfare systems. I would think someone who witnessed the attacks of September 11 and in Madrid would want to ensure that we never witness another such event here; Miss Favola could make a valuable contribution to our mutual effort by virtue of her position. Instead, she insists, “It isn’t my job.”

Miss Favola should stand at ground zero and weigh the risks of her inaction. It has been well-demonstrated that a motivated individual can do immense harm if given the opportunity; if Miss Favola is enabling illegal immigrants, then she is responsible for the costs of their presence as well as any benefits. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing — or maybe only their “jobs.”

JASON MICHAELS

Fairfax

Preparing for tomorrow’s terrorists today

James Jay Carafano outlines an accurate and frightening future regarding “Tomorrow’s terrorists” (Commentary, Sunday), but he missed a few important factors.

First, rapid and powerful advances in biotechnology that are increasingly affordable and ubiquitous will eventually enable small groups and even individuals to create diseases of mass destruction for which there will be no defense. The pre-September 11 bipartisan Presidential Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (informally known as the Hart-Rudman report) suggested that we will eventually see bioweapons capable of targeting specific ethnic groups.

Mr. Carafano’s suggestion that a continuation of the Patriot Act will make us safer is blindly optimistic. The Nazis had the most intrusive and repressive government in the world, and they only increased resistance to their power.

We will never be able to ensure that al Qaeda 3.0 doesn’t evolve, but we can greatly improve our chances for maintaining our security and protecting our freedoms if we develop a domestic and foreign policy that creates more friends in the world instead of more enemies.

CHUCK WOOLERY

Chair

U.N. Association Council of Organizations

Washington