Letters to the Editor

Incongruent aid\nI love America; I am glad that I was born here. America is beautiful in many places, though not all, there are ugly spaces too -- often alongside the beautiful ones, sometimes lurking beneath. \nEnvision the happy children playing in a schoolyard before we knew that there was a Love Canal lying underground, furtively seeping toxins (inappropriately named, H.G. Love dug the canal in order to attempt to provide a cleaner means of transportation for industrial products, when he ran out of funding the unfilled space lay vacant until later companies found it suitable to fill with waste and cover with clay. It was then sold at bargain basement prices to a school district and to home developers). It is a complex dichotomy. \nOur people are kind and generous, when our basic human needs are met. When we are not drug or alcohol addicted, we are nurturing and family oriented providers.\nAmerica is the shared space of the world. Though we are not completely free, -- I know that I can't reasonably go for a walk after dark without being concerned for my safety -- we are at liberty, and we are lucky to have the rights that we enjoy. America is a land of extremes and ambivalences. So I suppose it is in keeping with tradition that we dropped 35,000 tons of care packages along with the precision gravity bombs on Kabal, Afghanistan today, but what was our goal? \nTo demonstrate that we care about the civilians? That we're sorry that they happen to be there, living in their hovels, the women uneducated, ghostlike, a presence without a presence? Is it rhetorical strategy? Is it an attempt to sway the Afghan people's opinion of the United States? \nOsama bin Laden is a dangerous fiend who must be eliminated, but I ask you, would we have felt any better about our losses on Sept. 11th, if four more hijacked planes had dropped bundles of prepaid college scholarships made out to the children of the victims? Cans of beans perhaps, for those left homeless in New York? What if they were Kosher, demonstrating that the Islamic factions had gone the extra mile? It is absurd.\nSarah Dilworth\nGiuliani should not extend his term\nI could only shake my head in disbelief at the Oct. 3 IDS editorial, proclaiming a unanimous staff vote that Rudolph Giuliani should be allowed to stay on as mayor of New York in the wake of the current tragedy. \nHonestly, Mayor Giuliani's demeanor has even made me, here, feel better over the last few weeks -- but that does not mean the laws of our land should be upturned in a time of crisis. \nThe New York Times editorial page said it best on September 28, "While Mr. Giuliani has been a great leader during this crisis, the truth is that no one is indispensable. George Washington understood that when he rejected repeated attempts to keep him in office indefinitely. Washington was followed in the presidency by a long line of successors, some of them distinctly mediocre. But the country went on, because people put their faith in the democratic process and not in the strength of any one individual." \nThey could have gone on to mention that the Union was rebuilt without Lincoln, WWII was won without FDR, and the Soviet Block collapsed without Reagan. \nThis leader-cult sentiment is a cousin of the same blind panic that drives many good-hearted people to attempt a quick defense for our nation from terrorism. A mad rush is no way to institute any change in a democratic setting. \nThe attorney general has gone to Congress to tell them that terrorism can only be prevented with sweeping new powers given to the government to spy upon and detain American citizens and residents and a horde of Big Brother advocates wants to help him. Roadblocks, detainments and domestic spying will do absolutely nothing to stop terrorist attacks. Any terrorists caught with these tools will be tokens and plenty will remain free to wreak havoc. Israelis have lived, and died, as proof of this reality for years. \nThe fact is, the changes we make today are ones that we will have to live with for years and decades to come, and they must not be rash.\nJoshua J. Wells