Keeping Democracy Alive, Even After 9/11

As one whose beloved nephew died on 9/11 while saving others, I deeply resent Michael Ramirez’s characteristic and heavy-handed implication that the opposition to many of this administration’s policies and actions is unpatriotic, not to mention unfeeling (cartoon, Commentary, Sept. 11). I travel frequently and do not for one moment mind airport security delays, but I most assuredly am disturbed by the administration’s cynical exploitation of the World Trade Center tragedy as it used, and continues to use, lies, inventions and misrepresentations to justify a war that will fatten the coffers of Halliburton and Bechtel.

I’m terrified by the administration’s consistent suppression of information that is inconvenient to its questionable agenda -- the secrecy surrounding the vice president’s summit meeting with top energy executives, the stonewalling of a high-level commission to investigate 9/11 and the subsequent censoring of the section of the eventual report that evidently raises disturbing questions about Saudi Arabian connections to 9/11. I’m suspicious of why the administration spirited about 140 Saudis, including members of Osama bin Laden’s immediate family, out of the country after only minimal interviews by the FBI. I’m outraged by the deliberate withholding of the truth about air quality in New York following the tragedy.

And I want to know how the administration plans to spend the $87 billion it’s asking the American people to pony up in order to bail it out of the quagmire in which it has involved us. I love democracy, and I am using the anniversary of 9/11 to remind myself (and Ramirez) that its survival depends on an informed electorate and open debate.

John Crowther

Los Angeles

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“The Horror of 9/11 That’s All Too Familiar” (Commentary, Sept. 10), about “the picture that won’t go away,” was remarkable. The doomed soul depicted in the photograph was, indeed, you and me. We don’t know his nationality, nor does it matter. What is hard to understand is why the rest of the world is not compelled to work together to ensure that such an atrocity never occurs again.

On 9/11, Al Qaeda targeted the U.S. Next time it could be China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia or any country it deems an enemy. Once such deranged zealots determine who should be in their cross hairs, they are a threat to all mankind, not just Americans.

Jon Leonoudakis

Northridge

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The worst case of bad judgment I have ever seen, and the most unnecessary use of a photograph. I pray that the family of the lost soul never sees that photo; it is all too recognizable. I would advise you to print a letter of apology to your readers.

John Pehar

La Crescenta