Editorial off-base, offensive
Your pretentious yet myopic editorial ("Search for the truth, not a scapegoat," Sept. 13, page 8), marks a low point for your paper, which I read daily and normally appreciate.
The self-righteous editorialist asks, "If it [the US] lived up to its self-image, why would anybody hate it?" It would seem that an organization as conscious as the Taipei Times of Taiwan's history of persecution and oppression would know the answer even before the question is asked: there are individuals and governments who believe that their values are superior to hope, freedom and liberty. The Taliban for example, or Saddam Hussein. Chinese emperors. The Dutch and other colonial exploiters. Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the Chinese Communists.
The US is not a perfect society or government; it never has been and never will be. But it strives for perfection in that it allows for the expression of all points of view, takes them into consideration, and makes a decision that it believes will benefit itself and mankind. God bless America. God bless people who love hope, freedom and liberty around the world.
Kevin Scott
Washington
I read with outrage your editori-al. As a US citizen who may have lost a person very dear to me in the attacks in New York, I take personal offense. The editorial, was ill-thought and poorly-timed.
The emphasis on Palestinians was puzzling and the misdeeds of the Israelis overstated -- both have committed their share of atrocities in a conflict where each has at least an arguable claim to sovereignty of the disputed territory. It is true that the US has committed acts in the Middle East which have led to the dislike and even hatred of local residents (the support of the late Shah of Iran and reported training of his secret police in torture comes to mind).
But you have missed an essential truth: many of the members of the Taliban and Muslim extremist organizations throughout the world hate the US for what it at its best repre-sents: a set of ideals largely antithetical to their own. The individual freedoms granted citizens in Western nations threaten the foundation upon which the utopia they seek to establish rests.
These are groups which treat women as less than chattels and commit acts of extreme brutality against fellow Muslims for trivial "offenses." These are organizations which sentence to death those who adhere to a different set of ideals or even their own members for any perceived criticism or heresy. These are uncompromising people who consider themselves threatened by the encroachment of Western values in a world of ever-shrinking borders, who again and again have declared themselves in a state of "religious war" with the US and its allies, and who grant no quarter and will use any means in pursuit of retribution.
The Koran does not support the views of extremists. It is a tragedy that a religion whose adherents are frequently peaceful and compassionate has been to an extent hijacked this century by fanatics who preserve their power by violence against dissenters.
It is reckless journalism for your paper to act as an apologist for the Taliban, Osama bin Laden or whatever organization committed or supported the attack by implying that the hatred evidently felt by the terrorists is justified by the "duplicity and hypocrisy" of the US. Retraction or clarification is in order.
William H. Edwards
Taipei
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