Judge and Jury

Re TIME's cover story on Sonia Sotomayor [June 8]: Richard Lacayo made a disparaging remark: "Nobody expects you to make it to Princeton when you come from a public-housing project." I grew up in the 1960s in a public-housing project in Brooklyn, N.Y. Although I did my graduate work at Georgetown not Princeton, several of the kids in our project did go on to Ivy League colleges. In fact, many of the kids I grew up with became doctors, lawyers, college professors, social workers and journalists. A lot of kids who grow up rich never learn to develop their minds or work as hard as the "underprivileged" kids.
Lisa Beth Durham, OLLON, SWITZERLAND

Thank Heaven for Gates
Gates is a pragmatic professional. Al-Qaeda had already committed four separate acts of war against the U.S. before George W. Bush was sworn in [Gates Unbound, June 8]. The ideology-based policy of that incoming Administration downgraded the project to "get bin Laden," so FBI information about suspicious flying lessons stayed in the field until after 9/11. If counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke had had such intel when it was fresh, there might have been time to figure out the plot and forestall the attacks. Novelist Tom Clancy, after all, published the idea in 1994. Unlike the rest of the Bush Administration, Gates — the best Secretary of Defense since George C. Marshall, if not ever — has kept us safe since being sworn in.
David P. Vernon, TUCSON, ARIZ., U.S.

Thanks for Joe Klein's article. finally, someone who is putting the troops first.
Jack Quartaroli, SARCRAMENTO, CALIF., U.S.

European Democracy
I disagree with your article "Postcard: Utrecht" [June 8]. When people refuse to vote it is not necessarily a sign that democracy doesn't work. It is actually the other way round. Most people in Europe are not interested in removing political power from the national parliaments to the European parliament, where they have no influence over the decisions. This attitude actually strengthens democracy.
Dennis Brinkeback, STOCKHOLM

Use of Torture
I welcome the "soft approach" to interrogation explored in your article "How to Make Terrorists Talk" [June 8]. Without empathy there can never be peace, and reporting has a role to play. "Hardened terrorist," "insurgent," "captive," "subject": it's a revealing exercise to read the piece replacing these terms with the word person. A person is easier to talk to — and you're much less inclined to waterboard him.
Robert Maslen, BRADFORD, ENGLAND

I was surprised by the humanity and vulnerability demonstrated by each of the suspected terrorists in your article. This is a side one rarely sees but that shouldn't be forgotten: misguided choices are often the result of personal traumas. It is an unfortunate but necessary irony that this humanity is then preyed on by interrogators to save innocent lives and bring more criminals to justice.
Ahmed Khalil, LONDON

The question should not be "does torture give results?" Even if it did, its use would mean that civilization had lost. By those lights, annihilating half the world — men, women and children — would "work." So what?
Brian Smith, BERLIN

Health-Care Provision
As an American who has lived in France for 20 years, I read "Health Lessons from Europe" with the usual delight and guilt-ridden schadenfreude typical of us expats who enjoy the health-care system here [June 1]. Fourteen years ago, I received a letter from the Sécurité Sociale informing me that I had to book a pelvic X-ray for my then newborn daughter — or risk losing out on future reimbursements and coverage. Several days later, when the results revealed everything to be normal, I asked the radiologist how many infants were diagnosed with a problematic pelvis. Not many, I was told. However, she continued, the government reasoned that it was far more cost-effective to X-ray every newborn in the country — and fix the deformity before the child learned to walk — than shoulder the cost of corrective surgery when it was older. Needless to say, there are psychological benefits to this approach as well.
Adrienne W. Covington, POISSY, FRANCE