Letters

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Blair will not go down in history as the only reporter to fudge a line or two. If the scope of his misdeeds seems astounding, his behavior should be put in context. People must cope on a daily basis with the news media's half-truths, tainted and slanted stories and outright censorship. Blair's scandal is only a very small part of that. The public should tolerate none of it.
DAVID C. HOFFMEISTER
Easton, Pa.

The root cause of the Blair fiasco has not been addressed by the New York Times. First, the paper carried affirmative action to grotesque extremes, giving Blair breaks no young white reporter would have got. Then when Blair made mistakes that would not have been tolerated in a white reporter, the paper's editors didn't call Blair on them but instead rewarded him. When he hanged himself with the rope the Times so liberally provided, they fired him. Thus they ensured that he wouldn't learn from his initial mistakes by requiring that he face the just consequences, and then they ensured that he would never get another newspaper job. No blatant racist could have done better. The fault lies not with Blair but with the fuzzy-headed and immoral self-congratulatory liberalism of the Times.
EDNA SELAN EPSTEIN
Chicago

Of Politics and Petroleum

Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele showed refreshing honesty in their reporting on the history of America's oil-driven meddling in Middle East politics [BUSINESS, May 19]. If you had run this as a cover story three months ago, you could have helped many naive Americans see the real motive behind the Bush Administration's war on Iraq: to colonize the country that has the potential to become the world's largest oil producer. I applaud you for reporting that the U.S. has created its own problems and enemies in the Middle East through decades of shortsighted, immoral policy. But you should have told this story sooner. It might have helped prevent a war.
CLAUDE ROBOTHAM
New York City

Thank you for Barlett and Steele's historical analysis of U.S. foreign policy vis-a-vis oil. U.S. citizens need to understand the sordid history of our involvement in the Middle East and why our policies have led to widespread and virulent anti-American sentiment in the region. Sadly, the current Iraqi quagmire is yet another disastrous chapter. Our self-serving leaders continue to promote polices of deception and violence. We know now what the whole world sees: this war was not about weapons of mass destruction threatening our homeland but, once again, about securing oil for our wasteful and unsustainable economy.
KRISTINA M. GRONQUIST
Minneapolis, Minn.

One need read only the first few paragraphs to perceive the anti-Administration sentiment of the authors. The war in Iraq was clearly not about oil for the U.S., as many claim. The postwar significance of oil is that it is a necessity for the economic rebuilding of Iraq, a country decimated by a brutal regime.
TOM DOWNEY
San Diego

This report was a revisionist attack on aspects of America's successful policy of containing the Soviet Union over a period of some 40 years. In implementing that policy, the U.S. government did not always have perfectly clean hands, but it was struggling against a regime as evil as those of Hitler, Saddam Hussein and maybe Mao combined. So the U.S. manipulated foreign governments! So what? Which do Barlett and Steele believe was the better option — giving in to the Soviets, or nuclear war?
PHILLIP HAWLEY
Galliate Lombardo, Italy

Barlett and Steele shed light on some of the dark consequences of America's bottomless thirst for oil. At a time when our national energy and foreign policies, oil-driven as ever, seem so heedless of the future, perhaps such lessons from the past can help galvanize our will to change.
THOMAS R. MARTON
Brookline, Mass.

Save Your Skin

"Botox and Beyond" described some new methods of cosmetic surgery [HEALTH, May 19]. You called Cymera perhaps the "creepiest substance" being used to fill wrinkles because it is made from the skin of human cadavers. I ask which is creepier and probably more dangerous: Botox, short for botulinum toxin, a paralyzing poison, or natural human skin? As a physician, I have to ask myself if it is ethical to spend time and money on cosmetic, forever-young potions when disorders like obesity, hypertension and cancer plague our society.
J. GREGORY RIDGWAY, D.O.
Yuma, Ariz.