(4 of 5)
Viewers of the debates could be forgiven for thinking that neither candidate can see the woods for the terrorists [Oct. 11]. No terrorist attack, no matter how dire, could pose the threat to all human life that already exists, gets worse by the day and is ignored by politicians. Yet the environment has scarcely featured in the U.S. presidential election. Terrorists make better headlines than the removal of toxins from the environment to secure the health of future generations.
CATHIE HARRISON Nelson, New Zealand
The focus on looks has gone too far in this TV age. Candidates are marketed like laundry detergents or automobiles. The U.S. President is so powerful that he should be chosen in a more dispassionate way, say by the Congress. What would happen to the U.S. if a muscle builder from California moved into the White House?
LENNART DAHLBECK Stockholm
Lately President Bush has been Asser Ting that the Iraq invasion was justified because freedom and liberty will be welcomed in that part of the world. It seems that the Administration changes its reason for going to war to shoo away whatever bad situation there is on the ground at that particular moment. Bush's flip-flops show how dangerous he is and how indifferent he is to the loss of thousands of soldiers' and civilians' lives.
NITIN AHUJA Noida, India
I am not sure if it's in the Democrats' best interests to win the November election. The U.S. economy is running an unsustainable deficit, making tax increases inevitable. The conflict in Iraq is not going America's way. The U.S. may have won the war, but it is losing the peace. It cannot be long before withdrawal of U.S. forces becomes the only option. If Kerry presides over those events, the Democrats will have a very unhappy four years.
STEPHEN HANN Leicester, England
Only time will tell if the pre-emptive war in Iraq was the right move to make in the war on terrorism. Certainly nobody on either side of the political fence can truthfully answer that question now.
PHIL ROSS Melbourne
I hope with all my heart that John Kerry wins the election. It's not that I think he would be a wizard who could put everything right. Conditions would probably remain pretty much the same, but I think Kerry would be able to govern more gracefully than President Bush has. If Americans give Bush another four years, the U.S. will have the President it deserves. If disenchanted citizens fail to vote for change, they will have absolutely no right to complain.
CHRISTY COX Santander, Spain
Death in Darfur
What is happening in Sudan is ethnic cleansing, pure and simple [Oct. 4]. The government-backed Janjaweed Arab militia is committing genocide against non-Arab Muslims. Is the world waiting for Darfur to degenerate into another Bosnia or Rwanda? I am surprised by the evasive tactics of the Bush Administration and its European counterparts. After its blunders in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. does not want to be seen as antagonizing another Muslim state, and the E.U. is foot dragging, probably out of fear of reprisal attacks by Islamist militants. The defenseless people of Darfur need the intervention of the free world before they are exterminated. We must collectively rise up and protect those people, whose only "sin" is that they are black.