Mail Call

Most readers responding to our Nov. 21 cover story condemned the use of torture in fighting terrorism. "I find it both appalling and astonishing that we are even having a debate about torture in this country," said one. "Only the uncivilized condone torture. Only the barbaric practice it." Added another, "Allowing any form of torture--including 'torture lite'--puts us on the same level as our enemies and undermines the values and principles that differentiate us from them." Some wondered how an administration that preaches faith-based solutions could excuse such tactics. "No real Christian would agree to torture," one wrote. But some said that severe measures are necessary. "I sleep better at night knowing that there are dedicated operatives trying to extract information from detained terrorists who may be trying to plan the next 9/11," one said. Noted another, "If we want to win this war we must send the message that we mean business."

Reading your article on torture literally made me sick to my stomach ("The Debate Over Torture," Nov. 21). I am an 81-year-old citizen who served my country in the U.S. Army in WWII and as a flight surgeon during the Korean police action. I never dreamed that my beloved country would ever fall to the level of Third World dictatorships. For this government to even discuss torture is disgusting. If this is the level of morality of our leaders, many of whom are self-professed Christians, then may their Lord help us. This administration does not speak for me, nor do I believe that it does for the average American. I hope we can all come together and rid our country of this perniciousness in the next election.

Harry Ison

Bellingham, Wash.

George W. Bush and his spokesmen have felt free to argue that American interrogators may use torture on helpless prisoners because international law and treaties forbidding it--even ones we've signed--don't apply to us. The U.S. Constitution states that "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby." The president swears an oath to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Thus, contrary to the Bush Justice Department memo quoted in the sidebar ("How Terror Led America Toward Torture"), international law is binding on our nation's government even if this administration finds it inconvenient. President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about an extramarital affair. Surely trampling on the Constitution and worldwide legal standards while disgracing not merely the office of the presidency but the United States merits treatment at least as serious.

Eric B. Lipps

Staten Island, N.Y.

In your story about the debate over torture, you left out an important point. How can we discuss whether torture would have yielded info that would have prevented 9/11 if we don't recognize the fact that FBI whistle-blower Colleen Rowley said we might have had enough information to prevent 9/11 without torture? Four years after the attacks we're running around the world torturing suspects and holding them without trial, but we still don't have a decent computer system at the FBI or the kind of CIA-FBI coordination we need. It seems that, once again, the Bush administration is expending a whole lot of energy on counter-productive pursuits while missing the big picture.

Mary Wahlsten

New York, N.Y.

I can't help but wonder why somuch media attention is given to our interrogation and torture of Iraqi detainees or those of any other nation, for that matter. How many countries respectfully honor the Geneva Convention in regard to the treatment of prisoners of war the way they should? Have we forgotten how mercilessly our prisoners of wars have been treated in the past by other countries?

Joseph P. Paris

Rochester, N.Y.

Has anyone heard that the torture policy has been a brilliant success? Of course not. We have sold our soul to the Devil, but gained nothing in return. Just like the French torturers in Algeria, we have merely inflamed the opposition and earned the contempt of the world.

Raymond Freeman

Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Insulting prisoners' mamas, pulling women's thongs over their heads? Oh my. The mere fact that our society spends any time wrestling with equations that will somehow make any torture humane on any scale should be evidence enough of our position on the higher ground. When the evening news opens with U.S. soldiers brandishing swords as they prepare to cut off the head of a prisoner on live television, I'll start to worry that we've sunk to the dark depths of our terrorist foes.

Michael C. Martino

Glen Rock, N.J.

I agree totally with Sen. John McCain when he argues that torture of prisoners is ineffective and counterproductive ("Torture's Terrible Toll"). Since we are involved in a war for the souls and minds of Muslims around the world, how does it help us to stoop to the level of their violent radical fringe? In spite of our misguided and self-destructive war in Vietnam, we have many friends there today, partly due to the honorable and courageous service of men like John McCain. During my own year of military service in Vietnam, I saw many American GIs who treated the Vietnamese people with respect. We understood that many of them were being pressured by both the Americans and the Viet Cong, and for them it wasn't simply a matter of the good guys against the bad guys.

Michael J. Gorman

Whitestone, N.Y.

I served aboard the USS Saratoga in the summer of 1967, and as an enlisted man was working in the Redi-Room of Fighter Squadron VF-31 when the USS Liberty was attacked. I saw the young officers and pilots, men like John McCain, prepare to fly into battle--every one of them brave, smart and strong. I had friends on the carriers of the Seventh Fleet who saw those pilots do the same in even greater danger, day after day, sortie after sortie. They served with great honor --but, sadly, with very little glory (the attitude toward the Vietnam War at home being what it was at the time). Fighting for an idea--not a tribe, not a king, as Senator McCain put it in his article--allows our best and brightest to serve proudly and surely in terrible times. When a man who faced torture firsthand survived it with dignity and then spent a lifetime serving his fellow citizens in government tells us we should never stoop to torture as a policy, I think we'd better listen.

John Hughes

Cohoes, N.Y.

Twice in John McCain's column--an impressively calm, rational, reasoned, intelligent and crushing condemnation of the Bush administration's approval of the use of torture against our enemies--he uttered a phrase that surprised me, coming as it did from a member of the Republican Party. In discussing "our liberal notions" and "our liberal values," McCain used the term "liberal" as it ought to be used--with honor and respect, instead of derision and contempt. If the rest of his GOP colleagues in Congress and the Bush administration and right-wing talking heads could find the intellectual integrity to do the same, our nation might find its way back to a political process that encourages respectful discussion of our differing points of view.

Marcy Rothenberg

Porter Ranch, Calif.

Sen. John McCain, in his plea to end our abusive interrogation techniques, claims to hold no compassion for the detainees whom we have labeled as terrorists. I hold some compassion for these people for two reasons: one, not all detainees have committed acts of terrorism; for some, their guilt is primarily by association. Two, tomorrow's terrorists are today's innocent children--before getting caught up in the powerful confluence of an extreme belief system and the sensational stories created by an apparently self-serving aggressor. Knowledge of our widespread abusive treatment of detainees only encourages their transformation into being, as Senator McCain puts it, sociopaths. Inhumanity clearly breeds inhumanity.

Rowdy Webb

Portland, Ore.

People who perpetrate mindless violence at whomever may be in the way deserve no mercy. In fact, these people ought to be declared international outlaws and treated as such. No amount of hand-wringing over what to do will cure the violence. Only direct, sure and effective measures will rid this planet of those who kill for their perverted sense of evil.

Rex Wyers

Pace, Fla.

It is an odd paradox that in war you cannot torture the enemy but you can kill him. If some civilians get in the way, you can kill them, too. Torture is never justified. Rarely is war.

Robert J. Inlow

Charlottesville, Va.

President Bush, with Vice President Cheney's blessing, has threatened to veto a proposal by the Senate regarding the use of torture. Torture is inhumane and should never be considered by our government under any circumstances. Our born-again president needs to ask himself: "What Would Jesus Do?"

Adele VandeHouten

Henderson, Nev.

There is no "debate" over torture. It is an evil at all times and all places. It is also a crime under international and national law. That makes two groups: those against torture and criminals.

Dinah Shelton

Patricia Harris Professor of Law

George Washington Univ. Law School

Washington, D.C.

Your article "How To Beat the Big Energy Chill" (Nov. 21) focuses on renewable sources of energy. But how can you talk about the energy crisis without discussing the role of nuclear energy? Here is an energy source that will lower significantly greenhouse emissions that are threatening our planet. France, for one, does not seem to be traumatized, as we are, by the use of nuclear energy: 75 percent of its electricity is generated this way.

Dave Story

Valencia, Pa.

We buy our heating fuel from the largest vendor in our locality. Experience has taught us that if we are frugal and scrimp on the use of heating fuel, our price per gallon increases. The more we use, the lower the price per gallon. In a nation of high-priced fuel and the necessity to conserve, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Marcella Yasharian

Wyalusing, Pa.

"How To Beat The Big Energy Chill" reports the burden of energy prices on American families. Americans for Balanced Energy Choices recently released a study showing that the average family will spend $4,100 this year on its energy needs. The same study showed that electricity costs have remained relatively stable over the past decade, largely due to the fact that most of America's electricity is generated from coal. Yes, 52 percent of the electricity generated in this country is from coal, not natural gas as the article asserted. One quarter of the world's coal reserves is right here in the United States, with the energy content from that domestic coal being more than all of the known recoverable oil reserves in the world. Using America's Yankee ingenuity, a big piece of our future energy world must be zero-emission, coal-based power plants using state-of-the-art technologies.

Steve Miller, President

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices

Alexandria, Va.

Like Gina Martin, my blood pressure surely would rise in the face of a $700-a-month heating bill. However, unlike the Martin family, we do not reside in a six-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath, three-car-garage home. While the Martins are entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labors, they must also accept the responsibilities that come with the life they choose to lead. A more modest home would cost less to heat and still provide enough space for a family of five. We Americans consume natural resources at a rate unlike any other nation. If the Martins, and the rest of America, want to continue consuming resources at our current irresponsible pace--with McMansions and SUVs on every corner of the suburbs--we must accept the price we have to pay, even if that price is an unpalatable $700 a month.

Sara Scotto

Simsbury, Conn.

Didn't it occur to the Martin family before they built that humongous house that they would have triple-digit gas bills? As housing contractors, they should have known better. Furthermore, why does a family with three children need a six-bedroom, five-bathroom house? Surely a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house would have been sufficient and would have saved the Martins thousands of dollars in gas bills. Even more laughable is that Gina Martin referred to her family as "middle class." I live in a Cleveland-area suburb east of Mentor, Ohio, and know that anyone who can afford a new six-bedroom, five-bathroom house in Mentor hardly qualifies as middle class. Try "wealthy" instead. I, for one, don't feel sorry for the Martins, not when so many real middle- and lower-income people in the Cleveland area are having to choose this winter between keeping their gas service connected and putting food on their tables.

Laura C. O'Neal

Euclid, Ohio

Your environmental quiz is one more example of a world view in which everyone lives in a house in suburbia ("It's Not Easy Being Green"). I and any other apartment dweller would score poorly on this quiz. But let's look at some basic facts. Apartment dwellers live in compact spaces that require less fuel to heat and cool, and have a smaller footprint on the environment. Our insulation is the apartment upstairs. We don't own our appliances, but they are smaller and, hence, more efficient. We live in urban areas and walk more and drive less. We might have community gardens to grow vegetables, but we don't have lawns. We don't buy in bulk since we don't have extra refrigerators or freezers to store our bulk items. Ironically, our urban lifestyle has a lot less impact on the environment than the organic-gardening, Prius-driving, wood-stove-burning family in the country that drives 10 miles each way to buy a gallon of milk.

Jude Schneider

Los Angeles, Calif.

In "It's Not Easy Being Green," your quiz asks readers if they dispose of cell phones and batteries at recycling collection points as one of the many ways to live "greener" on a daily basis. I would like to let your readers know where rechargeable-battery and cell-phone collection boxes can be found easily. The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp. (RBRC) is a nonprofit organization that provides more than 30,000 collection sites nationwide at such well-known retailers as the Home Depot, Lowe's, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Sears and Target. Consumers can find a full listing of participating retailers in their neighborhoods by logging on to call2recycle.org or calling toll-free 877-2-RECYCLE. I hope that your readers will realize that with a little education and awareness, being green might not be so difficult after all.

Ralph Millard, Executive Vice President

The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp.

Atlanta, Ga.

Our children are our most cherished treasure and our greatest responsibility. As such, working parents are faced with a significantly difficult decision when entrusting the care of their children to others. On behalf of the nation's 2,594 YMCAs, I would like to thank NEWSWEEK for its Nov. 14 article "The Very Best Care" (tip sheet), which offered parents suggestions to ensure their children receive quality care. However, I would like to offer one more suggestion: contact your local YMCA. Collectively, YMCAs are the nation's largest provider of preschool child care, with nearly 74,000 children in full-day programs and 46,000 in part-day programs each year. Our well-trained staff provide safe, high-quality care so parents can have peace of mind while they work. YMCA Early Childhood Programs are focused on whole child development, and the majority of YMCAs are able to provide care for children with special needs, such as autism, ADD/ADHD, Down syndrome and other emotional or behavioral challenges. Finally, YMCA preschool programs are affordable. Many Y's offer scholarships to families who cannot afford the full cost.

Kenneth Gladish, CEO

YMCA of the USA

Chicago, Ill.

In attributing a Nov. 21 Perspectives quote, we said that what may be the largest meteorite ever discovered was found in Arkansas. In fact, it was Kansas. NEWSWEEK regrets the error.