Offensive and inappropriate

I am an admirer of The Jakarta Post and have long enjoyed reading your editorials.

However, I found the Post's editorial Beyond Sept. 11 on the anniversary of the horrific attacks in Washington and New York to be both offensive and inappropriate. Your inclusion of issues such as declining sympathy for the U.S., the question of Iraq, or what more the U.S. should do to alleviate world poverty and environmental degradation was ill-timed and could have been explored in separate editorials.

Instead, the focus should have been on what was lost. One sobering statistic that will be forever etched in my mind is that over 3,000 children lost a mother or father on that fateful day. Let us remember them and all the families that will never be whole.

TODD CALLAHAN

Jakarta

Note: One year after last year's Sept. 11 tragedy, viewed from Indonesia, one cannot separate issues, such as the U.S. decision to protect its domestic market, its half-hearted attitude in the global efforts to alleviate poverty and reduce environmental degradation and Washington's determination to remove the Iraqi leader, President Saddam Hussein.

Of course we still remember "the sobering statistics" of victims on that fateful day in the U.S. as reflected in the initial paragraphs of the said editorial. In the meantime, however, other sobering statistics around the world related to the cluster of issues affecting humanity also deserve our attention.

We hope that your enjoyment reading our editorials will remain undiminished.

--Editor