An Oct. 4 Herald-Sun story detailed Mohammedan radical influences in the United States that surrounded terror suspect Najibullah Zazi.
Since 9/11, we have often read of terrorist plots that have been smashed by the authorities before they could be carried out. Almost nothing has been said regarding the significance, or not, of American Muslim cooperation with law enforcement in accomplishing same. Is this because it is an intelligence imperative that the enemy not grasp the extent of our informant system, or is it because the collaboration has been embarrassingly and provocatively thin?
My own answer is, unequivocally, that I don't know.
If most Muslims in the United States are actively opposing Islamic jihad, they are earning the respect of their fellow citizens. If they are providing a friendly sea in which the terrorists may swim, they will pay a terrible price.
FRANK HURLEY
Chapel Hill
Time for a change
I am writing to you about health care reform. I am a retired nurse and health educator. I worked for more than 30 years in school health as a school health coordinator. I have seen first-hand what happens when people, especially children, do not have access to health care.
I remember where I was and what I was doing when Medicare was passed. I want to celebrate real health reform. Health reform without a public option is just more of the same. It is an insurance system, not a health care system. It is a system built on the denial of health services and the profits of insurance executives rather than the health of our citizens.
I hope that everyone working for and against health care reform will work as if those citizens denied adequate care, the mothers and fathers with no health insurance, the young adults who cannot afford medication for treatable problems, like epilepsy, asthma and diabetes, the students who cannot get treatment for severe mental illness -- as if all of those citizens are standing behind them, watching. It is easy to deny health care when you don't have to do it in person.
I encourage all citizens to work for President Obama's health care reform. It is past time for a change.
SUSAN SPALT
Carrboro
Police disgrace
I think it is a disgrace that Beverly Council is being allowed to "retire" with full benefits. In the private world she would and should be fired along with Alesha Robinson-Taylor for falsifying a timecard.
No one should be getting paid for hours they didn't work, and it is our money that is paying her! This is criminal and the people that allowed it to happen are just as bad.
J.B. POLLARD
Durham
Bush never lied?
Bob Dickerson, in his castigation of President Obama on Oct. 7, made one glaring comment about nobody ever caught Bush in a lie. If I am not mistaken, there were never any weapons of mass destruction that Bush went to war for and joked about looking under his desk and not finding.
All that misguided war cost us was around 4,000 lives and 30,000 severely maimed military personnel. What is that, collateral damage?
I read a letter today about us never learning, which stated that we followed the French into Vietnam and lost almost 60,000 troops and then left with our tails between our legs. We are now doing the same thing in Afghanistan by following Russia there and we will probably leave with the same results.
People like Dickerson probably worship Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Fox News. That shows his and their mentality.
DON EDWARDS
Greensboro
