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The Lockean Project

9/11 commentary inappropriate

“9/11 commentary inappropriate”, Monterey Herald – Sept. 14, 2021

Your guest commentary on Critical Thinking on 9-/11 provoked two reactions in me. First, thank God I live in a free country where people are free to spout distorted, corrosive ideas that completely misrepresent the values and ideals we believe in, yet they can do so without retaliatory sanction. Second, this was exactly the wrong day for the Herald to promote such an opinion piece. Frankly, the author’s recommendation that “After over 20 years, [we should] recognize… the requests of Osama Bin Laden as being congruent with our own American values” is sickeningly inaccurate.   OBL’s life, methods, and goals were completely incongruent with American values.  I have lived and visited many different places around the world, and seen the positive influence of Islam and the destructive powers of Islamic extremism. OBL’s words missed the former and fueled the latter. OBL wrote with threats, hate, and the very arrogance for which he indited the West. It would have been better for the Herald to (re)publish the rambling, 3,830 words of OBL’s “letter to America” that would remind us of the vitriol, bias, and hatred that guided the 911 attacks.

— Mark Brice Chakwin, Pacific Grove