Letters to the Editor

Japanese food culture should recognize global concerns

In response to the story “Honor culture and let them eat whale” by Yoshie Okabe (March 29), I must admit that I am truly saddened.

Whales do not fight back, they are harmless and ignorance should not be the cause of their demise. If they were meant to be eaten, they would be smaller and easier to catch. I am not saying I do not respect other cultures religions and beliefs, however this one is very hard to accept. Why should the world suffer the loss of these beautiful creatures, due to the Japanese believing that eating whale will send the souls of dead men to heaven. I am only left to wonder what will happen to the Japanese culture when they wipe out the whale population. Will the whale be replaced by some other defenseless animal? Let whales live!!

— Lily Garcia

Spain has right to remove own troops

The democracy of Spain is one that warrants the right to think independently within the laws of democracy, in which more than 90 percent of the Spanish people were against the war. It is their right, based on the laws of democracy, to change the direction of a government that went against the will of the people that elected its officials into power. As a Spaniard living in the United States I consider the article that Wes Tibbs wrote, “Spanish cowardice gives license to terrorists,” (March 22) a product of an ill-informed perspective.

To state Spain is a coward for pulling out of a political and military situation that was never backed by the international community, and has yet to be justified, is an utterly misguided insult. Mr. Tibbs perhaps ignores that Spain has been suffering terrorist attacks for so many years, and that many of its people have died as a result of terrorists attacks. If only Mr. Tibbs had taken this simple fact into consideration, he would have had to deal with the following question: What lessons has Spain learned from more than 20 years of terrorists’ attacks in its national soil? In my view, Spain has learned the following: Terrorists groups, like Al Qaeda and ETA do not have conventionally organized armies and do not have normalized ways of engaging a conventional army. Hence, is it not necessary to use a strategy that is both discursive and proactive? In light of this, conventional warfare, the forced invasion and continuous occupation of a country are clear mistakes.

— Arancha Villaseñor