OPINION

Letters to the Editor

I am an American working in Greece. I enjoyed my short stay until I experienced recent anti-Americanism. Thank you for the comments by Stamos Zoulas and Costas Iordanidis (October 1). It has helped heal my disheartened feeling of seeing my country’s flag being burnt in the streets of Athens and the soccer stadium. I have to realize that being part of a democracy allows the freedom of speech which we all should enjoy and not have it ruined by the few ignorant people who live near me and sat in front of their TV in a local cafe on September 11, applauding the replays of aircraft hitting the World Trade Center buildings. I am making a special trip home for a week so I can openly mourn with my fellow countrymen and women, something I feel I can’t do openly here. Thank you to the people of this city which I live in for showing their concern and making the voices of a few mute. Thank you for your paper. Richard via e-mail Damage control Thank you for the editorial of October 1. I honestly don’t think I have ever seen a Greek mainstream print publication say anything openly positive of the United States. I am sending copies to my friends. I am afraid that the hooligan ambassadors not only damaged a lot of otherwise open-minded average Americans’ perception of Greece as a nation and people. It has opened a very large, festering wound in the Greek-American community. Shame on those hooligans for forcing us into a position of having to deflect and do damage control for their unspeakably vulgar act. Marika Skiadas Somerset, NJ No surprise Being of Greek descent, it does not surprise me that there were negative reactions in Greece against the United States when this terrorist tragedy occurred. The Greek people have the amazing ability to goad the West and self-destruct in the process. No country other than the Islamic states were able to express such venom. This was first shown by the constant insults toward the pope when he made his trip to Greece and is being shown today in the wake of this tragedy. The Greeks who project this horrific image to the world seem to forget that people in other countries also have long memories. The reactions of the Greek people in both of these incidents are looked on as an affront and insult to Western civilization. They also don’t seem to realize that 1,000 of those people killed were from 80 different countries and the economic instability that it caused is not going to make the American people starve, but might do that to a third of the world’s population. So, if they have any moral sense, I would ask them to pray for a quick recovery.

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