2Attention Must Be Paid
I was very pleased to see that The
Nation carried a cover story in its
Aug. 26/Sept. 2 issue [“Peace Now?”
by Jonathan Levi and Marta Orrantia]
on the situation in Colombia. The ar-
ticle appropriately focused on the inte-
gration of former FARC guerrillas into
civilian life after surrendering their
firearms to United Nations monitors
as part of the peace accords entered
into with the government of President
Juan Manuel Santos. The authors are
correct to note that the successor ad-
ministration of President Iván Duque
has failed in several respects to fulfill
the requirements that the peace agree-
ment established. As the article points
out, the government has not provided
the resources needed to develop farm-
to-market roads, educational facilities,
and health clinics in rural areas.
One matter of importance that the
article does not mention is that there
are municipal elections throughout
Colombia set for October 27. All of
the mayors and municipal councils will
be up for election on that date. What
happens in these elections will have a
profound effect on the success or fail-
ure of the peace agreement and, by ex-
tension, on future violence in much of
the country. These elections occur at a
moment when Duque’s public approval
rating is below 40 percent, according
to several recent polls.
Again, thank you for focusing on
Colombia. It is enormously important
for people in the United States to
pay attention to developments in that
country. John I. Laun
Cofounder and program director
Colombia Support Network
madison, wis.Not Our Man
Thank you for David Klion’s fine
review of George Packer’s Our Man:
Richard Holbrooke and the End of the
American Century [“The Unwinding,”Aug. 26/Sept. 2], which spares me
from having to read the book because,
as Klion writes, it might not be of
much interest to those who do not
find the stories of white, male, liberal
boomers particularly interesting.
Additionally, I want to thank him
for this sentence: “[These liberals] also
helped birth disasters—the Iraq War
and the 2008 financial crisis, to name
the most obvious examples—on a scale
that Trump has yet to match.” In our
hyperpartisan era, plain statements
of truth like this are brave and worth
reminding those of us in the liberal
bubble of their reality.
Robert BornemanYes, Scientists Are Human, Too
In her column “Sleazy Science”
[Aug. 26/Sept. 2], Katha Pollitt asks,
“Am I wrong to expect more of those
we rely on to combat all of the non-
sense swirling around us?” Yes, you
are. Unfortunately, scientists are very
prone to allowing emotions to distort
their judgment, even as they toil in a
realm best suited to logic. My wife is
a scientist, and she has worked with
many scientists who dismissed areas
of inquiry for irrational reasons, falsi-
fied data, demonized or belittled their
competitors, and so on. They are just
people. Our collective ability to be
rational and logical is really limited,
including at the level of elite science.
Roger FelixCorrection
“Peace Now?” by Jonathan Levi and
Marta Orrantia [Aug. 26/Sept. 2]
mistakenly states that Jorge Eliécer
Gaitán was running for the Colombian
presidency when he was assassinated in- Though he ran for president in
1946, at the time of his death, he had
not formally announced his candidacy
in the next presidential race.
Comments drawn from our website
[email protected]
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AT WO O D CHARLES M. BLOW
NOAM CHOMSKY DAVID COLE
MIKE DAVIS ELIZABETH DREW
BARBARA EHRENREICH FRANCES
FITZGERALD ERIC FONER
THOMAS FRANK ALEX GIBNEY
MICHELLE GOLDBERG
AMY GOODMAN CHRIS HAYES
SEYMOUR HERSH MARGO
JEFFERSON DAVID CAY
JOHNSTON NAOMI KLEIN
RACHEL KUSHNER VIET THANH
NGUYEN NORMAN LEAR
GREIL MARCUS JANE MAYER
BILL MCKIBBEN WALTER MOSLEY
JOHN NICHOLS LAWRENCE
O’DONNELL RICK PERLSTEIN
LAURA POITRAS KATHA POLLITT
ROBERT REICH JOY REID
FRANK RICH BERNIE SANDERS
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH EDWARD
SNOWDEN REBECCA SOLNIT
MARGARET TALBOT CALVIN
TRILLIN KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL
YANIS VAROUFAKIS JOAN WALSH
AMY WILENTZ GARY YOUNGE
DAVE ZIRIN
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