Mike Hahn's article in remembrance of Sept. 11 ("Remembering 9/11") is unfortunately marred by an ethnocentrism that ultimately undermines the very cause he seeks to advance. Hahn asserts that the memory of the anguish the nation felt on Sept. 11 has been lost and that its recovery is necessary to win the War on Terror.

What he ignores, however, is the fact that our War on Terror regularly brings the kind of terrorism we faced for one day to people around the world every day of their lives. Since we invaded Iraq, over a million Iraqis have died as a result of our occupation. In Afghanistan, citizens live with the daily reality of NATO airstrikes, random detentions and the Orwellian Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, called by the United Nations "the most misogynist department in the world." Meanwhile, our ally Israel subverts the democratically elected government of Palestine and uses collective punishment to terrorize a society into submission.

Mr. Hahn's promotion of these policies misses entirely the real lesson of Sept. 11. The pain we felt on that day should not, as he suggests, be used to provide resolve for such policies. It should, on the contrary, give us all the more reason to abolish them.

Paul Heideman
Graduate Student
Afro-American Studies