Dear Editor,

September 11 exposed our values - good, bad and ugly.

The scenes of September 11 brought our values to the surface -- values that for too long had been buried too deep to find expression -- values shared with the grieving New Yorkers. But soon other values were exposed as well, in scenes that we observed with incredulity.

Scenes such as "peace protesters" abusing servicemen for defending their country -- the country that paid the protesters unemployment benefits -- against dictators who would herd them off the streets and into their armies.

Scenes such as privileged students denouncing the United States for defending a way of life that funded their universities and protected their freedoms from regimes that prescribe dress and behavior according to the dictates of the Koran.

Scenes such as Green politicians piously demanding that we sacrifice our industries, jobs and living-standards to protect endangered species of rodents and lichens, while denouncing the US for going to war to protect its endangered citizens.

Scenes such as media icons using their freedom of the press to malign a mourning United States for its alleged aggression against terrorist-sponsoring countries.

Scenes such as multiculturalists damning Israel, the one tiny island of democracy in the Middle East, for defending itself against a hostile ocean of one-culture, one-religion, one-party states that have vowed to engulf and destroy it.

Scenes such as women's liberationists sliding from the denunciation of sexist language and pap smears, to the denunciation of the United States, blaming it for all the civilian deaths from Manhattan to Baghdad, while remaining mute about the brutal subjugation of women in Islamic states.

Why didn't the peace protesters hurl their abuse at the terrorist murderers and their sympathizers? Why didn't the students condemn the dictators? Why didn't the environmentalists urge the swift elimination of the killers? Why didn't the icons expose the dark-age evil of the theocracies? Why didn't the multiculturalists demand support for the only multicultural democracy in its region? Why didn't the women's libbers raise a cry for the liberation of their sisters living in the Taliban's hell?

Did these people ever value peace, justice, tolerance, truth, rights and love for their fellow person? Or, like the terrorists, were they motivated by malignant antipathy to America and its traditional values of life, liberty, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness on earth?

John Dawson
McKinnon, Australia