Dear Editor,

We are now hearing a great deal about the victims of September 11, 2001, but nothing about justice for them.

A year ago, at the Trade Center site, President Bush correctly identified the proper United States response: bring the killers and those who support them to justice. Now, that job, barely begun in Afghanistan, is stalled in a fog of uncertainty and compromise. A year ago, the president said that those who are not with us are with the terrorists. Now he seeks the approval of the very regimes (like Saudi Arabia) who sanction and finance the killers. What explains Bush's reversal?

The answer is that Bush's correct immediate response has been derailed by his philosophy: Pragmatism. Pragmatism, which has shaped government policies for most of the past century, holds that there are no absolutes, that knowledge of reality is impossible, and that truth is subjective and determined by "experience." If reality is unknowable, by default, one can only base decisions upon the opinions of others. Under Pragmatism consistency becomes a vice and compromise an unlimited virtue. The application of Pragmatism to politics results in politicians willfully choosing "flexibility" over principle, and "world opinion" over national self-interest, and even national survival.

The reality which Bush cannot (or will not) see is that those who are determined to destroy us will not stop until they are properly and consistently punished. If we do not obtain justice for the victims of 9/11, any of us may be victims in the future.

Don and Bernice Richmond

Naples, FL