Does John Kerry have a chance?

By A reader, On e-mail
12 August 2004, 18:00 PM
I happened to read the article from the gentleman (Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed writes from Princeton, New Jersey) published in your paper. I found his explanation of what happened to the Dean candidacy to be plausible. I sent excerpts from his write-up to some of my friends, with the following post script:

Now, the teflon coating is wearing off and the truth is starting to stick to the pan. I don't know how to discuss the subject without being attacked, but I agree that this country and the western world in general have created their own mess. Why we thought that we could place a reactionary religious conglomeration of tortured Jews back in their ancestral home is beyond me. I think it was to counter the rise of Islamic fundamentalism personified at that time by an Egyptian cleric who was threatening to take over Egypt and the Suez Canal. The repatriation of the Jews at the beginning of the 20th century was ratified by vote of the United Nations after WWII. The details of this movement, the corruption of the Turkish regime that sold parts of Palestine to the Zionists, the persecution, the near destruction of the Jews by the Nazis, the complaints and persistent resistance by the Arabs, and the rest of it are all boiling the soup.