Life in a loudspeaker.

In "The War Upon Us" (Sept. 25), Richard Brookhiser maintains that the U.S. government must do all it can to "introduce the vexing institution of journalism into the Middle East," on the grounds that it will allay Islamic hatred of the West. While I agree that it is imperative to somehow generate pro-American sentiment in the Muslim world, there is a telling degree of idealism in his argument. Promoting a free press for its own sake is one thing, but in a region whose average person "lives in a loudspeaker that tells him what he wants to hear or what his masters want him to hear," we run the risk that a free press will simply enable the anti-American majority to disseminate its hatred even more effectively.

Anthony Ferguson

Represa, Calif.