China’s COVID war
Regardless of the recent COVID-19 outbreak and strict quarantine measures there, China’s authorities have, overall, handled the pandemic in their nation pointedly (“Shanghai’s COVID misery drags on,” April 19).

I couldn’t help but notice how China’s strict handling of its own outbreak, while allowing few rights and freedoms to its people (and maybe even internal/external big business), likely enabled a relatively short duration of its initial crisis.

However, many Chinese citizens have tasted and enjoyed samples of freedom’s sweetness, either through trans-Pacific travel or Western images missed by China’s Internet censors. It’s potentially problematic for China’s authoritarian government that those samples cannot be un-experienced.

Perhaps with greater democratic freedom can come weaker national security, and vice versa. While I wouldn’t exchange my (Western) freedom, it is still foolish to pretend a national-security sacrifice isn’t being made in exchange.

Frank Sterle Jr.
White Rock, Canada

Joe’s 2024 hopes
I read in The Post that President Biden confided in former President Barack Obama that he plans to run for re-election in 2024 (“A Biden Win in 2024: Dems in Dreamland,” W. James Antle III, April 21).

This has to be the height of chutzpah. Biden has done more damage to our country in 15 months than any other president did in a full term. Besides, his cognitive decline is obvious to anyone who watches him.

The reason Joe wants to run again is that he believes he is the only one who can defeat former President Donald Trump, whom he feels will be his opponent in the next election.

The president’s approval rating is now below sea level, and hopefully Trump will be back in the race. But in the unlikely scenario that he would be facing Biden, the result could put Joe where he should be — in an assisted living facility.

Warren Goldfein
Mount Arlington, NJ

In-flight faith show
As a non-believer and a secularist, I would find a religious takeover of any flight I am on offensive (“Omar in ‘prayer’ air rage,” April 19).

I don’t want to be subjected to Christian hymns, church sermons and services, Hindu incantations, Buddhist chants or Muslim prayers directed at Mecca in the aisle of a plane carrying me to my destination. I don’t care what conservatives say.

Religious people, keep it private. Keep it at home. Rep. Ilhan Omar is right. If there had been a mid-flight, imam-conducted Muslim prayer service on the same easyJet flight, the conservative Christians of this nation would have had a collective cow.

Do unto others as you would have done unto you. The un-Christian and uncharitable denigration of Omar for the legitimate question she posed tells me that Christian extremism is alive and well.

Usha Nellore
Bel Air, Md.

Iran insanity
President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are locked in a terribly misguided “negotiation” to restore the Iran nuclear deal (“Iran puts Israel on notice,” April 19).
If concluded, this deal would release billions to Iran and enable the production of nuclear arms, further destabilizing the Middle East.

Biden and Blinken have ignored that Iran refers to Israel as a “tumor” and has repeatedly threatened the destruction of this tiny democracy.

Make no mistake: This fool’s errand, if successful, will end with massive death and destruction, given the shift in the balance of powers.

Thomas Birnbaum
Manhattan

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