Letters to the Editor
What gives the U.S. the right to bomb Iraq?
In reference to the ongoing U.N. inspections in Iraq: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently stated, "The fact that the inspectors have not yet come up with new evidence of Iraq's (weapons of mass destruction) program could be evidence in and of itself of Iraq's non-cooperation."
So, if the U.N. inspectors find evidence of weapons of mass destruction, we go in and bomb Iraq. If the inspectors don't find sufficient evidence, we go in and bomb them anyway. All the while, we have the right to be armed to the teeth and use our own weapons of mass destruction against another country, including its innocent civilians.
Why do we get to make global decisions about who has to disarm and who gets to remain heavily armed? Is it simply because we are bigger, better and wealthier and, after all is said and done, might makes right?
It reminds me of the arrogant, swaggering school-yard bully who terrorizes the smaller kids. Or maybe it's more like domestic violence on a global scale. It's a similar posture to that of the Roman Empire before it finally fell.
Is this really the example of conflict resolution we want to teach our children? Is it the way we want other nations to deal with their enemies as well?
Norman E. Gibson
War forced on whom?
I strikes me that President Bush's phrase "if war is forced upon us" would be more appropriately spoken by Saddam Hussein.
David Bailey
Common sense says Iraq will use its arms
I support President Bush on Iraq. Some people think they have better information than our intelligence agencies and see a conspiracy. Maybe giving the public the "smoking gun" evidence will put our sources at risk.
Iraq has never complied with the U.N. mandates it signed. Iraq has chemical and biological agents that are unaccounted for, which means it has them hidden. Saddam has used them before, so common sense says he would use them again or give them to people who would. To me, this enough to go into Iraq.
Even the U.N. weapons inspectors' report is critical of Iraq and its lack of cooperation.
As for the people who worry about our military men and women, I share your concern. As a former paratrooper, my main job was to protect this country from our enemies. When I joined, I knew the risks just like everyone in the military now does. Because we volunteered, we expected the risks. So support them, because the biggest morale buster is when they feel the people don't appreciate their sacrifices.
Christian Ogawa
Lihu'e, Kaua'i
'No war with Iraq' crowd lacks answers
I'm tired of reading letters from the "no war with Iraq" crowd. They advocate a peaceful solution to the disarmament problem, but don't say how.
How do you disarm someone who won't do so peacefully? They want to give the U.N. inspectors more time but forget that the U.N. has had over 10 years to address the problem. They failed and only want to do more of the same.
They say that 54 percent of Americans oppose the war. Nice percentage, but whose poll is it and how was the question asked?
And most of all, they forget that America is already at war, and has been since Sept. 11, 2001.
Iraq is the target this time because Saddam Hussein lends direct support to world terrorism. Do you doubt that assertion? He just paid $15,000 to Palestinian families of suicide bombers in Israel. He did that on TV, broadcast internationally. And that's only the part that Saddam is willing to have us see.
To quote a sign held by a pro-war demonstrator at the Washington, D.C., rally last week, "Pacifists are the Parasites of Freedom."
Eric Terashima
Hilo
Don't blame Republicans for racial insensitivity
Donald Koelper's recent letter berates Republicans for racial insensitivity for derisive comments one Republican politician made of an African American and seemingly pro-Confederate actions of two others. Naturally, racially derisive remarks should be condemned, but criticism of one person is not criticism of a party.
Furthermore, why is the charge selectively made only to Republicans? What about Democratic senators who had membership in the Ku Klux Klan, advocated flying the Confederate battle emblem, etc.?
The Republican Party was specifically founded to free African Americans from slavery. Its early members helped slaves escape, while the pro-slavery South solidly supported the Democrats. A Republican president ended slavery.
Mistreatment of blacks in the Jim Crow era was confined to Democrat-controlled areas. A Republican chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, ended government-enforced segregated schooling of blacks that the solidly Democratic-controlled states practiced.
A Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, ordered the National Guard to enforce an African American girl's right to enter her chosen school over a Democratic governor's adamant refusal and order to police to deny her entry because of her race. Lynching occurred in solidly Democratic areas.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act passed because of the efforts of the Republican Senate Majority Leader Everett Dirksen, with 82 percent of Republicans and only 31 percent of Democrats in support.
Walter F. Wild
Waimanalo
Clean up the problems at home, not overseas
Senate President Robert Bunda, in his address to the 2003 state Senate, amazed me when he said, "Clearly, our economic problems are largely the result of forces beyond our shores."
He should know better than any other senator that Hawai'i's economic problems are much closer to home: They sit right behind the koa desks in state government offices, and they are the executives who pay the contractors twice when buying goods and services for the state. Eliminating these executives would result in more state revenues, besides making the state government cleaner to look at.
To prove how colossal and well-organized Hawai'i's problem has been, I might remind Sen. Bunda about the aborted hearing at the Senate Transportation Committee to request the director of the Transportation Department to justify his decision about the Honolulu International Airport taxi concession. The director chose the contractor who offered $1.5 million, while our $3.3 million offer was rejected.
The hearing was canceled at the last minute by the Transportation Committee chairman, who pretended that we had sued the DOT, therefore the issue was for the judiciary to decide. We did not sue the DOT or its director, who, later, was allowed to resign. The contract winner with the lower offer is now delinquent by $670,000. The state lost $2,470,000.
Sen. Bunda may want to look at the local economic problems, which are repulsive but remediable, rather than looking at the problems that are beyond our shores and our reach to remedy.
Thinh Nguyen
President, Honolulu Cabbies Association
Shipping cleaner than transportation ashore
The Advertiser's editorial page for Jan. 27 displays your editorial on cruise ships alongside Cliff Slater's "Second Opinion." The first gives grudging support for expansion of U.S. flag cruise ship visits, and the latter denigrates public transportation in favor of more roads for automobiles.
In point of fact, ships in general and cruise ships in particular cause far less harm to Hawai'i's environment than any form of land transportation — cars, buses or trucks. It would take one-tenth the energy and far less pollution to load a car, bus or truck on a ferry in Hawai'i Kai or 'Ewa and ship it downtown offshore than to drive it there.
According to a National Science Foundation study, ships use 500 British thermal units per ton per mile, while cars, buses and trucks use 5,000. This doesn't even consider the harm caused by building the highways, rather than opting for open space ashore and the use of marine mass transit offshore.
Scott Allen
Kailua
Let's test everybody
If our state officials are going to violate the student body (as it were) and trample personal privacy anyway, why don't they test the parents for drug use while they're at it? Then test the teachers. And principals. And BOE members. And legislators ... oh, wait, now that's just ridiculous.
Raoul Gutenpfennigen
Mililani
Hospitals still have to address problems
I couldn't agree more with Baron Ching's comparison of the flying "replacement" nurses with the kolea (Letters, Dec. 31). Here's another analogy for you:
Picture a group of ostriches with their heads buried in the sand. There you have the directors, officers and trustees of these hospitals. People think the ostrich is hiding its head in the sand because it is frightened. Actually, the ostrich is rearranging its eggs. Perhaps, like the ostrich, these administrators are just too concerned with their own personal nest eggs that they cannot get their heads out of the sand.
I would suggest they do so, however, and start to deal with the problems of their hospitals. Ignoring these problems will not make them go away.
Lynne Dubiel, R.N.
The Queen's Medical Center
Who says the doomed have to live in agony?
Regarding James Roller's Jan. 21 sanctity-of-life letter: What gives him the right to tell me I must live with pain and suffering from a disease that is eating me alive — a disease for which there is no cure? Why must I live in agony while he sits on his high horse telling me what I can and cannot do for myself?
All you who use God as an excuse forget one thing: "God" gave us a free will to make our own decisions.
I hope one day you have to sit by your parents' bedside and listen to them cry in pain, asking to be put out of their misery.
Ross Kuhnle
Pahoa, Big Island
Parole violation closely weighed
The Jan. 20 letter by M.C. Hoggatt recounting the experiences with the criminal justice system and the resulting criticism raises some questions.
On the face of it, according to the background and nature of the crime committed, it is incredible that a judge would impose a prison sentence for a crime of such a trivial nature such as tampering with an electric meter. Normally, a case such as this would qualify for, and be classified as, an Adult Probation case.
The proof of this is seen in the more than 10,000 Adult Probation cases being supervised statewide — many of which are far more serious offenses. Obviously, the judge's decision must have been based on additional circumstances, most likely because of previous brushes with the law.
The Hawai'i Paroling Authority should have been praised for releasing this individual early instead of imposing a longer term. Instead, the writer laments the fact that he could conceivably be returned to prison for a minor parole violation, such as being cited for a traffic ticket.
The reality is that if every parolee was returned to prison for minor infractions, there would be no parolees available to supervise. Parole violation warrants are issued only when there is no other alternative to misbehavior.
As far as the concerns recently expressed by The Advertiser for the intensified police search for 374 parole violators with the resulting increase in prison overcrowding, I believe most of these warrants are old and the probability is extremely high that the majority of these individuals have left our jurisdiction to live their lives in other states, in effect exiling themselves.
We do not issue national warrants for parole absconders except for the most serious cases — for the financial reason that it costs several thousand dollars to send two police officers to the Mainland to escort the prisoner back and also because of the lack of prison space. Do not expect 374 parole violators to be returned to prison in the near future.
In my experience with the criminal justice system, judges, the Hawai'i Paroling Authority and probation and parole officers for the most part do exercise fairness, restraint and compassion even toward criminal offenders, knowing full well that we are all human beings, some more flawed than others and in some instances may require help more than retribution.
Edwin S. Uyehara
Parole branch administrator (retired)
