BRT a safety hazard, waste of time, money

Richard Quinn's May 23 letter, "BRT will be well worth it in long run," is off the mark and misses one very important factor: safety.

Take out the alleged traffic improvement and look at one very clear fact: The project will narrow the lanes, thus causing an overhang of buses and other commercial vehicles' mirrors in harm's way of pedestrians. How does that "help" anything?

Another area that Mr. Quinn chooses to acknowledge, but fails to see clearly, is, in his words, accessibility. With narrowing of the lanes, eliminating turning lanes, expanding pedestrian walkways and expected congestion because of the BRT, should a person need EMT services, the accessibility is cut back enough that it could make a difference between life and death for someone.

If we allow the cultivation of this traffic weed, how is someone who supports this BRT faux garden going to explain the increase in hazards and personal injury? How is the planting of pretty vegetation in newly constructed medians going to be beneficial? How is a wider sidewalk for pedestrians that puts them in potential danger a benefit to Waikiki ... to the C&C of Honolulu ... to the state?

BRT is not necessary. It is not feasible. It is not safe. What it is is a waste of time, money, energy and, potentially, a total disregard for safety.

Letter was anti-Semitic and filled with venom

Keith Haugen's May 25 letter scores a perfect Democratic triple play: It is in equal parts anti-American, anti-Semitic and filled with venom for any Republican, including our governor.

Haugen accuses Linda Lingle of supporting "one of the leading terrorists." Which one is it, Keith? This just in: Gov. Lingle is a Republican and she supports President Bush? Stop the presses! Keith, Republicans believe that we are engaged in the War on Terror. Democrats don't. This is not a good reason to choke on your bile.

Keith expresses concern about such remote parts of the world as China, Afghanistan and North Korea but then asks the governor, who just visited Israel, to concentrate on local concerns. The Great Stratego Haugen is erudite enough to establish geopolitical priorities for all of us but the governor should reduce herself to the parochial concerns. Hubris? Logic, Keith?

Iraqi prisoner abuse isn't all that surprising

The official surprise and hand-wringing over emerging patterns of humiliation, torture and sexual abuse by American guards of Iraqi prisoners seems rather naïve.

Use of mercenary interrogators and admitted CIA "breaking" techniques should have been enough warning to Congress, although closer, inexcusable examples of rotting principles have usually been ignored.

Reports of Americans suffering illegal torment in prisons in the United States have circulated for decades.

Revelation of an abusive prison guard subculture on O'ahu a few years ago was thankfully dealt with courageously by our state.

National Public Radio carried serious investigative reports several years ago about prisoner rape in American prisons, based on survivor interviews.

Routine rapes of inmates by prison gangs are alleged, even overlooked or arranged as punishment by guards.

Efforts at prison, police and judicial reform are traditionally dismissed by hard-right taunts of "bleeding-heart liberals" and "soft on crime."

Whether the lack of outraged publicity on these and other authoritarian abuses results from threats by Republican majority politicians against "indecent" and "unpatriotic" news reporting is a question worth considering.

It is probably true that most guards and police are not deliberately abusive, unlike the officers tried in a New York police case notorious for use of a stick to sodomize a Haitian immigrant prisoner.

If authorities tolerate cruelty in an atmosphere where human rights are under near total control, then self-righteousness and a code of silence will soon demonstrate just how deeply power can corrupt.

End punishment of whistleblowers; investigation and action are overdue!

Military powers can also be the terrorists

Marion Cornfield, in a May 27 letter defending acts of Ariel Sharon and Israel, apparently doesn't know that in most areas of the world, the United States of America is also being condemned for starting a pre-emptive war against a people that posed no threat to us.

The U.S.A. is technically a democracy, too, but our leadership has taken a position that we somehow have the right to attack and occupy any country we deem to be ruled by a bad leader. American and Israeli leadership have unfairly given democracy a bad name.

Surveys show that people in 15 countries fear George Bush more than they fear Osama bin Laden, a known terrorist, whose Saudi friends attacked our country on 9/11.

It is a pretty well-established fact that Sharon is in the same category as the Palestinians. The difference is that Israel has WMDs and a huge military force, like the U.S.A., and the Palestinians resort to suicide bombers, like those who have been introduced into Iraq since our victory there. Defenders of Israeli policies do not seem to think that it is terrorism if you use an organized military force.

Horrible photographs shouldn't be shown

I'm aghast that these images of torture and brutality are being aired in public. These shouldn't be seen by anyone, much less be in public where children might see them. These horrible photos are fake anyway; don't believe them. These photos are closely related to sexual activity, a very private decision, and therefore, protected by the Constitution. We have no right to examine people's private acts.

What's that? Iraqi prison photos? No, I was talking about the abortion truck on O'ahu.

City has made traveling to Waikiki unpleasant

Someone needs to address this issue of government-sponsored traffic creation in the Waikiki area.

While this creation happens everywhere in the state, Waikiki is continually being played up by the mayor and his cronies as a place that welcomes kama'aina. And how do kama'aina get to Waikiki? By bus, maybe, but more so by car, and what the DOT and the mayor have come up with is a series of ways to make travel by locals as difficult and as slow as possible.

Take, for instance, the narrowing of Kalakaua Avenue a few years back, which resulted in one less makai lane. Not only did this slow the flow of traffic, but since that one lane was already blocked with buses, delivery trucks, taxis and illegally parked cars, you essentially get just two lanes of flow-through traffic from the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center down past the Duke Kahanamoku statue. Why? Because those aforementioned vehicles sit and block the makai-most lane, particularly in front of the Outrigger East hotel and the Sheraton Moana.

I wonder, do these hotels pay extra to the city and citizens to unload 24 hours a day and block traffic? Some rules are never enforced.

On the opposite side of Waikiki along the Ala Wai, the DOT has found that letting cars park in the mauka lane 24/7 was not only a wise thing, but would obviously slow the flow of traffic, particularly during heavy morning rush hour. What we have now is a crawl of vehicles that never exceed 20 mph (the speed limit is an amazing 35 mph) because they are squeezed down from four lanes to three.

Just another example of your city government at work, making commutes longer, while telling the public that it continues to seek new ways to make traffic better. Amazing, isn't it, how one hand just can't figure out what the other is doing, but that's Hawai'i government at its best. Bravo, Mr. Mayor, you've really made it more attractive for locals to want to flock to Waikiki more often.

I don't need to go into Kuhio Avenue improvements, as there have been numerous letters already, but I will say to the permit division, think before issuing as many use permits that allow Kalakaua to be shut down for any event.

I'll remember them

When I was a child growing up in Chicago in the late '50s and '60s, I don't remember businesses being open on May 31. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that in those days, most of the owners were veterans of World War II, and the war and its dreadful toll on our country were still very fresh in their minds.

Then came the late '60s and '70s, and it seemed that some people thought it was uncool to observe something so establishment as a day set aside to honor this nation's war dead.

Now here we are in the year 2004, and again many of this nation's very best now "lay in fields where poppies grow." Store advertisements blare out to us that "Stores will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. for storewide savings and values," but nowhere on the page does it say anything about why there is a big sale on that most sacred of days for our nation. Not once on any ad I have seen so far is there but the slightest mention of what Memorial Day really is for.

That is very sad.

Yes, I might take my wife shopping today to get in on all those sales, but the morning is reserved to go to Punchbowl to visit Mr. Dick Fisk, World War II veteran and United States Marine who was on the USS West Virginia on Dec. 7, 1941, and who saw the horror of Iwo Jima. I'll remember you, Mr. Fisk, and the millions like you who gave your lives so that I can go shopping on Memorial Day. I'll remember.

God bless you.

A grateful nation thanks you

Dear Honored Veteran,

Anthony Principi

A singular moment in American history, Dec. 7, 1941, remains forever a "date which shall live in infamy." In response to the challenge of that day, you and millions of your fellow countrymen and women marshaled a force for justice unprecedented in the annals of human endeavor. You left your homes, your farms, your factories and your schools to take up arms in the face of tyrannical winds of war blowing across the Earth's continents, oceans and islands.

From Tunisia to the Coral Sea, from Monte Casino to the North Atlantic, from the jungles of Burma to the air over Berlin, from Iwo Jima to Normandy, and all along the home front, American men and women in uniform — whether green fatigues or hospital whites — pressed on selflessly to bring an end to globe-gripping terror.

You met the enemy on battlefields where your boots froze to the winter ground or melted away in the jungle heat; you confronted democracy's adversaries beneath the waves and above the clouds; you took on the opponents of liberty at the very cost of your own freedom — you experienced the brutality of the stalags and the cruelty of Bataan ... and worse. Yet, through it all, you emerged victorious against the evildoers who would never know that taste of victory because Americans stood ready to take up freedom's banner.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 of your countrymen made the ultimate sacrifice upon the altar of freedom, and nearly 700,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines returned home wounded or disabled. In the intervening years, 10 million World War II veterans departed this life and now rest in eternal honor.

By your courage and your fortitude, through your love of peace and your faith in freedom, the enemies of liberty learned on the swift blade of justice that America's citizen-soldiers — men and women — give no quarter to tyrants and bullies.

The same selfless determination and purpose of mission that inspired American GIs to surmount the obstacles of war and build a new peace, inspired you and your comrades to then rebuild America. Your commitment to our country lit an honorable flame that still burns. Today, the torch of liberty, fueled by your selfless sacrifices so many decades ago, shines like a beacon of hope throughout the world.

Now, though you never asked for the words to be spoken, it is time for you to hear America say "Thank you." Thank you for all we enjoy today as citizens of a great and prosperous nation; thank you for a country blessed with a bounty of rights and freedoms that make us unique — and envied — the world over; and thank you for putting your lives on the line for democracy's steadfast principles that are as immutable today as they were at our nation's founding 227 years ago, and as they were 60 years ago when you stood foursquare in their defense.

On behalf of a grateful nation, I salute you.