LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Bin Laden burial was offensive?
5/5/2011Your May 2 eBlade article "Bin Laden sea burial violates tradition, Muslim clerics claim" was fascinating. One Muslim cleric was quoted as saying: "[T]he Americans wanted to humiliate Muslims through this burial." Another cleric reportedly said: "[I]t is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea."
Implicit is a demand for an apology. I hope that the United States will never apologize -- in any way, to anybody -- for killing Osama bin Laden or for his burial.
"Almost a crime"? Our collective conscience as Americans should rest easy against that charge, weighed alongside the actual crimes committed by bin Laden. The divide between the West and unthinking Islamists remains as agonizing as ever.
Tony Turley
Leicester Road
Burial decision is commendable
It's amazing that some Muslim clerics could find fault with the efforts of U.S. Special Forces to give Osama bin Laden an Islamic burial at sea. He is our enemy, who killed 3,000 of our people in such a way as to leave nothing for their families to bury.
Surely the clerics recall that his organization's preferred method of executing Westerners is videotaped beheadings.
I commend U.S. Special Forces for attempting to respect bin Laden's religious tradition. I'm sure it was tempting not to do so.
M.F. Walsh
Mallett Street
Respect is insult to those he killed
I do not understand why bin Laden was given a proper burial. After the atrocities he was responsible for, he should not have been given any kind of proper respect or honor for his religious beliefs. The worst possible indignities should have been done to his body to atone for the crimes he has done, not just to America but to the world.
Showing any respect for his body is an insult to the thousands who died on 9/11.
James Wojciechowski
East Lake Street
Pakistan really knew nothing?
To believe that the Pakistani government knew nothing about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden is an obscene notion.
It reminds me of the old story of the piano player in the house of ill repute who said he had no idea what was going on upstairs.
Jerry Chabler
Sylvania
Identifying shooter isn't important
Who the shooter was isn't the point. Osama bin Laden was killed by all the men and women in every branch of the military and from every country that has been searching for him for the past 10 years.
I am proud of them. My heartfelt thanks to them all.
Penney Davenport
Ottawa Lake, Mich.
Hypocritical to celebrate killing
Isn't it the height of hypocrisy for people who would have opposed Osama bin Laden's capture and enhanced interrogation at Guantanamo to celebrate his killing? It's especially ironic because information obtained through enhanced interrogations ultimately contributed to his death.
Alan Kline
Sheraton Road
Is economy really doing better?
The rate of national debt per second is frightening and staggering. Yet we are told that the economy is doing better.
How, then, to explain the dollar dropping in value 8 percent this year? Explain the less-than-projected growth in our nation's wealth, the lack of housing starts, and continued unemployment levels around 9 percent. Explain the rising cost of gasoline, food, and milk.
The Federal Reserve is printing money without financial backing. Our military continues down the path of a new war, with additional costs.
President Obama's hope and change aren't working. He seems to favor socialism.
His slap at capitalism is illustrated by his silence about the National Labor Relations Board's lawsuit against Boeing, which wants to move some of its operations from Washington state to South Carolina, a right-to-work state. The President has effectively eliminated oil jobs in the Gulf of Mexico.
His 2012 budget spends $1.4 trillion more than is projected to come in through taxes. He continues to grow entitlements and the size and scope of government.
John Wieck
Pinestead Road
Trickle-down theory a disaster
In his May 2 Readers' Forum letter, "Taxing rich won't fix deficit woes," a self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative" wonders why rich people who feel they should pay more in taxes just don't pay additional taxes without trying to raise everyone else's.
This writer fails to recognize that he is already paying higher taxes indirectly because of the decline in the dollar's value. It makes absolutely no difference from a currency valuation standpoint whether deficits are created by tax breaks, which mainly benefit the rich, or by higher spending.
The end result is a decline in the value of our dollar and corresponding decline in the purchasing power of the average citizen. Currency devaluation and inflation are basically the same thing.
Small businesses are affected most because they depend upon the average citizen having stable purchasing power.
The tax code, via loopholes, further allows the most wealthy in this nation to avoid taxation. Warren Buffett made the comment that he paid less in taxes as a percentage of his income than his secretary did.
Our tax code also allows hedge-fund managers who make billions to pay only 15 percent in federal taxes. As a percentage of income, the poor pay more in overall taxes when you take into account sales and payroll taxes, which are unavoidable.
People in the middle class need to realize that trickle-down economics has been a disaster. They are indirectly taxed by its impact.
Deficits created by ill-structured or lobbyist-driven tax cuts create the same inflation and purchasing-power decline for the middle class as do deficits created by overspending.
Todd Smyth
Maumee
Proving birth status is simple
It's amazing that we have concerns about President Obama's birth certificate 2 1/2 years after he was elected President ("Citizenship issue: Plea to shift Obama case heard by panel," May 3).
Several years ago, I was set to enter my children in a track meet in Lima, Ohio. One of the requirements was to show proof of age with copies of my children's birth certificates. It was a reasonable request.
So why do we allow individuals to run for public office without proving that they are eligible to serve? Doesn't it make sense that anyone who runs for political office -- and by all means president of the United States -- should be required to prove that he or she is eligible?
If the law states that someone must be a U.S.-born citizen and of a certain age to be eligible to run for president, why would we just take that person's word for it?
Donald Trumbull
Oregon
Storms forgotten for 'Royal Match'
"A Royal Match" -- really? Is that the biggest story you could come up with on your April 30 front page after the storms that swept through the South?
I realize that people were interested in the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, but I think the loss of life and property is much more important.
The tornadoes are old news unless you happen to be one of the people who lost everything, even a relative or friend.
Ronald Thompson
Sylvania
A solution to high gasoline prices
What's the solution to high prices at the pump?
Extract all the hot air from our politicians. That would solve our gasoline problems for the next century.
Wendy Merlo
Sylvania