LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Where’s outcry on 3 killings?

7/9/2014

Where is the world’s condemnation of the hateful act of the killing of three Israeli teenagers (“Israel finds 3 bodies, says Hamas will pay,” July 1)?

Where is the condemnation from the United Nations, the White House, our members of Congress, Toledo’s mayor and other city officials, and religious leaders in Toledo and across the United States?

Hamas captured these three young men and killed them because they were Jewish. Doesn’t this circumstance sound familiar?

It appears that Israel will retaliate. When it does, it likely will go after members of Hamas. People will get killed. The United Nations likely will condemn Israel as the aggressor. Innocent people have died and will die because Hamas cares little about human life.

DEVORAH SHULAMIT
Black Oak Drive

Iraq lacking in freedom tradition
Why should the United States defend a country with an elected dictator and a boundary that has existed only since the end of World War I (“The changing map of Iraq,” op-ed column, June 19)?

Can Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites work together? Apparently not. Maybe Iraqis can better experience the freedom to live the way they choose if Iraq becomes three separate countries.

For a democracy to work, the first prerequisite is a basic understanding of mutual respect for individual rights. Our nation was founded on the principle of individual rights, and we still are debating how far individual rights are to be protected. Iraq has no tradition of individual rights.

PETE SHAWAKER
Pelham Road

 

How much more can we be fooled?
There is an old saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Consider the Internal Revenue Service scandal, Benghazi, Syria, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release, the Veterans Affairs debacle, and immigration reform. How many more times will President Obama try to fool you and me?

KEN BOROWICZ
Holland, Ohio

 

Clarion needn’t pay for razing
The writer of the July 1 Readers’ Forum letter “Have Clarion pay for razing hotel” said that the owners of the Clarion hotel chain should be handed the bill for the razing of the vacant building. That would be comparable to me selling my house 30 years ago, then the city telling me that I had to fix its roof. That’s not the way this situation works.

LARRY SHANTEAU
Monclova Township