Letters To The Editor

PEACEKEEPING MISSION

Spend that money at home

What’s a few hundred billion dollars one way or another? That’s what it will cost the American government to send a peacekeeping force to Bosnia for a year.

How can the government arbitrarily spend that money when we look around our own country and see the elderly eating dog food because that’s all they can afford?

Just $1 billion could do a lot to set up temporary homeless shelters across the country. It’s about time we start taking care of our own people on American soil. Let the Europeans take care of the problems on their continent.

What bothers me most is, what gives our draft-dodging president the right to jeopardize one American life in a holy war that’s not our problem? Our fearless leader left the country during the Vietnam conflict and now he’s sending Americans to “keep the peace.” We shouldn’t have been in Vietnam, we showed the warlords in Somalia, and now we are going to make everything right in Bosnia - What’s wrong with this picture?

I urge each of you to call your congressman and the president to oppose spending your tax dollars and risking American lives in Bosnia or any other foreign country. Let’s take care of Americans first. Tom Zenahlik Hayden Lake, Idaho

Target warmongers, not countries

We Americans have learned, via the media, that nations attack other nations, that certain countries create worldwide problems. Is that necessarily true?

Why are we so generic about nations when, in reality, such ideas, thoughts and concepts arise in the minds of individual men?

If our President, in his thinking, determines that we should send troops into Bosnia, Somalia or Haiti, is he expressing the will of the American people? Should the headlines read, “America sends troops…”? Would it not be more correct to say “The president of the U.S. sends troops…”? Did Germany and the German people wage war, or was it Hitler and his clique that raised havoc?

It’s imperative for people worldwide to identify the specific individuals who think these violent thoughts and remove them from power or there will never be anything resembling world peace. Which generation will accomplish this major objective? Earl G. Fox Spokane

President’s case ‘so much nonsense’

President Clinton’s address, trying to sell the idea of sending 20,000 ground troops to Bosnia, was interesting only in that it compressed so much nonsense and “try not to smile” insincerity into such a short space in time.

The worst part was where he admitted “there will be American casualties,” but that’s OK because they will die for peace in some imaginary “global village” - a peace the dead will probably not also enjoy.

American values, contrary to what our president believes, are things like representative government, under law and by the “consent of the governed.” These are alien concepts to the United Nations, which is, unfortunately where our president’s opinions originate. He’s, therefore, going to send troops, “with or without” the consent of Congress, because he shares the U.N. view that American lives are secondary to any of the U.N.’s flip-a-coin policies.

He mentioned American leadership, as if we had a right to impose such a thing on other peoples, and how the U.S. isn’t the world’s (or the U.N.’s) police force. So, logically, we are sending 20,000 to “protect and serve” in Bosnia.

It’s sad that we haven’t yet figured out that “peacekeeping forces” is an oxymoron, or that American so-called shows of force always generate more alienation than respect, sooner or later. J.C. Ellefson Chelan, Wash.

Spare soldiers until after Christmas

I am a lifetime resident of a small town in North Idaho. This is my Christmas wish: That President Clinton does not deploy the U.S. soldiers in Germany to Bosnia until at least the day after Christmas.

I have a special reason. My beautiful 20-year-old blonde, blue-eyed daughter is one of those soldiers, Spec. Sarah Wilhelm. Sarah took an oath to protect the United States almost three years ago. Sarah will be 21 on Christmas Eve.

I don’t agree at all to putting these kids in the middle of a religious war that has been going on for generations. Of course, I’m sure my opinion is of little interest to the president.

Let these kids sit down together and have a Christmas dinner and prayer in peace before sending them off to “keep the peace” in a faraway land. Linda Wilhelm McTighe Post Falls

President more wrong than usual

So, we’re about to experience another no-win Democratic adventure. This time, in Bosnia.

It’s one thing for slick Willie to insist that the taxpayer isn’t paying enough for deadbeats and nonessentials, but it’s quite another to send sons, fathers and husbands to stand between three warring factions that not only hate each other, but hate Americans as well.

Has our president gone mad? Where does he get his moral authority for this outrage, having run to England and Russia to avoid standing between warring in North and South Vietnam?

He tells us he made a promise, so it’s time for Europe to find out what we’ve known all along. That is, if Clinton said he was the world’s greatest liar, you still wouldn’t believe him.

Congress, just say no by withholding funds for Billie Boy’s ego trip to the Balkans with American flesh, blood and money. Ken Orr Rathdrum, Idaho

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Bill seeks end of U.S. in U.N.

Information few Americans are aware of is that a bill was introduced into the House in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 25 that would withdraw the United States from the United Nations.

The measure was sponsored by Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) and co-sponsored by 11 others, including Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho). House Resolution 2535 bears the short title of United Nations Withdrawal Act of 1995. Its provisions would take full effect four years after enactment.

Not later than three years from the date of enactment, the U.S. secretary of state would notify the U.N. of U.S. withdrawal.

The bill provides that over three years, beginning with the first fiscal year after enactment, U.S. appropriations for most U.N. functions and institutions would be reduced by 25 percent a year. Funds for peacekeeping would be frozen at 1995 levels. Such funding would end four years after enactment and no funding for American military support of U.N. peacekeeping operations would subsequently be provided.

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) would be phased out over four years and the U.N. would be asked to move its headquarters out of the U.S.

This is the first time in 50 years that the American people have had a chance to have any say about U.S. taxpayers’ money being spent on all the U.N. busy-body projects or all the problems the U.N. causes.

Let your legislators, family and friends know how you feel about it. You may never get the chance again. Betty J. White Tonasket, Wash.

Dismantle government, avoid penury

I strongly disagree with Fred J. Meyer’s Nov. 24 letter (“We replaced Foley for this?”). He said “it was a responsibility of the federal government to ensure full employment.”

The federal government can’t employ anyone until they’ve extorted the money from the private sector. The government has such a large bureaucracy that it’s threatening to collapse and crush us all.

Meyer said “myriad other federal programs brought us out of the deepest depression in our history and into its longest period of prosperity.”

I submit the federal programs prolonged the Depression. The war forced us into deficit spending, high taxes and a false prosperity. The country is about to collapse from this tax-and-spend philosophy.

We have to understand that the government isn’t productive. It siphons money from the private sector and uses most of it very foolishly.

We must shrink the federal government and cut federal taxes to give the states the ability to perform any needed government functions. So far, the Republicans are taking very tiny steps toward this goal. They’ve got to do better than this, but I don’t know if they have the stretch to buck the loud complaints of people on government handouts, including senior citizens.

If we continue as we are, soon, 82 cents of every dollar will go to taxes. That leaves 18 cents for living expenses.

If we don’t have the courage to make some sacrifices now, start teaching your children how to live under a dictator. Winifred Edwards Greenacres

Editor’s note: The federal Full Employment Act of 1946 requires in part that the president recommend policies to promote “maximum employment, production and purchasing power.”

ENVIRONMENT

Summer river flow at ‘natural’ level

This letter is in response to Julie Titone’s Nov. 29 article regarding operation of the outlet dam at Priest Lake.

The article includes a statement that operation of the dam since 1951 has cut late-summer Priest River flow in half. Whoever gave your writer this information isn’t correct.

The dam is operated to maintain the lake at a constant elevation during the summer. To accomplish this, whatever water flows into the lake must be passed downstream. Therefore, the river flows are the same as the natural flow in the river as if the dam wasn’t in place. The only way to increase summer flows above the natural condition would be to release stored water and lower lake levels.

The existing fishery in the river is receiving the same flows in the summer as it always has in the past. This fishery has survived during low flows before and after the dam was constructed. Kenneth T. Coffman Newport

Bear protection unnecessary

Grizzlies are not endangered or threatened.

How can they be endangered when there are thousands of them in the United States, if you consider Alaska in the United States? There are thousands more in British Columbia and Alberta.

These biologists and wildlife “experts” who are meddling with nature and our right to use these public lands have created very cushy jobs for themselves.

It would be interesting to know how many thousands of dollars Wayne Kasworm has spent chasing one moldy old grizzly sow around the Cabinet Mountains for the past several months.

The environmentalists pulled a hoax when they put the loggers in Oregon and Washington out of work because of the endangered spotted owl. The owl was never in danger of becoming extinct. There were hundreds of pairs of them up and down the coast. Now it’s the grizzly and people in the East are being fed the same tripe. Just because we only have eight or nine in Lincoln County is not reason to claim they’re endangered.

Any grizzly that ever wandered down into Montana from Canada was always considered protected and it was never considered necessary to close off sections of public land.

The people living out here who can see this needless and expensive meddling with nature must begin letting Congress know the truth. Dolene Spencer Libby, Mont.

THE MEDIA

Arab stereotyping a disservice

Milt Priggee’s Nov. 30 editorial cartoon, concerning the debate over increasing highway speed limits, did a disservice to millions of American Muslims and Arab-Americans.

The cartoon showed an Uncle Sam angel in verbal competition with a hook-nosed, kafiyeh-clad (a kafiyeh is a head covering worn by some people in the Middle East), pitchfork-carrying “devil.” This type of crude, race-based caricature wouldn’t be allowed if it referred to any other religions or ethnic group. Why don’t Muslims and Arabs register on The Spokesman-Review’s sensitivity radar?

If anyone wishes to examine the accumulated impact of this stereotyping, they may request a copy of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ “A Rush to Judgment” national hate crimes report. The report details more that 200 incidents of anti-Muslim threats, harassment, property damage and physical assaults resulting from unfounded links between Muslims and the Apr. 19 terrorist attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Ibrahim Hooper Council on American-Islamic Relations, Washington, D.C.

Autopsy request not a witch hunt

In reference to your news item of Nov. 25, “Amend on a ‘witch hunt,”’ I wish to protest your use of the term “witch hunt.”

Since when is a thorough autopsy wrong or unscientific? Who wants, in this case, to hide something?

I wouldn’t care if Kenneth Montgomery died outside this county or even outside this country. His statement wasn’t newsworthy, in my opinion. Lucille Anderson Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

A $400 wage cut should suffice

Three cheers for the striking Teamsters of Broadview Dairy. How many other people in Spokane have the nerve to stand up to Don Barbieri and Art Coffey?

Coffey continually stresses that he’s offered a package worth $19.80 to these employees. What he fails to point out, if you add up the numbers, is that it’s nearly a 15 percent overall cut for these workers.

He mentions a partial matching of 401K funds, but do you think any of these folks are going to be able to afford 401K funds after their wages are cut by $600 a month ($360 of retirement, $120 of wages and $120 in medical)? Let’s get real, Coffey. How many middle income people in Spokane can afford to lose $600 per month?

Broadview Dairy workers are willing to take a $400-per-month drop in wages, in order to keep their union benefits intact. Coffey states his intent isn’t to break the union.

Come on, Coffey, start bargaining in good faith and get these guys back to work. Mary Bosaaen Spokane

Join with others to make your case

Citizens of Washington state have placed their trust in the Fish and Wildlife Commission. As a commission member, I don’t underestimate implications of the successful passage of Referendum 45.

This short-term success must be followed by extraordinary efforts to secure a future for Washington’s fish and wildlife resources. The commission welcomes public input from divergent interests.

This isn’t just about hunting and fishing, but involves long-term decisions that benefit fish and wildlife and all those who value it.

I encourage all who want to be involved in the future management of fish and wildlife to join an organization that best reflects your philosophy of natural resource management. The commission will always listen to individuals, but real progress can be made when coalitions of interested individuals provide a collective vision and their collective support.

I welcome the trust you have placed in the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission. Dean Lydig, commissioner Spokane