Letters to the Editor

National politics

Deadlines in Iraq hurts troops

Picture this: It’s the third quarter. Your favorite basketball team is miserably behind. The coach is encouraging the team because they are a good team that usually plays well. There have been some injuries and the opponents are tough. The umpires are missing some plays. Your team should not have received some of their bad calls. Some folks are leaving because they think the game is lost and it is over as far as they are concerned. They miss the fourth quarter and the most excitement of the season.

Now, imagine this: An apartment fire. Three fire stations are called. One arrives quickly. There are many people trapped in the building. A couple of firemen are injured badly. The person in charge calls the other two stations to say, “Don’t bother to come. It’s dangerous, and we are going home.”

I’ve seen a few games like I described above. The crowd may leave, but never the players — however dreary it may be. I’ve never seen anything like this with firemen. Remember 9/11? They kept going in, and many never came out.

Like it or not, we are at war. Our faithful heroes are accepting the situation. They volunteered to serve their country and carry out what orders they are given.

To bring them home immediately, or even set a schedule (for the enemy to plan around) is dangerous to them.

If our country leaves as it did during Vietnam, creating chaos and mass killings, do you think our great young people will continue to volunteer for service? Picture this: Some of our most capable, talented young people going to Canada to avoid a draft.

Arlene Noyes

Mountlake Terrace

Fircrest

Fircrest a safety net, not a step back

Fircrest is the proven safety net that should be recognized for the excellent services it is currently providing for youth in crisis. The Fircrest campus has open space, cottage homes with individual bedrooms, skilled nursing homes for the medically fragile, a therapeutic swimming pool and and an adult training program and a workbank. The professional services provided are supported by excellent staff who are committed to the crisis stabilization program. The program is worthy of special recognition. Why does the story, “Disabled youths again being sent to institutions” in the Seattle Times, April 22, 2007, imply that this is a step backwards? Where are the “homes” that would so like to serve the youths, especially when they are in crisis and can be destructive, assaultive and self-abusive. Look around your house and see if you could handle a young person who is driven to run, jump, lash out at both physical items and people. Where was ARC when this program was required because there were no community programs who could deal with the crisis. Many ARC members refuse to visit the Fircrest campus because they choose to hold on to the “institution” negatives. Fircrest is a valuable community resource for people with developmental disabilities. Fircrest is “home” and a “safety net.”

Maria Walsh

Mountlake Terrace

National politics

McCain singing the wrong tune

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain’s recent musical ditty about the joys of bombing Iran was met with laughter in Murrells Inlet, S.C. McCain’s amusing melody about bombing Iran is based on the Beach Boy’s classic “Barbara Ann.”

That a man aspiring to be president or the United States could joke about murdering tens of thousands of innocent Iranians is both disturbing and inexplicable. Of greater concern is that McCain’s impromptu campaign ditty about a murderous bombing raid on Iran wasn’t met with universal U.S. condemnation. The Associated Press exonerated the apparently dangerously disturbed McCain by citing his “quirky humor.”

U.S. citizens should pause and ask just one question. How would we feel if Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameni broke into tuneful merriment and altered the Rolling Stones classic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and injected the word “but if you try sometime you just might find — that you can take out New York.” Would the Associated Press be applauding the Ayatollahs “quirky” sense of humor and would Americans be laughing?

John McCain’s obscene attempt at humor demonstrated that the demonization of Iran is now almost complete. I have yet to read of one White House aspirant ever referring to “Operation Ajax” — the August 1953 CIA coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Massadeq. This CIA coup ushered in two decades of terror, horror and death for thousands of Iranian. This carnage was courtesy of the Shah — our hand picked puppet dictator. Perhaps John McCain can surprise us and adopt another rock and roll classic to outline our role in the August 1953 Iranian tragedy? I can’t imagine which tune the ever-creative McCain would choose to alter, but it’s a safe bet that “Stairway to Heaven” won’t be one of them.

Jim Sawyer

Edmonds

Land use

Rich target mobile home parks

Do you know what is happening to the elderly who live in mobile parks?

The billionaires are buying up all the mobile parks. We as owners have to remove our homes from the property which will cost at least $5,000 and there is nowhere to put them. And the worst is yet to come. We get nothing for our mobile homes!

Please help us. God did not plan it like this!

We will probably end up on the street corners with a hat for a few dollars for food!

Ann Curttright

Lynnwood