• Vietnam, Korean wars • Wars’ costs • Peace activists • Mayor’s tax cuts • Ag lands Vietnam, Korean wars A May 7 letter writer blames peace activists for the Vietnam and Korean War outcomes. Perhaps he’s been reading Japanese
• Vietnam, Korean wars
• Wars’ costs
• Peace activists
• Mayor’s tax cuts
• Ag lands
Vietnam, Korean wars
A May 7 letter writer blames peace activists for the Vietnam and Korean War outcomes. Perhaps he’s been reading Japanese history textbooks.
After Red Chinese “volunteers” overran virtually all of Korea, US Military brilliance and will saved half the country. Peace activists had nothing to do with deciding that was the best we could hope for against China in their front yard.
During the Vietnam War, peace activists split the Democratic Party. This led to the fall of one President, the loss of the 1968 presidential election, and the landslide loss of the peace activist candidate in 1972. Richard Nixon did what he wanted, when he wanted to do it, in regards to Vietnam. This included extending the war to Cambodia, destabilizing that country, and opening the door to Pol Pot. Nixon’s stupidity over Watergate brought him down not peace activists. Nixon’s Vietnam decisions, and the voters who gave him that landslide mandate, are a better target for outcome blame.
In his book: “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” Robert McNamara finally confessed what we already knew from other sources; America’s leadership from 1965 – 1975 knew the Vietnam War could not be won…they fought it anyway…for political reasons.
In the Vietnam War alone, 3 million Vietnamese died, 58,000 of my fellow Vietnam Veteran’s names are on a wall, and Pol Pot’s Cambodian Holocaust claimed millions. Not satisfied with these totals, the letter writer thinks it’s a shame we didn’t “stay the course.” That delusion, constitutes the real shame.
Wars’ costs
Regarding Vietnam and North Korea, the reason we did not stay the course until we won the peace and freedom in those two countries was because our military leaders failed to develop a plan to secure victory in the conflict.
After years of spiraling costs and body counts on the American public’s television screens on a nightly basis, the war became very unpopular with most people and our troops were with-drawn.
The failure in Southeast Asia was not the fault of “peace activists.”
I sure hope that we do not continue to lose thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs on a ridiculous war that was started on the premise that we would dismantle weapons of mass destruction even though it was quite clear that there were not any.
Peace activists
It seems that “Peace Activists” are either ignorant of the facts or just don’t like our government in general.
Viet Nam’s Government was already killing their own citizens, and using them essentially for slave labor. Today , after we deserted them, (the Vietnamese), they have a per capita income of about $500. per year. North Korea is still under Communist rule, therefore essentially slaves and without all of the things needed to have a comfortable life.
Meanwhile South Korea is a free society and has a per capita income of around $15,000. per year.
Iraqis were being killed and enslaved by the “Mad Man,” Saddam Hussein, and it would still be on going if it weren’t for our heros, i.e.: the U.S. Military.
So my recommendation to the “so called” peace activists is to become informed about what has and is going on in the rest of the world in regards to the killing and enslaving of other populations. We, the U. S. of A., are the “Good Guys.” That includes the citizens and the government.
So get off of the self-hate band wagon and start rooting for the “Good Guys.”
- Gordon “Doc” Smith
Kapa’a
Mayor’s tax cuts
The Saturday, May 7 front page headline shouts: “Mayor proposes slashing land taxes.” Is that something the taxpayers should rejoice over? Absolutely not! Just more smoke and mirrors from our County Government!
Here’s the Reality Check, looking at the rise in property tax revenue from Calendar Year 2001 to 2005:
- 2002 $41 million (a rise of 8)
- 2003 $47 million (a rise of 15)
- 2004 $56 million (a rise of 19)
- 2005 $73 million (a rise of 30)
The overall rise from calendar year 2001 to 2005 is 92 In other words, the property tax revenue has almost doubled over four years! Where are we headed? There’s not going to be any dancing in the streets, despite The Garden Island headline of May 7, once you look over your tax bills of the last few years. Not just for those in the Homestead Class (owner occupied home); the condo, apartment owners, business and resort owners have all been hit hard. Commercial property owners can, of course, pass the increases to the customers or renters; but not the home owner, despite all the soothing words from your government with all these relief measures that your elected officials brag about.
Not Surprised.
Ag lands
Once again we have to question the sincerity of our elected officials. Throughout the entire recently concluded legislative session the major buzzword was “affordable housing.” Our entire congressional delegation was all for “doing something” to make reasonably priced housing available on our island.
But now that the session is over, what does Ezra Kanoho brag about? He brags about “saving” agricultural lands. And Mina Morita voted against the legislation to “save agriculture” because it didn’t go far enough in restricting private land use.
Anyone with a reasonable amount of common sense should be aware that agriculture will never again be a major industry on Kaua‘i.
We can’t export crops without proper sterilization or radiation, which is non-existent at the current time. Nor are we now, nor ever will be, self sufficient in food. Just compare the quantities of produce found in supermarkets vs. the amounts at farmer’s markets. And even some farmer’s market vendors handle imported items. So what are we “saving” the agricultural lands for?
More to the point, it is obvious that a major stumbling block in the way of affordable housing is the lack of residential land along with restrictive zoning and building codes. In the name of “protecting agriculture,” the legislature has now made it harder to rezone land not currently producing crops for use as affordable house lots. Sure we all want as much open space as possible. We all want Kaua‘i to remain essentially rural. But we need someplace for our people to live as well.
It is the nature of politicians to say one thing and do the exact opposite. That way, they get to please everybody (and nobody). But there needs to be some sort of balance between the extremes. Sad to say, our current crop of representatives does not possess such talents.
