Letters to the Editor

Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan needs clear goal

In regard to the March 17 Opinion piece, "Rethink the Afghanistan surge": I appreciated author Eric Olson's warnings about the impending troop surge in Afghanistan. What seemed like a plausible answer to the problems in much-neglected Afghanistan is now appearing more and more to be simply a political move to look "tough on terrorism" without well-defined goals.

As we should have learned by now, missions without clear objectives tend to get "accomplished" long before they are finished, while careful and concerted efforts targeting a range of problems yield significant and tangible results.

Nuanced and deeply reasoned thinking is essential in cases like this; simple solutions to complex problems will inevitably fail.

Rush Cosgrove
Dillon Beach, Calif.

Why are newspapers failing?

In regard to the March 16 article, "Newspapers' troubles escalate in recession": The media have had such a focus on the bottom line that they have forgotten their primary mission in a democratic society: to investigate, find the truth, and publish it. Perhaps if newspapers had done their job in the last decade – real investigative reporting – they would have been more popular and sold many more copies. I think their bottom line would have been different.

Dona Dailey
Miami

I've been a newspaperman for more than 50 years (working as a metro reporter, editor, and publisher). My peers and I could see the downfall of newspapers coming when their stockholders started demanding record-high profits – 30 percent was the admired goal. Complicitous newspaper CEOs accommodated the demand with newsroom cuts – reporters, columns, staff travel. Just as surely as Wall Street was aided by indifferent government watchdogs in bleeding the stock market dry, newspapers were early victims of this rapacious behavior by willing newspaper CEOs and speculators.

Pat Murphy
Ketchum, Idaho

Vouchers help poor students

Regarding the March 16 Opinion piece, "School vouchers leave too many children behind": I admire parents who use vouchers or any other means they have to improve the quality of their children's education. Some children benefit from school vouchers. Their families are committed and overcome the many added burdens of sending their child to a school outside their neighborhood. For this, I commend them. By so doing, they are improving the overall education level of their communities, with the added benefit of their children being able to continue on to a higher level of education than may have previously been possible and, as an adult, being able to earn a higher wage.

L.A. Kimball
Fremont, Calif.

Higher taxes on the rich hurt all

Regarding the March 16 column, "Obama budget: restoring income equality in the US?": This commentary is little more than the tired old exploitation-of-class-envy arguments that high-tax proponents like to use to justify their real objective, which is to redistribute income in a way that suits their sense of "fairness."

Tilting our already steeply inclined income tax rates to squeeze even more money out of high-wage owners doesn't produce more income, but it does punish the successful risk-taking job- and wage-creating entrepreneurs willing to work hard and risk capital in a manner that benefits many workers.

George Warren
Warrenton, Ore.

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