Medical pot ruling doesn't make sense

As concerns the medical marijuana decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, I am greatly disappointed. So, we can have medical heroin in the hospices for the terminally ill in great pain and we can have medical morphine on the battlefield for the wounded soldiers, but we cannot have the medical marijuana? I am beginning to think that most of the people in Washington, D.C., are compulsive manure slingers. I have lost faith in the government of the United States. No wonder al-Qaida thinks the United States is corrupt!

Why give them a place to commit crimes?

The man has a point about graffiti ("How about designated areas for graffiti?" Letters, June 4). There should be a place in the islands where people can go and rant with color and call it art.

However, the letter writer did not take it far enough. Perhaps there could be a place in the islands where an avowed arsonist could go and burn buildings down to his heart's content. Perhaps there is a jewelry store that would allow itself to be robbed whenever a robber gets the urge. And let us not forget the rapists, pedophiles, suicides and drug dealers. It would get the drug dealers off the streets of Waikiki if you could set them up with a place in, say, Manoa Valley.

Stop making excuses for antisocial behavior. It is not art, it is not a craft. It is someone who is angry and foolish who decides that your property is their private canvas. Give the malcontents some paper and crayons and a room to play in until they get their heads together. Stop feeding the nonsense that every fool has a right to perform his/her antics with gay abandon.

Support the troops, not the lies

Comparing men and women dying in the line of duty for reasonable and just causes can never be compared to our young troops dying in a war based on deception and false pretense ("U.S. troops in Iraq are not dying in vain," Letters, June 3).

Each one of the now more than 1,160 soldiers killed in Iraq and more then 10,000 more maimed were sent to their fate by an administration "quick to the draw," blinded by their personal interests in oil trade.

If they haven't died in vain, what have the more than 1,160 soldiers died for?

» Democracy? Never in a theocracy.

» For the right to vote? Vote on what? Iraqi citizens are not voting for much more than popular religious mandates.

» Our freedom? Get real. Iraq was never a serious threat to U.S. security. Our sanctions and no-fly zone programs kept Saddam Hussein in check for years after he stopped being useful to us.

The best support a country, or administration, can give to its brave men and women in the armed forces is to make sure that they are called to arms and asked to risk their lives only if and when there are no other reasonable alternatives.

Support our troops by demanding their swift and safe return.

They died not in vain but because of ego

No, they did not die in vain over there in Iraq but they did die foolishly for the whimsy arrogance of one of the most inept presidents of the last 70 years. Let me count the ways:

First, he is the first president in our history who professed an untruth to invade a sovereign nation, stating that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to America. Of course he lied. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

Second, he spurns being part of the United Nations force to deal with Iraq and announces that the United States will go it alone against Iraq. He then launches an ill-conceived, unplanned invasion of Iraq on March 2003 and within months he announces the war is over. Problem is we are still in Iraq and still dying every day and as of this date count 1,663 dead American service personnel since the invasion, and some 12,000 Iraq civilians just in the past 18 months.

They did not die in vain, but rather died at the behest of a commander's misguided ego fostered on not telling the truth.

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