Extended duty isn't fair to U.S. troops

How many double or triple Iraqi tours of duty will our Kaneohe Marines have to do? Isn't one more than enough?

It's time to think about fairness. It's time for all the politicians who planned this fiasco to send their kids to war.

Perhaps if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's kids were in Iraq, the Humvees, guns and other needed equipment would be top of the line.

Draft is not a popular word, but it is time to stop expecting so much from the brave men and women (some of them just kids!) who make up our volunteer armed services.

Abercrombie keeps up anti-war reputation

Once again, Rep. Neil Abercrombie has shown his true colors. He and several other congressional representatives have demanded that President Bush remove our military from Iraq by 2006. By giving our enemies a timetable as to when they can expect us to leave, it tells them when to build up their forces and make a move to take over the newly elected democratic government in Iraq.

If Abercrombie thinks that by telling our enemy when would be a good time to destroy all the work that the military has done and to sacrifice for nothing all the lives that have been lost, he should resign from the House Committee on the Armed Services. Oooops, he can't do that; then he couldn't appropriate all that money for military spending in Hawaii. I think he's made his decision.

U.S. needs tariffs to sustain jobs

According to a story on Page C3 in the June 23 Star-Bulletin, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, discussing China, told "Congress that protectionist measures won't save U.S. jobs."

Yet, a Page C7 headline says "Chinese firms on overseas buying binge." Takeover targets of the cash-rich companies have included IBM, Unocal and Maytag. This article describes our dangerous situation in considerable detail. So, where has China gotten the money for these and other takeovers? From the enormous debt we owe for their yuan-subsidized industrial products.

Alexander Hamilton supported tariffs on manufactured goods from England in the 1790s. By 1830, we had tariffs as high as 40 percent for a full century, which allowed us to create our own industries. New tariffs would protect U.S. jobs as well as tech- nology and manufacturing.

Hawaii can learn from sister city Hainan

I am sure your readers appreciated the feedback from our governor in her "Far East Journal" during her travels in China. As to the objective of developing more business contacts, perhaps some time should have been spent on the island of Hainan, Honolulu's sister city.

Hainan is the "Hawaii of China." It is tropical and has the same geographic latitude as our own. It has beautiful sandy beaches in the south and is heavily dependent on tourism. Many streets are lined with palms, and "made in China" aloha shirts can be seen on the streets and on hotel workers.

But one cannot ignore the differences. Some of these are the use of local natural resources. The packaging and processing of local foods is something that Hawaii can learn from. This includes all the tropical fruit that we ignore in Hawaii, such as pineapple, durian, rabutan, papaya, jackfruit, and the list goes on.

Coconut deserves special mention since it is practically ignored here but highly developed in Hainan. The shells are used as raw material for carving, and the dehydrated coconut milk is nicely packaged for easy transportation. In Hawaii we still import coconut milk from Asia.

Their tourism industry can perhaps learn something from us. It is a market that isn't fully developed. Tourists from population centers in China are no more than two hours away, unlike Hawaii where major markets are more than five hours away. The fact that the China market is four times that of the United States should deserve some attention from Hawaii.

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