Online readers are able to respond immediately to Star-Bulletin stories through our Web forum, which can be accessed at the end of stories, editorials and columns at starbulletin.com. Below is a selection of forum comments that appeared last week. Most forum contributors use pseudonyms; their “;names”; have been omitted here. 

”;Judge rejects Watada retrial,”; Star-Bulletin, Oct. 22: The war was and is wrong and has cost our nation dearly in blood, treasure and reputation. Ehren Watada made a political statement and he stood by it. He has more courage than I have. He put himself at risk and made the point. Too many have died for nothing.

  -His punishment will be a lifetime of shame knowing that he abandoned his men. Of course, he doesn't realize that now, but when he gets older and wiser he will see that the ones he has to answer to are the man in the mirror (and) the men he abandoned.

  -Watada stood up and has been judged. If more of us took the risk, the illegal actions of the Bush administration would be brought under control.

  -It is sad how the military has caved in to political pressure. And for all you Republicans saying that he should be hired by the Democrats, I know of no Democrat in Hawaii who likes this guy. What he did was wrong. He signed up for this, he made his choice. ... He should get at the very least a dishonorable discharge, and be forced to pay the government back for all the training and anything else he received.

  -”;BOE panel approves 10% cut for libraries,”; Star-Bulletin, Oct. 22: Ah, the wisdom of our leaders. Let's dumb down Hawaii by axing library budgets. Let's show our library-loving students, parents and senior citizens that we don't value books and ongoing education. Library staff and hours have been cut many times in the past. To take a knife to it once again is unnecessary and shortsighted.

  -Shame on our elected officials for squandering the windfall of the recent boom years. Now they want to take away from our children and anyone else depending on libraries. We pay a lot of money in taxes in Hawaii and should be able to expect a certain level of social programs; cutting social services is shameful.

How about a solution: I would not mind paying an annual fee to our library. If each of the 800,000 library card holders pays $5 annually (about $4 million), libraries would be able to continue and maybe even improve services. The problem, of course, would be making sure the same irresponsible spenders in government don't get their hands on the $5.

  -(Gov. Linda) Lingle's time to step down has come. Cutting education budgets and closing libraries contributes to the downfall of any state.

  -Funny, yeah? We have to have a bake sale and donations to keep libraries open.

But the politicians get a 36 percent raise and we'll pay upwards of $7,000 in tax per person for a multibillion-dollar Train To Nowhere. What's wrong with that picture?