Keep streets clean, please - and more letters to the editors

Keep streets clean, please

What gives you the right to think you can blow all your grass trimmings, leaves and dirt into the street? Clean up after yourself like pet owners must. Be clean and green.

BEN KEIM JR.


Syria intervention the right path

The United States bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999 after bypassing the United Nations Security Council in order to stop genocide in Kosovo. A promised Russian veto would have stymied intervention. The current Syrian situation is no different. The Kosovo war is similar to the current standoff about Syria in many ways, the similarities are several. Just like Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Syrian President Bashar Assad is carrying out genocide. Assad actions most closely parallels Milosevic's conduct in Kosovo. Assad's regime has killed over 100,000 Syrians including women and children. His most gruesome offense was his Aug. 21 gas and chemical attacks on the suburbs of Damascus. In citing Kosovo, one makes the valid point that the U.N. is not always the final standard of morality. The use of such weapons of mass destruction, which are a threat to U.S. allies and interest in the region, should be stopped. The Kosovo war ended with partition, still in place today and still patrolled by allied troops and hundreds of thousands of refugees. Even relatively short, successful wars can be messy for a long time. Syria will not be different, but it is the right thing to do.

DR. SAMER SAFADI


Health reform, just a start

When Congress first pondered on how to proceed with health-care for all, it was all about greed. Health insurance companies had too much power and big bucks. If you were already sick or poor, you were just out of luck. Then they hammered out a law with Congress and Obama to cover everyone from Spokane to Tullahoma. Now you can afford to get sick, and what's more, pre-existing conditions don't exist anymore. But this law is not perfect, not even a good compromise, yet it is a glimmer of hope to 40 million pairs of eyes. And to all who are against it, this is the time to forget and forgive. In order to live free, you first have to live.

DAVID CLARK, Tullahoma, Tenn.


Strike in Syria justified

Condemnations of chemical weapons is not something conjured up to justify military action in Syria. There is no country that does not know this. When Syria's Assad regime killed children and adults with gas, they became our children and our citizens. A U.S. president should have stated to congress that there will be a missile strike and if it wants limitations, it has one week to proffer those limitations; the end.

DAVID WOODY, Chickamauga, Ga.

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