What is motivation of Hamas fighters?
Some contrasts are so jarring as to demand explanation. Among these are the contrasts depicted by, on the one hand, nearly a year-and-a-half of photos showing the massive destruction of Gaza and the suffering of its people, most of whom have been uprooted and are now living in tents. On the other hand, recent photos showing the release of Israeli hostages also show lines of Hamas fighters, apparently fit and well-fed, dressed in spotless uniforms and carrying modern weapons. The message? While the Gaza civilian population ekes out survival in the midst of ruin, the Hamas organization seemingly thrives despite more than 15 months of combat with Israel’s forces.
Who is funding Hamas? Had it laid down its weapons and missiles many months ago and released its hostages, would the people of Gaza have been spared the nearly total destruction of their homeland? And most significantly, and mostly ignored in all the reporting, what is it which motivates the Hamas organization and its fighters? What motivates them to the extent that they are willing to sacrifice their homes, their women and their children? This is the real story behind the jarring contrast in the photos.
Gary Lindley
Lookout Mountain, Georgia
Trump to employ shock troops soon?
On his first day in office Donald Trump granted pardons to more than 1,500 people who followed his orders to attack the U.S. Capitol and disrupt the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. They smashed their way into the building, breaking windows and doors, and using tasers, clubs, bear spray, and other weapons on the guards and police officers standing in their way. They smeared blood and feces on the floors and walls and ransacked the building. They even erected a gallows and threatened the lives of the speaker, the vice president and other officials.
If you are among those who minimize the damage done that day, or who celebrate the rioters as heroes, you need to stop chanting “Blue Lives Matter” and “Back the Blue” and take down those blue-striped flags you’re so fond of waving because you don’t support the police. You are their active enemy.
Even more troubling is the question of Donald Trump’s future plans for the people he has just freed. They have demonstrated their willingness to make war on the U.S. government and attempt to overthrow it once. Now they are free to form the kernel of a potential private army, loyal to no one but Donald Trump himself. If, as he surely will, he faces opposition to his policies, what use will he make of his shock troops?
David Cofield
‘People are going to die’ with Trump
The slash and burn that Trump has wielded on our health care industry is going to put every American’s health and their very lives at risk.
He has withdrawn the U.S. from the WHO, making us and Lichtenstein the only two countries in the world who are not members, which means we will not be notified of any outbreaks of diseases/pandemic occurring in the world, which means people could travel to U.S. who are infected and spread the disease.
He has banned public health information coming from the CDC, NIH and FDA as well as banned communication between the agencies themselves. We would not know about outbreaks of infectious diseases in the U.S. Kansas has the largest outbreak of tuberculosis in our history. Bird flu is spreading rapidly. We would not know about food and drug recalls. We could be eating food that would sicken us and not know it. Funding for clinical research trials is banned, which means life-saving medicine would not become available.
But he did issue one positive directive. He reversed the ban on menthol cigarettes.
Every American should scream as loudly as possible to make it clear that this is not acceptable. People are going to die.
Rebecca Rochat
Trump ride will make us lose our lunches
The Democratic Party: a party of corporate sell-outs and imperialist warmongers who, for decades (since Bill Clinton drank the Kool-Aid of Reaganomics and took the party rightward, into neoliberalism) have been pretending to be a party of the people but in fact have become a party of the professional class and Hollywood liberals. A party that offers up only Band-Aids and crumbs for the working class, then brags about them as “achievements.”
The Republican Party: a party that has become so right-wing in the extreme, it makes Eisenhower and Nixon look liberal. They hate the mere mention of the common good, deeming it to be tantamount to socialism. But they have no problem with socialism for the billionaires and the corporate monopolies. It’s working-class socialism they hate. They have convinced their constituents that a government that does nothing for them is being respectful of their “freedom.”
Now we’re on the verge of a radicalized Republican Party, under the despotic leadership of Trump and his billionaire-infested Cabinet, and delusional in thinking they have a “mandate,” prepared to take us even further into full-blown oligarchy. And the sold-out, fence-straddling Democrats are too compromised and gutless to stop them. Looks like we’re on our own, folks. It’s going to be a fun ride – if you like those kinds of rides that make you lose your lunch.
Rick Armstrong
Monteagle, Tennessee
Where is stadium development?
If stadiums revive local neighborhoods as Mike Pare wrote in Sunday’s paper, why did developers of the biggest new downtown development turn down building a stadium on their property at The Bend?
The Bend and surrounding Westside is planned for $2 billion of new housing, offices, hotels and factories to create what Mayor Tim Kelly said will be an entire new neighborhood. The owners of The Bend turned down the stadium idea because it would take up too much land and not allow all of their planned projects.
For all the talk about new stadium development, there are no new homes or businesses built. Most of the housing in South Chattanooga is occurring at other sites.
Numerous studies indicate public investments in stadiums don’t pay off and usually don’t create all the promised benefits, and the taxpayer money needed to build them limits what can be spent on other government programs.
Michael W. Jones