Relax, Mr. Trump
Come on Mr. Trump, lighten up. You sit in your ivory tower with your team chatting up the Russians and now you are worried that you may have been tapped or hacked? It is the job and responsibility of our security services to check into this sort of activity.
If they did not tap your phones once they knew of the Russian connection, it would be a serious dereliction of duty. That is what we might better investigate. And, while we are on the subject, you invented fake news and use it daily to confound us all.
Please do not get too excited when you get some thrown back in your face. That is politics these days. Sadly, I suspect in you the absence of a sense of humor.
Jeremy Hewett
Kailua-Kona
Enjoy fruits of what those bombs protect
In her letter of March 6, Ms. Ashkenazy spoke out against a military request to sea bomb 44 miles off the coast of Kauai. As long as she was on message about the danger to sea life, I conceded her right to speak out on the side of the creatures. No problem at all.
Then, in the world’s longest run-on sentence, she transitioned into possibly her real objection, the US manufacturers that supply weapons for our national defence coupled with an inane rant on how their products ultimately cause wars, she leaves common sense in her wake.
Clearly the theory that international pacifism is rewarded with peace has no success stories. Ms Ashkenazy, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup Grumman and Raytheon do not cause wars. Invariably, countries with “isms” that want to impose those isms on others cause wars. Note that Nazism, Facism, Communism and now Islamism, for the most part, with their goal of domination and destruction of all that stood in opposition, cause wars. It should also be acknowledged, that the USSR, as we knew it, collapsed in part due to their futile attempt to match our military technology. Sounds to this writer like an endorsement for a strong military.
If she knew anything about the defence industry, she would certainly understand that obscene profits are realized by high tech companies, pharmaceutical companies and others, not defense companies. The defence industry must invest more capital to build and deliver their products than most other types of companies. Unlike others mentioned, these companies must primarily retain a large presence in the US proper. Non-defence, highly profitable companies are dependant on operations in foreign countries. Obscene profits result in Apple having $200 billion-plus cash on hand, Microsoft having $100 billion cash on hand, Google having $70 billion in cash on hand and pharmaceutical companies ensuring huge profits due to patent ownership.
I’m not assailing companies for making money, I only point out the hypocrisy involved when one enjoys the security of our national defence and the manufacturers who support it. The writer no doubt owns an iPhone or another smartphone, a home computer that possibly utilizes a Microsoft product and uses pharmaceutical products, which all contribute to her definition of obscene profits. Perhaps, her quixotic challenge to the defence industry is misplaced as she enjoys life in paradise protected by the weapons she so dislikes.
Pete Webber
Kailua-Kona