Educate women to fight terror
Re “Britain mobilizes troops in case of second attack,” May 24
Once again, our world is shocked by senseless acts of violence toward innocents with the sole intention of instilling fear. In identifying ways to reduce the number of terrorists and inhibit their activities, mainstream thought seems to be more arms and munitions.
Why not spend our money on a well studied method: full access to education and birth control
for women and girls in countries that incubate terrorism?
Educated women and girls who have a larger view of the world and their place in it and may not fall under the domineering patriarchal forces that dictate their roles as women. Educated women and girls with access to birth control can decide when or if to have a family.
President Trump wants to cut funding for women’s education and access to healthcare in these developing nations. One only has to look to Malala Yousafzai for inspiration and validation of this method.
Long Beach
Sixteen years ago, on June 1, 2001, a tragedy very similar to the attack in Manchester happened in Israel, when a Hamas suicide bomber murdered 21 young Israelis at a beachfront disco in Tel Aviv.
This barbaric event and many other similar ones in Israel were faced with a muted reaction in the world. Instead of sympathizing with the victims, various groups paid more attention to the killers’ motives and their presumed misery that could justify killing of innocent people. As the world kept quiet and defended the murderers, suicide bombing and terrorism by other radical Islamists became widespread in the Western world.
There is a saying that “what starts with the Jews doesn’t end with the Jews.” The world must understand that attacks on Israelis and Jews is the barometer for measuring intolerance and hatred, and those who justify killing of innocent people anywhere are complicit in these senseless murders.
Fariba Fischel Ghodsian
Los Angeles
Apparently Trump, our name-caller in chief, was stymied by how he should label terrorist attackers, including the child-slaughtering Manchester bomber. He said he couldn’t call them “monsters” because they would like that name.
But thankfully he came up with the perfect solution. He would characterize these appalling murderers by the most damning epithet he could possibly imagine in his infantile, narcissistic universe: losers.
Boy, that really nails it. Mr. President, thanks for your leadership. Our children are watching. Now we know exactly how to explain the unthinkable to them.
Mary Nabours
Los Angeles
I’m a retired Army officer who believes that Department of Defense is getting too much money. This problem did not start with President Trump, but he is exasperating the situation.
Back in the 1980s, I visited a friend who was working at an Army research and development lab near Boston. He showed me around. One of the things they were working on was a quick-release strap.
At the time, when a paratrooper jumped carrying a heavy load, he would attach that load to his harness. Prior to landing, the quick-release knot that was used would be pulled so that the box landed before the trooper hit the ground (coming into contact with the ground carrying 100 additional pounds would be tough).
So here was this big research project to develop a quick-release strap when a piece of rope worked just fine for paratroopers. So why research something new? The answer, of course, is because the military is given so much money that those in charge must think how, and not why, to spend it.
Karl F. Schmid
Los Angeles