Redevelopment vs. hiring teachers; losing Iraq to Iran; a third party’s chances in 2012

Finding cash for jobs

Re “An offer he could refuse,” Column, Oct. 26

Hollywood businessman Aaron Epstein’s suggestion to use L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency funds to rehire teachers, librarians and public safety workers is a sensible one.

But I’ll tell you why this won’t happen: Teachers and librarians, you see, are not involved in business ventures. All they do is help develop young minds, an endeavor that has become increasingly devalued in our society. Firefighters, among other public employees, do nothing but save lives and property, which are apparently also expendable.

Better to throw money at those whose main purpose is to make more of it for themselves.

Anneke Mendiola

Santa Ana

If these funds are allocated through the California Redevelopment Agency, the funds must be spent on redevelopment. Using the money for other purposes, such as hiring teachers, would be illegal.

If you oppose earmarking funds specifically for redevelopment purposes, you need to lobby Gov. Jerry Brown and Sacramento to end the California Redevelopment Agency.

Catherine Cate

Santa Ana

How Iraq was actually lost

Re “Out of Iraq,” Opinion, Oct. 27

If Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan don’t like it that the sovereign nation of Iraq wants America to honor its agreements, what do they suggest? Should we stay in Iraq when we are clearly not wanted? What about invading Iraq to ensure safety for Americans? Oh, we already did that and failed.

This war was doomed from the beginning. The administration that started this debacle and handed Iran its victory is the one to call a failure. Many smart analysts advised against military action against Iraq; if memory serves, these astute people were called unpatriotic.

Obama did not fail; he is honoring the agreement set by Bush.

Stephanie Georigeff

Redlands

The Kagans would do well learn from the last western occupier of Iraq, imperial Britain. It too attempted to install a lasting regime when it assumed control after World War I.

London’s legacy ended with the July 1958 killing of the grandson of the king the British empire had put on the throne 37 years earlier.

Britain also found disputes between ethnic and sectarian groups unresolvable. In a 1929 cabinet memo, the authors wrote, “The Kurd still dislikes and despises the Arab, the Christian hates and fears the Muslims and the Shia distrust the Sunni.”

The United States never created these deep-seated fissures, and it would be presumptuous to believe that Washington can cure them. In the end, Iraq will have to cure itself.

Bennett Ramberg

Los Angeles

The writer served in the State Department Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Bush administration.

The Kagans’ conclusion that we lost Iraq may be correct, but their timeline is way off. Iran won the region on March 19, 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq. Whatever else Saddam Hussein was, he was also a bulwark against the Iranian theocracy.

Do the Kagans believe that cleric Muqtada Sadr will go away if only we stay in Iraq longer? And how long? Another year? Another 10 years? A generation?

We made an incredible foreign policy blunder that has cost us more than 4,000 American lives, billions of dollars and the respect of much of the world. What’s done is done, but prolonging the agony is in nobody’s interest.

Barbara H. Bergen

Los Angeles

Adding a third party to the mix

Re “The third-party wild card,” Opinion, Oct. 27

I don’t see how Americans Elect can be much of a wild card if all it stands for is not being Republicans or Democrats. However, if it should seriously take up the issue of unemployment, I think it could be a winner.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have a credible plan to fix this problem. The Republicans are fixated on the deficit while the Democrats were mostly focused on fixing healthcare until recently. The two major parties have both acted like a homeowner who is worried about a clogged toilet while the house burns down.

The party that starts worrying about the nation’s biggest problem will get a lot of votes.

Steve Stillman

Redondo Beach

I wonder if those calling for a strong third-party candidate are familiar with the name Ralph Nader, who gave us eight years of George W. Bush. How’d that work out?

Peter Katz

Sherman Oaks

Thinking thin

Re “Hormones conspire to undo weight loss,” Oct. 27

The term “weight loss” is innately self-defeating because it implies losing something of value. Overweight people have a subconscious need for the weight they profess to dislike. This guarantees regaining the “lost”

weight with or without hormones to speed the process.

The process of change is mostly mental; actual eating is a detail. Only a significant and positive change in self-perception can effect permanent change. If we define a “diet” as eating habits that change weight, overeating is the real diet, while eating habits that lower weight are simply normal behavior.

“Obesity fighting” drugs are a dangerous blind alley because they make the impossible promise of body change without emotional change.

Spencer Grant

Laguna Niguel

The 1% mantra

Re “Europe agrees on plan to tackle crisis,” Oct. 27

It overwhelms me that 27 member countries of the European Union with numerous political parties can sit down and agree on a plan to manage a major financial crisis that has a different impact on each country, and we cannot even approach this professional and proficient example of governing with just two political parties.

It’s embarrassing that we have forgotten the good of the people and embraced the mantra that greed is good for the 1%.

Deborah Brock

Agoura Hills

Facts on rights

Re “The rights stuff,” Oct. 24

I was living in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights movement. As a kid, I found it as difficult as children these days to discern the truth of what was going on around me.

The school a block away was almost certainly teaching its African American students a far more accurate version of what was going on in America than I was getting, at least with respect to the causes of the Civil War and why they were in a wood frame building with peeling paint while people who looked like me were in that comparatively nice brick building.

I only hope that children today are being taught better, with facts and, yes, with a bright understanding that what they learn is more our responsibility than theirs.

Ronald Webster

Long Beach

All are welcome?

Re “Welcome to the occupation,” Opinion, Oct. 24

By embracing the Occupy Los Angeles movement and allowing them to set up a camp site at City Hall, the mayor and City Council have set a troubling precedence.

When Occupy L.A. leaves the City Hall property and, say, the Tea Party, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or any number of groups wants to practice their 1st Amendment rights and move in, won’t elected officials be almost obligated to embrace them and hand out ponchos if it starts raining?

James Coen

Moorpark