Appeasement delays the inevitable

To the editor:

For many liberals, historical revisionism may be the only way to map out a future. In her Wednesday letter to the editor, Barbara Fenton Bernstein claims that Barack Obama ... sorry, I meant Neville Chamberlain ... was not guilty of the sin of appeasement by "talking" to Adolf Hitler. If Ms. Bernstein will study her history a bit more closely, she will find out that Hitler, in 1938, was not an unknown entity any more than the little Hitler of Iran or the tyrant of North Korea are today.

Rather, from the early 1930s, Hitler's speeches, his writings, and his massive buildup in German armaments precluded anyone from stating that he was a potential man of peace. Mr. Chamberlain and his colleagues in Great Britain saw a war in their future, and they tried to pacify the beast by sacrificing another nation.

Sen. Obama ... again, I mean Mr. Chamberlain ... went to Iran -- sorry, I meant Germany -- with but one thought in mind, and that was to save Great Britain's bacon, no matter what country or which people he had to sacrifice to do it.

A rose is a rose by any other name, and if you fail to read or, in this case, to actually understand your history, you are bound to repeat it.

Personally, I don't want to sacrifice a nation such as Israel, or any other free democracy, for that matter, in order to save my so-called bacon. I served in the armed forces once, and if necessary, would stand and serve again against a tyrant such as the Hitler of Iran or the Puppet Master of North Korea.

Appeasement only delays the inevitable. Evil is as evil does.

Jack L. Kane

LAS VEGAS

Suburban madness

To the editor:

The ability of developers to raise money for insane projects is truly a wonder to behold. In your Wednesday editorial, "New Vegas suburb: northwest Arizona," John Gaul of Rhodes Homes states, "We have addressed every issue that's been brought up repeatedly by the detractors of the project." Well, here are two issues that came to my mind.

First, with a four- to six-hour commute from just outside Kingman, even with the new bypass highways being completed, that means an average Las Vegas worker will spend at least 14 hours a day getting to work, being at work and getting back home. Why buy a house? These folks will already be living in their cars.

Second, with gasoline at $4 per gallon now -- and who knows how high it will get in the next five years -- how will someone making even an above-average wage in Las Vegas be able to afford driving 200 miles a day getting to work and back?

Oh, wait, I forgot about the Regional Transportation Commission. They can have bus routes going out there. Since it takes their buses more than two hours to get from the north end of the valley to UNLV right now, will those new routes to Arizona include sleeper berths?

Jim Brown

NORTH LAS VEGAS

What about Canada?

To the editor:

What a shame that Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., didn't lead by example following the discovery of his cancer. He could have gone to Canada, put his name on the list and waited to be called for his brain surgery. This way, he could have showed American citizens the greatness of the nationalized health care he and his Democratic cohorts are proposing for the rest of us.

Oh well, I guess what's good for the goose isn't so good for the gander.

Ron D'Alessio

HENDERSON

Energy politics

To the editor:

Lincoln County Commissioners Tommy Rowe and Ronda Hornbeck were on the radio the other day talking about why Lincoln County can't have wind-generated power on Mount Wilson. The deer and elk would be uncomfortable with the giant wind turbines, they claimed.

As long as we have politicians who feel the way that these two do about alternative energy, the price of energy may very well go to even more unaffordable heights.

Is it possible that scrapping the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository may fit into the same category? Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., may succeed in blocking it, but it seems to me that the rising cost of fuel is tied to this way of thinking by these politicians.

We need to remove them from office or have them change the way that they think about alternative energy before the whole lot of us are broke or living off pedal power.

Dennis Larounis

PIOCHE