EU and Voter Fraud

Dear Editor,

The presidential election is a few months away and the race is pretty ugly to say the least. And, as always, there are concerns of voter fraud and other irregularities. But this year it seems to be more in the forefront. There have been several articles about how someone can electronically alter election results, in one case mentioning how it can be done with an off-the-shelf item anyone can buy. Can you say paper ballots?

But the article that really got my attention was by Julia Harte with the World News, August 23. It talks about how the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is planning to send 500 international observers for the elections in November and how more than 200 US civil rights groups have urged them to send even more because “Civil rights advocates say voters are more likely to face racial bias at the polls in November than they have in 50 years, because of voting laws that several states passed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the landmark anti-discrimination 1965 Voting Rights Act three years ago.”

In addition, we should all be concerned because the directorate of justice, I mean the Justice Department, has announced they will be sending election observers to far fewer polling sites this year than in previous elections.

So it’s an election involving a Democratic candidate that couldn’t be trusted to guard a latrine and is endorsed and supported by dear leader, who also runs, through his minion, the directorate of justice, which has announced they won’t be monitoring polling sites anywhere near as closely as they should. Sounds fair.

And given some of the tactics used in the previous election, such as throwing out Republican observers and forcing them to get a judge to reinstate them (and who knows what happened during that time), or how precincts have 103 percent participation or, even worse, vote 100 percent Democratic, one has to wonder.

But back to my main point, which is where in the heck does any outside organization get off sticking their nose in our election process. When they show up polling places in North Carolina (and they will because we are a critical state) they need to be politely shown the door and told to go pound sand. American elections are American business, not the EU’s.

Go Galt and go vote.

Alan Marshall

 

 

ISIS Unstoppable

Dear Editor,

In Under the Hammer of the August 11 issue, you state, “He (meaning Trump) also plans to defeat ISIS, something the US could do anytime we choose.”

I hate to disillusion you, and I also hate to sound so negative, but the blunt truth is: The US can never defeat ISIS any more than it could defeat the Viet Cong of 50 years ago. This is true, just as it was in Vietnam, regardless of whom is in the White House, and no matter how much manpower or firepower he may send to defeat ISIS.

The reasons for this are very similar to the reasons in Nam.

  1. ISIS members wear no uniforms and, therefore, are undetectable from the general population. Also, they follow no rules of conventional warfare. Eventually, after being repeated victims from all the ambushes, bombings and terrorist attacks from an unseen enemy, American troops’ nerves get so frayed and their tempers get so short, that they end up shooting many members of said population, which normally would have supported our military efforts (or at least remained neutral), but end up being easy recruits for ISIS.

In short, so much of what our troops have done in fighting ISIS has been so totally counterproductive.

  1. In most cases the governments we are backing have very little popular support. Just as in Nam, where most people couldn’t really see how a Communist takeover would be any worse the weak, corrupt, inefficient regime they already had, so do many people in the Middle East not really see where an ISIS regime would be any worse than what they have now.
  2. How do we really “defeat” ISIS? That is a question that no one – political or military – has been able to give any satisfactory answer. Just as 50 years ago, no one could ever really say what a “victory” over the Viet Cong would ultimately entail. Again, and I hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but just as in Nam, the war on ISIS is a war with no beginning, no end ever in sight, no achievable, concrete objectives and no real understanding of the people we are fighting.

And Donald Trump, despite all his bombastic promises, will never be able to change any of that. Thus, he can never “choose” to defeat ISIS any more than Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon could choose to defeat the VC.

John Pugh

 

 

Prison Reform Needed

Dear Editor,

The US Justice Department is doing the right thing by ending its use of private prisons. I think that there are some parts of the government that should be privatized, such as the postal service. But there are many other programs and agencies that should not be privatized, such as public schools, libraries, jails, prisons, police departments and the military. Corporations run private prisons to make a profit, not to make our country safer.

The entire legal system needs to be reformed. We must not forget that “our” government puts more people behind bars than China, Russia or any other country.

Chuck Mann

 

 

Send to letters@rhinotimes.com or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27429