It should not be difficult to find a good substitute for JROTC. The committee that was set up and tasked to find alternatives has stalled for more than a year and was composed almost in its entirety of military supporters.

To give the program another year of life or more into the indefinite future, in contradiction of the school board’s stated policy and majority opinion in San Francisco, rewards this scam of a task force and is nothing less than politically motivated shilly-shallying.

It is telling that only 25 percent of enrollees continue in JROTC past the two years required of them to use it as a substitute for physical education classes. There is even some doubt as to the legality of JROTC under the state’s education code, since its highly paid teachers are not certified. Neither does the program, unlike the physical education, which it is replacing for some, do anything to fight obesity. And it does not save money; it costs money that could be so much better employed.

The military, despite claiming redeeming values for their program, is not some benevolent entity looking out for our children. While disavowing seeing them as cannon fodder it goes after them in all kinds of devious and dishonest ways, creating a general aura in society that rank militarism is OK and using our tax money to glorify war and make service look like a good career path. It isn’t, and the daily news verifies this over and over again.

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Non-military alternatives are available and they are legion, including many programs already vetted and up and running. More information can be obtained at jrotcmustgo.blogspot.com

Barry S. Eisenberg, The Coalition To End JROTC Now!

San Francisco

Be wary of bases in Iraq

As the curtain descends on Bush’s Iraq saga, a last ditch effort is being made to maintain a permanent presence in Iraq and lay the foundation for an unending conflict.

The secret “Iraqi-American security agreement,” leaked to the London Independent, would allow the U.S. to maintain 50 permanent military bases in Iraq, control its airspace and grant legal immunity to all U.S. troops and contractors.

The Bush administration is applying enormous pressure on the Iraqi government to accede to its demands by withholding $50 billion of Iraq’s assets. If Iraq capitulates, there is little doubt that this would generate seething hostility against all occupation forces and doom any prospects for an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces. War profiteers such as Halliburton and Blackwater would reap enormous profits. Such an agreement would allow the spin merchants to declare victory and undercut pledges by Barack Obama for an early withdrawal.

This would be the last hurrah for the Bush administration for a “heck of a job” before their fearless leader retires to Crawford, Texas. I urge readers to vigorously oppose all attempts to hijack Iraq’s sovereignty by the diabolical escapades of Bush Inc., which have been unleashed on our fragile planet like a plague of locusts.

Jagjit Singh

Los Altos

Middle Eastern press flap

Letter writer Tej Uberoi (Letters, June 14) says CNN official Eason Jordan resigned in 2005 after claiming the U.S. military deliberately killed reporters in Iraq (“Media felt the pressure”). There was more to the Jordan controversy. For one thing, he later said that was not what he intended to imply. More importantly, Jordan, CNN’s chief news executive, was connected to one of the most shocking, and little known, scandals in journalism.

Two years before stepping down, Jordan admitted in The New York Times that he had lobbied the Iraqi government for 12 years in order to keep CNN’s presence in Iraq.

In the book, “Embedded,” New York Times reporter John Burns said he was appalled that there were journalists who failed to report that “Saddam had turned his country into a slaughterhouse.”

Reporters bribed the minister of information and behaved “as if they were in Belgium,” Burns wrote. “They never mentioned terror.”

James O. Clifford, Sr.

Redwood City

Prayer not the answer

I have to agree with Ted Rudow (The Examiner, June 11) about the evil Burmese government and their total disregard for the welfare of the population amid the devastating effect of the recent cyclones.

However, why demean and trivialize the tragedy by calling for prayer? That’s to add insult to injury for a people who need real help, not superstitious woo-doo. The only potential positive result of praying is for the prayerful to feel good. Imagine what would have happened if passengers onboard United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11 had prayed instead of taking action to prevent the hijacked plane from reaching the intended target, the White House or Capitol? Instead, it crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania, despite the terrorists’ intense praying for Allah’s support!

Jorg Aadahl

San Mateo

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