Condemn Hezbollah for starting Lebanon War
Karim Saikali's letter in The Daily last Tuesday ("Gupta's lecture comments misinformed") misinterpreted the events and circumstances surrounding civilian casualties in the 2006 Lebanon War.
While it is true that Israeli attacks on Hezbollah positions resulted in unfortunate civilian deaths, it is important to note that the true responsibility for these deaths lies with the Hezbollah guerrillas themselves. Hezbollah rocket squads fired thousands of missiles from heavily populated residential neighborhoods into Israel, purposefully aimed at civilian communities. On the other hand, when Israel was preparing to respond, it dropped leaflets about the impending action in order to minimize civilian casualties.
Knowing that Israel would exercise its right to defend itself, Hezbollah willfully put the Lebanese population at risk, since every Lebanese casualty undoubtedly would be blamed on Israel, resulting in a de facto public relations victory for the terrorists. Media is widely available which shows Hezbollah rocket squads without uniforms firing from the tops of apartment buildings and residential neighborhoods.
The casualties of the war were horrific on both sides. I am saddened that there were so many civilian deaths in both countries. This war began with a terrorist organization invading across internationally recognized borders, kidnapping soldiers who are still being held captive. Hezbollah must be condemned for its actions in starting the conflict and purposefully targeting Israeli civilians during the war.
- Richard Maidman Weinberg senior JCRC/Hillel Israel Initiative Intern
Socialist efforts in push for universal health care
Socialism and Communism are both on the rise in the United States. When experts come to Northwestern and spew their intelligence on health care, it seems like they are not too intelligent after all. The claimed expert, Dr. Quentin Young recently came to NU to talk about reforming health care in America and even got an article about him in The Daily ("Health care expert says America needs universal coverage," Nov. 6) - here's another one. While a healthy dialogue is needed to do something about this terrible system in place, universal health care is not the answer as he suggests.
As The Daily cited from him, "the cost of health care is squandered in administrative costs, which make up 31 percent of the $2.3 trillion nationwide industry." But where did these costs come from?
Knowing that most people who support a certain side don't always give all the numbers behind their calculations, I looked further into these astronomical administrative costs. According to Christopher Conover of the Cato Institute, the estimated total cost of health service regulation was calculated at $339.2 billion. Regulation, in this case comes from the government, not the free-market economy.
So with government regulation of health services topping $300 billion, the "tangible benefits" from government regulation, as Conover states are about $170 billion, thus making the "net burden" of government regulation at about $169.2 billion. This burden, the research states, disables 7 million Americans to gaining access to health care. Therefore, the government regulation and the administrative cost directly linked to their socialist regulation is not the answer to our health care problems. Universal health care then, as Young suggests, which is government-run health care, would multiply these administrative costs, which poses one of the biggest threats to our health care system.
I thought America is supposed to spread democracy, not embolden socialism and communism.
- Ryan Breen Weinberg freshman
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