Letters: It's time for the US to do the right thing and deliver food, shelter and medicine to Gaza

Chicago Tribune

3 days ago

As a fellow educator, I nodded sympathetically with Adam Patric Miller as he described the usual arbitrary administrative hoops he had to jump through at the end of another teaching semester ('A teacher's end-of-year reflection,' May 30). But his commentary took a surprise turn, and struck a nerve, when he honestly stated he doesn't have faith in either political party because they 'both fund a genocide in Gaza.'
Traveling through Gaza in 1983 as an infantry lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne, I was struck by the pervasive poverty and misery in this narrow strip of land. When I expressed concern to my Arabic translator, he told me they needed more support from the United Nations and the U.S. for food, shelter and medicine. Why aren't Americans doing more to help us?
I'm a tactician, not a politician, I naively responded, so that's a problem for our State Department. That is the problem, he persisted, your State Department and military supported the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which is driving refugees here and making a bad situation worse. I said the problem was above my pay grade but assured him the U.S. would eventually do the right thing.
Forty years later, I'm still waiting. The U.S. continues to spend American tax dollars supporting an Israeli government that is relentlessly bombing and starving the population of Gaza, even after defeating Hamas, while also bombing Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Their ongoing ground invasion will complete the destruction of Gaza, after already killing more than 50,000, most of them women and children.
While this is happening, the U.S. rightfully condemns the ground invasion and killing of civilians by the Russian army in Ukraine. This Orwellian hypocrisy is the madness that develops from decades of greed, corruption, moral failure and cultural anomie.
My teacher reflection suggests little has changed since Shakespeare's power-hungry Macbeth lamented: 'And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.'
It's time for the U.S. to prove Macbeth was wrong, and do the right thing by delivering food, shelter and medicine to Gaza.As a father of three, I appreciate Mark Batinick's concern about the increasing cost of college in Illinois ('Illinois is paying top dollar to fail its college-age young adults', May 28). We need to do more to hold down the cost of college for middle-class families. Barring foreign students (who pay full tuition rates) and cutting billions of dollars in federal research money, as President Donald Trump is doing, will make the situation worse instead of better.
There is an attractive alternative for the 60% of students who choose not to pursue a four-year college education: our state's institutions for career and technical education. They lead to good jobs at a relative bargain price.
For the current academic year, the average Illinois community college tuition and basic fee for a full-time, in-district student is $4,813 (based on 30 semester hours). This is an increase of only 2.2% from the prior year, compared to 9.4% at public universities and 12.9% at private universities in Illinois.
Just as important, community colleges lead to real jobs. In Illinois, they work with 9,800 unique employers to provide workers with the skills they require. More than three-quarters of community college students who complete long-term certificate or Associate in Applied Science programs are employed in careers within a year of graduation. Their average salary, compared to someone with no CTE credential, is almost 40% higher.
To give more Americans a chance at career and technical education, I co-wrote the 2021 law that greatly expanded the federal investment in these valuable programs. Participation in these programs has increased, allowing over 11 million students to pursue vocational and technical education, which strengthens our economy and boosts our competitiveness.
While making a college education more affordable for those Americans who want one, we should continue investing in alternatives that can fill the jobs of tomorrow while providing millions of people with a path to the middle class.
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Reading the Tribune article, 'Judge tosses lawsuit that threatened wetlands nationwide' (June 1), I was encouraged by the ruling that keeps in place a law that sets expectations on farmers to be good stewards of the land and not destroy wetlands on their farmland. Wetlands are an essential part of our environment and most certainly should be protected, for the benefit of all of us. I was greatly disturbed by investor James Conlan's intent to appeal the decision. He vowed to fight what he calls an 'unconstitutional law'. How arrogant! Every single one of us has a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth.In Sunday's editorial regarding foreign students at Harvard, the editorial board asked the question 'After all, what American argument could possibly be made for prohibiting international students, at least beyond the tiny percentage employed as some kind of spy?' ('Harvard defends itself in a way all Americans should understand', June 1) The answer is blindingly obvious. It's reported on the web that, in the current year, Harvard had 7,000 foreign students. That means that an equivalent number of our brightest children were denied the opportunity to study at Harvard.
And, since it is unlikely that all those foreign students will remain in the U.S. after graduation, many of those best educated minds will contribute nothing to our nation. The board presents that loss as a gain of 'soft power' in the countries they return to, but that seems a hollow argument given the current environment of campus protests decrying the U.S. as racist, as supporting Israeli genocide, as transphobic, etc..Thanks to Scott Stantis for his editorial cartoon (June 1) that animates truth to power. It accompanies an editorial about Harvard's defense against draconian government attacks on the value of independent academic institutions. There's a lot to criticize Harvard about, but in this case, they are on the vanguard for protecting pillars of education like my alma mater, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which has a significant number of students from other countries. These students generally pay full price and help provide tuition and fees for qualified in-state students. Foreign students also have a beneficial impact by sharing diverse perspectives and preparing our students for the global workforce. Kudos to Stantis for his work based on 'thoughtful conservatism' that often takes a contrarian view in defense of freedom of speech and the rule of law.