Editorials / Opinion

Seattle Times letters to the editor

Obama is embarrassing us

President Barack Obama gestures during his joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2013, at the Rosenbad Building in Stockholm, Sweden. [AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais]

President Obama went to a synagogue in Sweden, and said that his plans to retaliate against the Syrian government are motivated by the example of Raoul Wallenberg, who issued passports to thousands of Hungarian Jews, saving them from the Nazis in 1944. [“Obama, in Sweden, likens U.S. quest to Wallenberg’s,” News, Sept. 5.]

Obama forgot to mention how many innocent people Wallenberg killed, trying to teach their government a lesson. (Answer: none.)

I wish Obama would just stay at home and stop embarrassing us all.

Kris DeWeese, Port Townsend

Support the president

Palestinians hold Syrian flags during a protest against a possible military attack by the United States on Syria, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Thursday, Sept 5, 2013. [AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed]

President Roosevelt kept the U.S. out of World War II for more than two years, reflecting powerful anti-interventionist sentiments held by American citizens.

Had Pearl Harbor not occurred, one can only speculate on what the consequences might have been. Nazi or Soviet hegemony over Western Europe and Britain? Japanese hegemony over Southeast Asia and Australia?

Sometimes popular opinion has it wrong. War crimes must not be ignored by the international community and the leader of that community is the United States.

A low-risk, offensive operation by the United States, calculated to disrupt and discourage obvious war crimes by the Syrian regime, seems a more than reasonable use of our military resources. It would demonstrate that our country still stands as a beacon of decency and human rights in an uncertain world.

I support the president.

Jim White, Lake Forest Park