Exit Afghanistan now

It was reported that the 2,000th casualty happened over the weekend in Afghanistan (10-1, A9, “U.S. Afghan war toll hits 2,000”). The Wall Street Journal said Afghan police or soldiers were responsible for a high number of those deaths.

Please think about this fact and ask yourself two things:

1) Why are we still over there?

2) Is it worth the price this country is paying?

We need to support the families of our fallen troops.

We also need to push our politicians to get out of Afghanistan. It certainly seems like the situation is quickly deteriorating.

Will the end ever justify the losses? I don’t believe it will.

Let’s get out.

David S. Farrington

Overland Park

Obama bad for U.S.

Thank you, Al Brunkow, for your comments (10-1, Letters) on the “2016: Obama’s America” documentary. We must get to know the man.

I left the theater and sat in my car and cried for all of us. This election is of far greater importance than just the economy.

It’s about the survival of the America we currently love.

Bette Sears

Lee’s Summit

GOP’s foreign policy?

Obviously, the GOP does not have a foreign policy stance in this year’s election. I guess the Republicans are going to fall back on the tried but failed George W. Bush-Dick Cheney policies.

You know the ones: We go into two countries without a clue of what to do once we are there. The icing on the cake is that we finance it by cutting taxes — first time in U.S. history.

Gee, I wonder whether this had something to do with the budget deficits.

What about Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s trip overseas? What a success.

He offended our most staunch ally and completely denigrated the Palestinians. By the way, don’t they have to be part of a solution in the Middle East?

Romney completely ignored our fighting forces. To me, that sounds important.

The U.S. at least is now winding down the actual fighting, and we got Osama bin Laden. Isn’t that progress that we never achieved under the Bush administration?

Nancy Duncan

Lee’s Summit

Obama failing youth

Education Secretary Arne Duncan delivered a speech trying to convince Americans of the strides the Obama administration has made toward bettering education. While Secretary Duncan might think the educational system is working, I know it’s not.

As a recent graduate, I know people my age are finding college is becoming prohibitively expensive. To pay the exorbitant costs, we are taking out loans we’ll be paying on for the rest of our lives.

Studies also show that 50 percent of recent college grads struggle to find jobs in their chosen fields. While Secretary Duncan claims he and President Barack Obama have been working to lift the burden of student loans, the cost of college tuition has risen 25 percent under their supposedly educationally minded administration.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has a much better record. As Massachusetts governor, Romney saw students struggling with tuition costs and created the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship.

Beyond helping to find a way to pay for school, Romney is committed to making post-secondary education affordable and lowering the unemployment rate for recent graduates.

Education needs to be affordable and accessible, and we need a president determined to meet those goals.

Rachael Fenlon

Kansas City

Outsourcing U.S. film

As I understand it, Kevin Costner filmed “Hatfields & McCoys” overseas. It seems to me he could have filmed this TV miniseries in the United States.

How about where this feud took place or many other similar locations? I am sure some locals could have used a little extra money.

Is this another millionaire outsourcing to save himself money?

Glenna Utz

Independence

Romney for president

If President Barack Obama gets re-elected, there will be a lot more empty houses in America. The housing market will crash because most of the wealthiest 1 percent and many working and middle-class people will be seeking new homes in other countries.

Bright, educated legal immigrants will no longer come to America. But the southern border will be swamped with illegal immigrants coming to get their freebies.

With most of the top wage earners gone, who will pay for the handouts?

That’s when the disorder will start and the elections will stop. Our Constitution will be dissolved because those who support Obama continue to ignore or believe the facts.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is not perfect, but he will abide and uphold our Constitution.

Thomas Hay

Lake Waukomis

Stagnant North Korea

Any doubts about the evils of government control can be quickly resolved with a look at the Korean peninsula, which was divided by a vicious war in the early 1950s. The North fell to a communist dictatorship with total control over everything while the South was provided a democratic system that gave its people the freedom to live, learn and work to the best of their abilities.

Today, North Korea’s people are permanently on the verge of starvation while the government supports an oversized military and constructs a nuclear weapon and the missiles to deliver it.

South Korea is a thriving and prosperous society, which has even produced a popular automobile sold worldwide.

William H. Finnegan

Independence

Family tax squeeze

A family of four in which one parent works outside the home, one inside the home and with annual income of $46,000 per year pays $2,600 in Medicare and Social Security taxes. Using only the standard deduction and exemptions we all use, it does not owe federal income taxes.

Who do you know that would propose this family should pay federal income taxes of at least 10 percent and lose $4,600 of its budget?

If this was your family, where would you take the money from?

Dan Jurgensen

Liberty

Royals fans, win, lose

We are drawing to a close on the 2012 baseball season. The Royals had a rocky start, got quite a bit better and ended on a bit of a rocky period.

I sit and listen to games while at work. I take my family to the games when we can.

My two daughters love going to the games. So does my wife.

I watch on TV when I can. We buy T-shirts, and I get a hat every year, so yes, I am a fan.

And I’m here to tell you, there is always next year. However, we need pitching. Sorry Bruce Chen and Luke Hochevar, in my book, legitimate starters are those who can win more than 15 games a season.

And we need to dump the new announcers, Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler. Sorry, but Physioc seems to cheer on the other teams more than our team.

Hudler? Enough said.

It’s our time to let the players know that we are with them. But the owners need to pony up.

Good luck next year, guys. The Johnsons will be rooting you on, win or lose.

Carl F. Johnson

Leavenworth

Ringing Bells of Peace

On Sunday the vintage electronic carillon, which first rang from the Liberty Memorial in 1961, was dedicated at St. Therese Little Flower Catholic Church in the Blue Hills Neighborhood. More than 200 well-wishers attended the service.

Bishop Robert Finn blessed the carillon, and like a magic, 405 tuned bells rang brightly and cheerfully for the whole town to hear.

I am not only glad that Bishop Finn blessed the carillon but also appreciate his homily, in which he said we were witnessing a new beginning of the historic Bells of Peace, which had endured a long period of hardship, neglect and mistreatment.

“After you and I are gone,” he said, “these bells will wake up the neighborhood with the message of peace and hope, over and over, for many years.”

Knowing how much the bishop himself went through in the recent past because of the child abuse inflicted on children by a pedophile priest, his words could not have been more appropriate.

The Bells of Peace are not only a gift for Blue Hills Neighborhood residents but for all who need healing and deeper understanding of one another as God’s people.

Therese Park

Overland Park

Chiefs losing KC fans

It seems like anymore you cannot watch a Kansas City Chiefs game without the urge to throw up.

Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli and team owner Clark Hunt have brought so much mismanagement to this team it almost makes you yearn for the good old days of Carl Peterson.

The legacy these two incompetents will leave is one loss after another loss after another loss.

And so it goes.

Jesse Aguilar

Kansas City