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LETTERS - Aug. 27

ISSUE | FERGUSON One difference A few days after Michael Brown was killed, another young man, Dillon Taylor, was shot and killed by police, also under confusing circumstances. Taylor was shot coming out of a convenience store in Salt Lake City, where police were responding to reports of

ISSUE | FERGUSON

One difference

A few days after Michael Brown was killed, another young man, Dillon Taylor, was shot and killed by police, also under confusing circumstances. Taylor was shot coming out of a convenience store in Salt Lake City, where police were responding to reports of a gunman. Taylor did not respond to police commands, as he was wearing headphones, and did not hear the police until it was too late. Yet there was no media uproar - despite protests from Taylor's family. Is it because Taylor was white?

|Richard Iaconelli, Philadelphia, post_rich@yahoo.com

ISSUE | VIETNAM LEGACY

Victory in stats only

I would hate for people who did not live through the Vietnam War to have Stephen L. Carter's statement on the news media and the 1968 Tet Offensive be the only perspective they hear ("Lasting legacy of Vietnam," Aug. 7). Carter contends that "often, in its hunger for a story and its inexperience in covering this kind of war, the news media got the news badly wrong," cites the massive North Vietnamese casualties during Tet, and states that "not a single major strategic objective of the battle was gained." But that totally misses the big picture.

The Tet Offensive was a major psychological success for the other side. Many Americans had been sitting on the fence as to whether to continue supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson's policies in Vietnam. They were appalled to see scenes of the fighting on television during Tet.

It was not a coincidence that, shortly after the Tet Offensive, Johnson announced he would not run for reelection.

|Thomas J. Lees, Lafayette Hill, tlees2@aol.com

ISSUE | PEACE AND CONFLICT

A time to note suffering on both sides

For more than 3,500 years, Jews have been telling themselves, their children, and the rest of the world to be, as the prophet Isaiah said, "a light unto the nations" ("Show of support for athletes, and a nation," Aug. 15). Those are the stated core values defining the essence of the Maccabi Games. But in Sally Freidman's commentary, the underlying message does nothing but substantiate the animosity and misunderstanding between two opposing factions. To resurrect a tragic occurence from more than 40 years ago to substantiate the brutal killing going on now will only foster further animosity.

The profiling of Israeli athletes abducted and killed at the 1972 Olympic Games was a moving tribute at the Cherry Hill games, for sure. A compassionate counterpoint could have been the recognition of more than 50 Israel Defense Forces and 2000 civilians killed in Gaza. Friedman could have taken it a step further and, as one chosen to deliver the message of core values, offered a wish for understanding in the conflict now raging. I don't know what the Maccabi pledge embodied, but in ignoring the cause and effect of unrest in Palestine/Israel, the young athletes leave with the mind-set of victims, thus perpetuating a false innocence.

|Warren R. Smith, Kennett Square, RtstkNdvr@gmail.com

Response to ISIS that's strangely tepid

What does it take for President Obama to acknowledge the Islamic evil that confronts the Unitied States and the world in general? It's curious that the knee-jerk ire Obama shows to his domestic political foes is nowhere to be seen regarding this medieval cancer.

|Stephen Hanover, Doylestown

ISSUE | SHOP FLOOR

Financing aid yields sales, jobs in Pa.

Unlike the authors of your recent op-ed opposing the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Pennsylvania's manufacturers - predominantly small and medium companies - are in the business of creating jobs and generating revenues, and to them the Export-Import Bank is an indispensable tool ("Small Pa. firms don't need Ex-Im Bank," Aug. 13). This is what should matter to the people of Pennsylvania, not quibbling over the definitions of what constitutes a small business or academic discussions of potential market distortions.

Since 2007, the Export-Import Bank has supported some $6 billion in exports by more than 250 companies throughout the state. These are exports and resulting jobs that would not have occurred without the bank, which by law is not allowed to displace commercial financing and so, by design, represents a small percentage of export transactions. While the authors - a professor and research assistant at a Washington-area university think tank - may dismiss the significance of Ex-Im-supported sales, this extra income means a great deal to Pennsylvania employers and workers. And because of how Ex-Im works - employing stringent lending standards and charging significant fees to foreign customers - the bank actually returns money to the U.S. Treasury: more than $1 billion last year.

One in five Pennsylvania manufacturing jobs depends on exports. That is the critical fact Pennsylvania's federal representatives should consider as the congressional deadline to reauthorize the bank looms at the end of September.

|David N. Taylor, executive director, Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association, Harrisburg, taylor@pamanufacturers.org