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The decision of President Joe Biden’s administration to furnish cluster bombs to Ukraine is disgraceful. More than 100 nations have banned their use. They raise the likelihood of injury and death to civilians, during the war and afterward. The use should be banned everywhere.
The administration has argued that cluster bombs have produced higher rates of detonation (i.e., fewer “duds” that explode later when civilians encounter them). The argument actually reinforces the belief that they should not be used. We place a high value on human life; cluster bombs say some innocent lives are worth sacrificing in the unrelenting zeal to win the Ukraine war.
The administration says it will not leave Ukraine defenseless. Nonsense. We are already supplying billions of dollars worth of offensive and defensive weapons to save Ukraine. This is just a foolish argument that further reveals the bankruptcy of its morality.
We should not supply cluster bombs to Ukraine for this war or to anyone for any war.
— Frank L. Schneider, Chicago
Biden’s decision is right
President Joe Biden is quite right in sending cluster munitions to Ukraine. He should have done it 12 months ago.
The Russians have been using them on populated areas since the start of the invasion. Ukraine will be using them only on the battlefield.
Well done, Biden.
— John Fair, Castlebar, Ireland
Congress should step in
It is ironic that in the same issue in which I read that we have destroyed the last of our chemical weapons (“US purges last of chemical stockpile,” July 9), I read that we are sending cluster bombs to Ukraine (“US sending cluster bombs to Kyiv”). So, we are replacing one horror of wars with another? Does this make any sense?
I absolutely support Ukraine and the need to send the country vast amounts of military aid, but this is not acceptable. Cluster bombs cannot be fully controlled, and they kill innocent civilians more than most weapons. I urge Congress to stop this inhumane move.
— Joyce Porter, Oak Park
Voters in Bailey’s district
The Darren Bailey article in the July 6 paper is an interesting read (“Bailey now setting political sights on US Congress”). First, the 12th Congressional District covers more or less a third of the state but a little less than 6% of the population.
I spent my childhood in small-town central Illinois and recently took a seven-county road trip in east-central Illinois. It Is apparent what has happened to the economy in nonmetro Illinois. What was a successful family farm economy with thriving small towns providing the retail, business, entertainment and education services for the town and farm residents has been replaced with what appears to be a monoculture plantation form of agriculture with large agribusiness firms farming multiple square-mile enterprises with a minimum of employees.
Most of the rural residents are gone, and many of the towns have become isolated pockets of residences with little in the way of retail opportunities and other services. One can certainly understand why the residents of this district and other primarily rural districts are upset and feeling that outsiders have acted to change and impoverish their communities.
Rather than presenting programs and ideas that would change the overall economic decline, Bailey has presented himself as a fighter of “woke” nonsense, defender of the fabric of our society and protector of freedoms. This apparently includes unregulated firearms, extreme abortion restrictions, pandemic misinformation and, of course, attacks on LGBTQ+ rights.
One can only hope that the voters of this district press Bailey on what really needs to be done in rural Illinois and in much of the country rather than accept his meaningless political talking points that offer no real concrete solutions to real problems.
— Georgia and David DeHart, Prospect Heights
The high cost of college
I have seen a lot of comments and letters recently from people talking about the irresponsibility of those who took out college loans and now don’t want to repay them. They have a point.
I took out loans that I repaid. The comments mostly seem to center around the belief that if students are having trouble paying them back, they should not have taken on the burden in the first place. There is some merit to that. I just wonder if any of the commenters have checked out the cost of college lately.
I don’t want to hear that students always have the option of skipping college and going to work instead. For many higher-paying professions, this is simply not an option.
I am a retired teacher. This requires a college degree. Thank God college was much less expensive when I did it.
— Laurence Siegel, Manteno
Agitation for drug access
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Raymond Scott Turner’s op-ed (“Medicare agency is limiting access to new Alzheimer’s treatment,” July 6) complaining about Medicare limiting access to Leqembi, or lecanemab, is wildly inappropriate. It appears he is attempting to get the public to complain to Medicare to get the agency to change a decision based on the results of the clinical trial Turner cites. The New England Journal of Medicine does indeed report moderate improvement in early Alzheimer’s patients, but it also reports adverse events such as edema and microhemorrhages. Longer trials are needed to evaluate safety and efficacy.
Attempting to influence decisions in this way on a drug when the evidence is clearly equivocal borders on the unethical. The American Academy of Neurology is obviously justified in requesting a reconsideration, for that is where the expertise lies.
Input from those “close to the disease,” apparently meaning patients and relatives, is entirely irrelevant, leading to decisions based on emotional appeal and public relations, and should have no place in a drug certification of any kind.
As a professor of neurology, Turner ought to know better.
— Dr. H. Joel Jeffrey, Wheaton
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