Letters to the editor

What does MEA

have up its sleeve?

While Matanuska Electric Association eye-washes you with the promise of saving $191 million dollars if you vote for MEA to build its own coal-fired generation plant, it holds back the information that it is going to cost ratepayers $1.5 billion dollars in CO2 offset tax over the life of the plant to do so.

And while management of MEA forges ahead with promoting its personal agenda of a proposed coal-fired generation plant, it conveniently ignores and holds back to all unfolding current information advising against coal-fired generation plants.

&#8220There’s real sticker shock out there,” Randy H. Zwirn, president of the Siemens Power Generation Group, said in an interview reported in The New York Times. He estimates that in the last 18 months, the price of a coal-fired power plant has risen 25 percent to 30 percent.

Part of the problem is huge price increases for the raw materials that plants are made from, including copper and nickel, which is what makes steel stainless. But the cost of finishing those commodities into components is also rising.

You be the judge as to just what upper management at MEA has up its sleeve.

Bill Erickson

Utility Watch

Disagrees with editorial

This is in response to the editorial &#8220Mission in Iraq must be accomplished” in Friday's Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

From recognizing and honoring two Palmer brothers in the armed services, the editorial digresses to being a pitch for the Iraq war. In fact, it sounds like a George Bush speech (i.e. we support and honor the troops by letting them achieve success in the mission). I would think that true support and honor mean asking what the mission is, if it is realistically achievable and at what cost to the troops.

Repeatedly we hear that there cannot be a military solution in Iraq; instead, a political solution is necessary. Yet the argument stays in military action.

&#8220We need to finish what we started,” claims the editorial. Making policy based on clichés leads to irrational action. Simplistic thinking has been the trademark of Bush's presidency, particularly in prosecuting and justifying this preemptive war. Foreign policy shouldn't be directed like a spaghetti western.

What did we start? A civil war? Sometimes you can't stop what you've started. Sometimes you can't take back the sins of the past. Usually, the wisest thing to do is to stop doing what isn't working. If I were making hamburger and lost a couple fingers in the machine, I wouldn't put in my hand to complete the mission, reasoning that otherwise I would have lost my fingers in vain. In other words, having lost lives already doesn't justify the mission - nor will losing more.

The editorial says, &#8220Why the United States is in Iraq now is irrelevant.” On the contrary, I want to know exactly why we are there now, years after &#8220mission accomplished.” If the reasons are unjustifiable, we should see about how not to be there.

We may &#8220owe the Iraqi people,” but there are some debts that can't be paid, just as some actions can't be reversed or rectified. There are also other ways to honor a debt than to &#8220stay the course” or &#8220stay the course even more.” There are other courses that don't have to be simplistically called victory, retreat, abort the mission and the like.

The dialogue is degraded by co-opting patriotism and solidarity in support of our servicemen to promote the war. The editorial is particularly hypocritical: &#8220Nor should they [soldiers] be fodder for those morally opposed to the war.” It appears the Frontiersman uses soldiers as fodder to promote Bush's policies.

Dan Elliott

Wasilla