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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, welcomes U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, center, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on Sunday in Kyiv.
Zelenskyy and diesel
Recently I read in the newspaper that Trump is blaming Zelenskyy's attack on Russian diesel infrastructure for the high price of diesel. If I remember correctly, this problem did not arise from Ukraine defending itself against Russia by attacking its diesel infrastructure; it started with the war in Iran. It is always nice to blame someone else for your blunders.
Martha Brooks
Green Valley
Stopping Iran
In last week’s debate, Congressman Juan Ciscomani repeated his party’s desperate canard claiming previous presidents had “done nothing” to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Not so.
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President Obama joined with others to develop the JCPOA, an agreement that limited Iran’s uranium enrichment to well below weapons-grade level for 15 years. International inspections verified Iran was complying. Trump tore up that agreement and did nothing to replace it. Seeing the writing on the wall, Iran went back to enriching uranium.
The current stalemated war has not stopped Iran from anything, including cutting off a major source of the world’s oil supply and enveloping the entire Middle East in seemingly endless conflict, and claiming a major international waterway for its own.
Great job, Ciscomani.
Suzanne Ferguson
East side
Roadless rule repeal
Repealing the roadless forests rule puts many natural resources at unnecessary risk for no gain. Across Arizona's 1.2 million acres of roadless Forest Service land, habitat supports at-risk species, backcountry land offers some of the best hunting experiences, intact landscapes protect the headwaters of the Verde and Salt rivers in Arizona, and so much more.
So why is the USDA trying to remove these protections? The administration asserts that the proposed rule would return control of these lands to local management, yet elsewhere mentions that it would fulfill executive orders on timber production. At the end of the day, this proposal is disregarding the benefits of keeping these forests intact as they are.
Arizonans love their public lands. I know this as a born-and-raised Tucsonan. After such strong outcry when the comment period opened, the USDA has approved an extension. Now is the time to show our support and submit comments to the administration before the period closes on Oct. 6.
Zyanya Figueroa
Phoenix
Artificial intelligence
It has been suggested that intelligence is a disease inevitably resulting in self-destruction, and the reason why we can never know of other intelligence in the universe.
With intelligence comes a belief in being the chosen; being chosen nurtures arrogance; arrogance delivers a sense of infallibility; and with that infallibility comes fallibility.
Dario Amodei, the leader of Anthropic, the most valued AI developer, says AI is moving too fast for safety measures to catch up.
Manipulation and disinformation are hitting you hard, now. To come are privacy breaches, cyberattacks, market manipulation, weapons development and surveillance. All currently in development by hostile actors.
The remedy could be found in the selection of intelligent, thoughtful leaders!
Richard Kimball
Midtown
Presidential failure to learn from mistakes
When Trump initiated the Iran war, foreign policy experts were surprised the US did not take steps to block the weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz. The global energy supply and economy were at risk, and the risk was apparently known.
Now the Houthis in Yemen, allies of Iran, have positioned themselves to control the Mandeb Strait, another key transport route for Middle Eastern petroleum.
We know the Houthis. Our Secretary of Defense led an attack on them earlier in the Administration. It is incredible our intelligence professionals didn’t see this coming, and the U.S. didn’t attempt to stop it. Now the global price of oil is up again. Trump did not learn.
This event reminds me of our misguided, inflationary tariff policy. The Supreme Court gave Trump an out. But he didn’t learn and has imposed them again.
He doesn’t learn, and we pay.
Jim Greene
Marana
