Letters to the editor for Tuesday, Dec. 30

I hate my neighbors. It goes back a long way.

Lately I've been parking the Hummer my uncle gave me in front of their driveway. They can't even get groceries!

Well, their teenage brat started chucking Skoal tins over the fence at my house. He even broke a window.

That was it! I gave them both barrels of the shotgun my Uncle Sam also bought me. Turns out I killed their other son training to be on the police force. Imagine! One of them on the police force! That'll teach 'em.

YUSUF REED, FRIDLEY

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I'd like to thank the Star Tribune for its even-handed coverage of news in the Middle East, the front-page stories each time rockets fell on Sderot or Ashkelon from Gaza, right alongside essential coverage of the governor's peccadilloes and sports trades or stadium quests.

RICH FURMAN, ST. PAUL

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Israel is operating a campaign to rid itself of Hamas -- a terrorist enemy willing to kill innocent civilians (on both sides) to advance its cause. This campaign is not meant to harm innocent people, but to remove the dangerous terror infrastructure Hamas has embedded within the civilian population. The Israeli effort has targeted only terror-related targets and is purely defensive.

When life is lost, on either side, it is a horrific tragedy. But it must be realized that Hamas is operating outside of normal military rules and has consciously put two civilian populations in peril.

JENNA MITELMAN, MINNEAPOLIS

It's certainly reprehensible that Hamas launches rockets into areas where children sleep at night and those responsible should be dealt with swiftly and pointedly, and without remorse. Nobody disagrees there.

However, does any reader truly believe that the 300 dead are the ones who did the deed? Is it even a verifiable fact that those who have died, may die and are wounded are, every one of them, worthy of what they were dealt by weapons that American tax dollars have funded?

The longer we are willing to suspend, by proxy, our interest in ethical and just warfare, the more dangerous the world will become. It is not acceptable just to say "Hamas had it coming"; it is a question of appropriate response, and it is clear that Israel has gone beyond the pale.

TAQEE KHALED, MINNEAPOLIS

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When you have nothing to lose, you behave accordingly. Instead of spending money on military attacks, Israel should "kill 'em with kindness" by building schools, hospitals, a mosque or two (for good measure), humanitarian aid, food and education. Give the people something to lose, and over time Hamas would lose public support and weaken.

Being kind to your enemies is incredibly difficult, but an amazingly effective psychological trick.

More frightening than the violence Israel will predictably get back is the prospect of its Muslim neighbors providing military support to the Palestinians. Wise up, Israel. It's not working.

TRESA SAUER, ROBBINSDALE

I am not a fan of Gophers football but I watch with disbelief as University of Minnesota athletic director Joel Maturi considers a contract extension for football coach Tim Brewster.

WAYNE L. HORNICEK, SHOREVIEW

Those letters that accuse the DFL of a dark coup if Norm Coleman loses the recount imply that judges, some of them nominated by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, are part of the plot.

Without their complicity, and the complicity of hundreds of poll workers across the state (a great number of them Republicans), such a DFL coup would be impossible. How is this extraordinary circumstance explained? And -- what if Coleman should win?

FAITH SULLIVAN, MINNEAPOLIS

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PHIL ROSS, GOLDEN VALLEY

Washington liberals are talking about raising the gasoline tax by a dollar or more to encourage us to drive less and buy more fuel- efficient cars. Good idea? No, no -- a thousand times no.

The purpose of taxes is to provide necessary government services and pay for the cost of necessary government operations. Nowhere in the Constitution is the government given permission to use taxation as a method of controlling our actions.

I urge readers to write their senators and representatives and demand a simple answer to one question: "Do you or do you not believe the government may use the power to tax as a method of controlling our actions?"

If the answer is anything but an absolute "No," it's time to elect someone else at the next election.

Yet another murder rampage perpetrated with a gun by a person without a criminal record (Covina, Calif., Christmas Eve). Enough already with gun advocates talking about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, like it's obvious who the good guys and bad guys are.