Letters to the editor for Tuesday, Sept. 14: Majority blame doesn't go to Biden

More education, more choice

“My body my choice” is a well sounding mantra. However, there is a body that has no choice and that is my concern.

Karen Mahoney’s first paragraph in her letter (Letters, Sept. 10) offers an excellent solution.

Birth control methods and education should be more widely available to women.

The most effective way to avoid abortions is pretty obvious: avoid pregnancy.

Fred McCord, Eugene

More:Letters to the editor for Friday, Sept. 10: Women's rights, vaccine drama and the freedom conundrum

The same old oppression

The Republican Texas Legislature is controlling the lives of women and their health choices. These are the same men who rage against the Taliban and its treatment of women. However, they easily do the very same thing in their treatment of women in Texas. It is the same old story of men keeping women under their thumb.

Jerry Trussell, Eugene

A case study in hypocrisy

Republicans want to protect the life of an unborn fetus by imposing their will upon pregnant women. The resulting loss of personal freedom and choice for these women is huge and can affect them for the rest of their lives. Yet when it comes to protecting school children, Republican officials are actively fighting non-invasive, simple and effective measures to prevent sickness and death from COVID-19 in school children and staff, couching those measures as loss of personal freedom. And aside from that, isn't protecting our children a prime directive of human beings? The hypocrisy and ignorance is astounding.

Brian Price, Eugene

Majority blame doesn't go to Biden

Marc Thiessen’s Sept. 9 column, as usual, was neither accurate nor truthful. He assigned all blame for the Afghan debacle on Biden. He conveniently failed to remember that those wheels were set in motion whenever the Bush-Cheney administration unwisely and immorally chose to divert our attention away from Afghanistan in 2003, and instead attacked Iraq, which consequentially led directly to the creation of ISIS. That diversion derailed our military impetus in Afghanistan and diluted any moral high ground we had for being there. Any U.S. president serving today would have inherited the same unenviable position to operate from unless they were willing to stay in Afghanistan for another 30 years.

More:Guest View: Rise of the Taliban and defeat of the U.S.

I think Biden did a lousy job preparing Americans for what was bound to be a terribly messy and potentially lethal withdrawal of anyone wanting to exit Afghanistan. No one should have been caught off guard that Afghan troops weren’t ready to protect our backs after the Trump administration didn’t even include the Afghan government into negotiations for our troop withdrawal with the Taliban.

There were ample blunders made in Afghanistan to go around, but a majority of them don’t belong to Biden.

Bob Hoitt, Springfield

Editor's note: A headline for the above letter to the editor was incorrectly written. It should have been "Majority blame doesn't go to Biden."