DeKalb, be careful what you wish for
Regarding “City of Tucker: room to grow” and “LaVista Hills cityhood efforts are win-win” (Opinion, Dec. 12), I wanted to tell the citizens of the proposed cities of Tucker and LaVista Hills what to expect upon their formation, having been a citizen of Johns Creek since its formation. If you live in an expensive neighborhood, you can expect many improvements. Here in Johns Creek, the expensive neighborhoods have gotten new sidewalks, turn lanes, roundabouts, traffic lights, new intersections and so on. The city even built a beautiful boardwalk just outside the Country Club of the South for its residents to take a nice stroll.
The subdivision I live in, and the two neighboring subdivisions on Jones Bridge Road, have modest homes. We have gotten no improvements in our areas – no sidewalks or turn lanes, and the city barely maintains the right-of-way. So form your cities; just remember, I told you how it will play out.
MIKE O'NEILL, JOHNS CREEK
Can you really trust info from torture?
There are two distinct questions Americans are asking themselves about the CIA torture revelations: Is torture morally defensible? Of course not. Is torture effective in acquiring specific information? If one believes the answer to this question is “yes,” the answer to the first question becomes moot. So the focus is now entirely on the effectiveness of torture.
Therefore, I proffer another two questions to those in support of, albeit reluctantly, the use of torture: Imagining oneself being tortured; what would you say to save your other nine fingernails? I’d make stuff up. Chances are, I won’t know anything that would satisfy them, anyway. How much veracity can be attributed to any such “information” obtained from someone desperately trying to stop the pain and terror? It’s tragic to this Vietnam veteran that America can no longer hold itself as a shining beacon of human rights and justice to the rest of the world.
BIRNEY A. MONTCALM, WINSTON
World’s Muslims are indeed a threat
That was a great article regarding Muslim-Americans condemning terrorism (Opinion, Dec. 11), and I’m glad to hear about it. However, there are a billion more Muslims around the world, and a large portion of them are killing each other and many others daily. I personally feel very insecure today in the fact that Iran (Shiite) wants an A-bomb, and that ISIS (Sunni) wants to kill all Jews and Americans, as well as each other.
RALPH MARION, SANDY SPRINGS
