Before Trump sends feds in, designate gangs as terrorists

In my neighborhood — one the international gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) says doesn’t fear it enough — its members are killing teens.

Before President Trump sends the feds in versus the nation’s 100,000 plus different gangs, he and Congress need to officially designate any “gang” and its members as a terror group … as “terrorists”.

{mosads}In doing so, the federal government can finally gain the upper hand after suffering many decades of failure against gang violence. Designating gang members as the “terrorists” that they are and making it illegal to even join a gang would dramatically change the status quo.

Gangs should not be able to recruit, self-promote, bully, assault, rape, murder, control and destroy U.S. neighborhoods forever. 

The fact is, gangs and their members are enemies of peace, at war with the rule of law and humanity’s norms, permanently harming poorer communities like mine. 

In this domestic war they have initiated and prosecuted, just like the U.S.’s versus Islamic terrorists, no civilized nation can treat them as equal in provided rights and protections.

As in defending ourselves against ISIS and
al Qaeda, all national security defense options and resources should be on the table versus gang terrorists. This includes putting gangs and members on watchlists so they and their activities can receive special scrutiny.

If it means using combat-trained and better armed law enforcement, so be it. The war these domestic terrorists started is a battle of evil versus good. Either they act like decent, law-abiding Americans, or they should be considered as having forfeited the right of being treated as one. 

Should this fail, then we should use combat units to protect our neighborhoods so that we succeed in winning this war. 

Why this self-defense alternative? By routinely killing and injuring Americans, gangs show our nation no quarter. One way or another, their carnage must be stopped and this war ended.

From A.J. Castilla, Boston

Budget cuts should start with military, government bands

I propose that if President Trump wants to get serious with austerity measures (“Trump team prepares dramatic cuts,” Jan. 19, The Hill) to eliminate National Endowment Arts federal funding, NPR and PBS, he should first start in his own backyard with the federal government. 

That means eliminating all military bands, choirs and artists, as well as all Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard Academy choirs and bands. He can begin with firing the “President’s Own” 160-member Marine Corps band. 

Music, art, literature and theater are the soul of the nation. We marched into the Revolutionary War for our freedom and democracy from the British behind bugle, drum and fife. Today our leaders only march to the Wall Street bell and clanging of money, so let them have it. 

The only other group I’m familiar with that eliminated and banned art, music, theater, TV and radio was the Taliban. If you take the arts from the people who fund them to make America great again, then set an example and start with your own new federal government.

From Greg Mortenson, Bozeman, Mont.