Friday, August 27, 2010

Legacy of Torture

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/opinion/27fri1.html?scp=1&sq=legacy%20of%20torture&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 9:21 AM
Subject: re: Legacy of Torture
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
    When a human is tortured while in the custody of the United States of America, it taints more than his testimony; it taints our nation's soul.   We the people are the collective sovereign here. We are not innocent of the crimes committed in our name by our public servants. 
   We may try to disown these horrors and to put them behind us through a Truth and Reconciliation process like that in South Africa. To hide them and their perpetrators behind a veil of "National Security" would be unacceptable to a legitimate democracy.
Barry Levine

Aw, Wilderness!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/opinion/27stroll.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=aw,%20wilderness&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 9:07 AM
Subject: re: Aw, Wilderness!
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

     If wilderness is dangerous, it is because 3.4billion years have made it so.  When mr. Stroll asserts that "the agencies have made these supposedly open recreational areas inaccessible and even dangerous..." he imputes to our bureaucrats powers to which even they don't aspire.  As an attorney, mr. Stroll may have schooled himself to deliver such tripe with a straight face. As the electorate, we would be remiss if we accepted it as credible.
Barry Levine

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Coordinated Attacks Strike 13 Iraqi Cities


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:11 AM
Subject: re: Coordinated Attacks Strike 13 Iraqi Cities
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   Watch these pages in the coming months as the authors of our Iraq strategy express shock (Shock!) that their game is working. Backing and arming sectarian militias (including the Awakening Councils) was never going to achieve a peaceful unified Iraq. It did however tamp down the death rate. Now when the Iraqi civil war resumes, it's no longer on George W. Bush's watch. Who is going to tell the mothers that this is what their sons and daughters died for?
Barry Levine

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A Forgotten Fight for Suffrage

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/opinion/25stansell.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=forgotten%20fight%20for%20suffrage&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:45 AM
Subject: re: A Forgotten Fight for Suffrage
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   As professor Stansell explains, the original intent of the words of the Fourteenth Amendment was to guarantee the rights of citizens, regardless of race or gender.   To use this amendment to expand the rights of corporations (which are "legal persons" but not "natural persons") would be anathema to a "strict constructionalist" on the Supreme Court--if he were logically consistent.
Barry Levine

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

A Case of Mental Courage

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/opinion/24brooks.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 9:56 AM
Subject: re: A Case of Mental Courage
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   Mr. Brooks illustrates for us what Charlie Munger called "confirmation bias". He calls the Surge in Iraq a success not because Iraqis now have surrendered WMDs, or now have a stable government, or electricity, or running water or peace with Israel. As the Iraqi civil war gets back into gear, he blithely insinuates that anyone who doesn't accept the Surge as a success is delusional. It is educational to note how mr. Brooks can gaze into the pool of Iraq and see nothing but his own reflection.
Barry Levine

Monday, August 23, 2010

Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/asia/23taliban.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 3:27 PM
Subject: re: Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   How many editors did it take to delete General Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani's name from this report?  When General Pervez Musharref was
both president and head of Pakistan's army, we didn't have to care
which office wielded the power. Now that the titles are split between
mr. Zardari and general Kayani, any day that we're not talking to the
general is a day wasted in our efforts.
Barry Levine

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Civilians to Take U.S. Lead After Military Leaves Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/world/middleeast/19withdrawal.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 9:24 AM
Subject: re: Civilians to Take U.S. Lead After Military Leaves Iraq
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   If we mean to replace the U.S. military presence in Iraq with the presence of a militarized U.S. Diplomatic Corp in Iraq, we're peddling a charade that no one will believe.  The American electorate repudiated George W. Bush's policies not because the Americans in Iraq were in uniform, but because Americans were dying where we had no compelling national interest. Draping new uniforms--or no uniforms--on the American bodies in Iraq will diminish the credibility of our Diplomatic Corps, but it won't satisfy anyone who is waiting for the day we bring our boys home.
Barry Levine

Monday, August 16, 2010

Islam in Two Americas

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16douthat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=islam%20in%20two%20americas&st=cse

- Hide quoted text -
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Subject: re:Islam in Two Americas
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   Mr. Duthout cites what he considers laudable changes in Mormon practice coerced by the U.S. government as if this were a model for our relationship to immigrants of many faiths. Of course the Church of Latter Day Saints was never an immigrant creed; it is purely American. The community was founded in New York and ended up in what is now Utah because American bigots denied them the freedom to practice their religion, first in New York and then in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. If the defense of the American Melting Pot rests on such a model, it belongs to some other century that I hope to leave behind.
Barry Levine

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

U.S. and Iraqi Interests May Work Against Pullout

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=iraqi%20intersts%20may%20work%20against%20withdrawal%20deadlines&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 10:18 AM
Subject: re: U.S. and Iraqi Interests May Work Against Pullout
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
    Four years ago, while the media coverage was all about the Surge, general Petraeus made deep changes in our stance in Iraq. Instead of focusing solely on national institutions, we began backing and arming sectarian militias. While these groups were successful in reducing the daily carnage, they will resume the civil war the instant the U.S. forces are gone. It must now be the the U.S. president's goal to obscure that instant, or to push it off onto a next administration.
Barry Levine

Monday, August 9, 2010

The Marriage Ideal

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09douthat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the%20marriage%20ideal&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 9:35 AM
Subject: re: The Marriage Ideal
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  Ross Douthout hasn't a scriptural leg to stand on when he invokes "Jewish and Christian beliefs about the order of creation" to privilege heterosexual monogamous marriage.  The Hebrew bible clearly presents polygamy as the norm. European Jews only renounced polygamy in the beginning of the eleventh century c.e. Rabbi Gershon ruled this because the possibility of polygamy among Jews was considered scandalous among our Christian neighbors. As to Christian scriptures, it is written "It is better to marry than to burn". The ideal implied here is not heterosexual monogamy, but celibacy.
Barry Levine

Sunday, August 8, 2010

In Search of a New Playbook II


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/opinion/08sun1.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=In%20Search%20of%20a%20New%20Playbook&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 2:18 PM
Subject: re: In Search of a New Playbook
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
    If November's election were only about employment and the economy, the Democrats would be in peril. It is not that president Obama's plan isn't sound. Rather, senate republicans have the power to kill, delay or eviscerate the legislation and expenditures needed to fix our economy. Alas, president Obama inherited much more than a wounded economy.  He has it in his power to restore the Rule of Law that was trampled under the last administration. Prosecute wiretaps that violated the FISA statute. Prosecute torturers or extradite them. Repudiate extrajudicial killings. Drop the "State Secret" ploy that keeps us from knowing the extent of crimes committed in our name.
     President Obama deserves praise for spearheading the legislative achievements of the last eighteen months, but those are legislative achievements. As chief Executive, he has work to do to show us that we no longer walk on Dick Cheney's "dark side".
Barry Levine

In Search of a New Playbook

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/opinion/08sun1.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=in%20search%20of%20a%20new%20playbook&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:00 AM
Subject: re: In Search of a New Playbook
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   In 2008, many of us turned out to vote for Change in repudiation of the Bush/Cheney policies on many fronts. If the Democratic National Party means "to delineate the differences between themselves and Republicans", they will need leadership from the Whitehouse.  Until we see prosecutions or extraditions for torture and prosecutions for warrantless wiretaps and a repudiation of extrajudicial killings, the Democratic electorate will not be energized.
Barry Levine