Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=5

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, May 30, 2012 at 1:42 PM
Subject: re; Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   As John Adams put it, a republic must be "a government of laws and not of men".  If president Obama has made  himself the sole arbiter of who will be targeted for killing without charges or trial, he has abandoned our Founding Fathers' dreams. He may be a benevolent dictator, but no one should mistake him for the legitimate president of the American republic. That enterprise of dead.

Barry Haskell Levine

Brooklyn Prosecutor Defends Record on Sex Abuse Cases

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/nyregion/brooklyn-prosecutor-charles-hynes-defends-record-on-sex-abuse-cases.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, May 19, 2012 at 6:50 AM
Subject: re:Brooklyn Prosecutor Defends Record on Sex Abuse Cases
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Attorney General Charles Hynes seems to have lost his compass. He is paid to pursue justice, not convictions. Justice can only be served by applying the same law to all, to the powerful and to the weak. If he wants some trophy scalps to hang on his belt, he should prosecute the criminals who--by his own account--have been intimidating witnesses under his own nose.

Barry Haskell Levine

New Cautions About Long-Term Use of Bone Drugs

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/new-cautions-about-long-term-use-of-bone-drugs/?ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, May 10, 2012 at 10:11 AM
Subject: re: New Cautions About Long-Term Use of Bone Drugs
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    Twenty years ago, when Merck sought FDA approval for the first bisphosphonate drug, its terminal half-life was already  known to be very long. Now it's reported to be ten years. Logically therefore the safety studies would have had to run at least sixty years i.e. until the drug had cleared from the body. That would have been an extraordinarily expensive Clinical Trial.  Of course that was not done and a slew of similar drugs were approved with no more scrutiny. So now the FDA is trying to fix what it didn't do right the first time.  We wish them well. But the American public looks to the FDA's approval to mean that a drug is safe. That's a conclusion that can't be rushed for the manufacturer's convenience.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Structural Revolution

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/opinion/brooks-the-structural-revolution.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, May 8, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Subject: re: The Structural Revolution
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The only thing that's rigorously cyclic in economic policy debates is the rallying cry. "But this time it's different!" has justified running over every cliff since the Dutch tulip bubble of 1637.  Of course 2012 is not 1932. Myriad details are different. But we'd be great fools to refuse to learn from Herbert Hoover's failures and from FDR's successes. History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.

Barry Haskell Levine

Murdoch’s Pride Is America’s Poison

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/opinion/sunday/keller-murdochs-pride-is-americas-poison.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, May 6, 2012 at 9:12 AM
Subject: re: Murdoch’s Pride Is America’s Poison
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

     Bill Keller continues to posture as the Voice of Responsible Journalism and offers the willingness to acknowledge getting a story wrong as the test of that creed. The test case is still on the table. When he acknowledges that he was wrong to quash the warrantless wiretaps story, he will have credibility on this issue. That decision cost the New York Times one of the best investigative reporters of our generation. More important, it cost the American electorate the chance to know that one of the candidates was engaged in a pattern of criminal activity as we went to the polls in 2004 to elect a president.  We don't know exactly how Dick Cheney threatened Bill Keller. But we do know that a press that comes to heel when the  White House tugs its leash is a press that's not serving the Public.

Barry Haskell Levine

Recovered Bin Laden Letters Show a Divided Al Qaeda

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/world/recovered-documents-show-a-divided-al-qaeda.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:19 AM
Subject: re: Recovered Bin Laden Letters Show a Divided Al Qaeda
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Osama bin Laden was no religious scholar. But how different our world would be if al-Qaeda kept even to his understanding of Sharia!  As he wrote "it is not permissible in Islam to betray trust and break a covenant".  Recall that all nineteen bombers of 9/11 had entered the U.S. on valid visas. Each of them therefore broke trust and violated the hospitality of the U.S. in the gravest fashion. Scholars at al-Azhar laid this out soon after 9/11. By their action, the bombers had put themselves outside the community of Muslims and deserved to be treated as "bandits". They were certainly neither martyrs not paragons to be emulated.

Barry Haskell Levine

Fallout of Bin Laden Raid: Aid Groups in Pakistan Are Suspect

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/bin-laden-raid-fallout-aid-groups-in-pakistan-are-suspect.html?_r=1

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, May 3, 2012 at 9:04 AM
Subject: re: Fallout of Bin Laden Raid: Aid Groups in Pakistan Are Suspect
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   When civilized nations undertook to bind themselves to Laws of War, they started by defining who is and who is not a combatant. For the sake of civilization, certain people (including journalists and healthworkers are excluded from the category of combatants. They thus enjoy some freedom and even protection to operate in the field of combat.  There is therefore a temptation for a combatant to seek an advantage in war by claiming falsely to  belong to one of these protected categories. For this, there is a technical term. It is called "perfidy". Civilized nations prosecute it as a war-crime.

Barry Haskell Levine