Subject: re: Iraq in Peril

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 11:58 AM
Subject: re: Iraq in Peril
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    The "Sunk-cost Fallacy" kept U.S. troops fighting, bleeding and dying in Vietnam for years beyond reason. In the event, our puppet government there fell and the sky did not follow. The U.S. has no vested interest in Iraq . Iraq was an artificial construct carved from the defeated Ottoman empire just as Yugoslavia was hacked from the Austro-Hungarian corpse. Either could be held together for a while by a repressive government but neither had any ethnic, cultural or political coherence.

   The U.S. does, however, have an interest in the region. The Kurds have waited since the foundation of the United Nations for the self-determination that is their Right. If we asked nicely, we could have an airbase forever in free Kurdistan.

Barry Haskell Levine

1142 Brown Ave
Lafayette, CA 94549
510 447 0126

: re: U.S. Scrambles to Help Iraq Fight Off Militants as Baghdad Is Threatened

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 6:19 AM
Subject: re: U.S. Scrambles to Help Iraq Fight Off Militants as Baghdad Is Threatened
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   In the end, it's too easy. Now that the NSA has shown itself incompetent at its core mission of military intelligence, it should be discarded, root and branch. Let our military do its own intelligence as it did before. We'll all be more secure from threats foreign and domestic.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/world/obama-voices-concern-over-militant-advance-in-iraq.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0

: re: Missile Strike by C.I.A. Drone Kills at Least 4, Pakistan Reports

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 9:01 AM
Subject: re: Missile Strike by C.I.A. Drone Kills at Least 4, Pakistan Reports
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   To characterize  the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as "a Taliban-allied jihadi group" is like characterizing the United States as a "Soviet ally". Yes, we shipped billions of dollars worth of arms and munitions to keep the Red Army in the fight against our common enemy in Europe. But the Uzbek separatists have no more interest in the Taliban's dream of a Pashtunistan than FDR had in building up the Soviet empire.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/asia/missile-strike-by-cia-drone-kills-at-least-4-pakistan-reports.html?_r=0

: re: Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army From Big City

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 1:30 PM
Subject: re: Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army From Big City
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

  Seven years ago, when the U.S. embraced general Petraeus' strategy of empowering and arming sectarian militias rather than building national Iraqi institution, we ensured and fueled the civil war that has been churning since. That left--broadly--three options:
1-Iraq as a perennial basket case, forever dependent on the U.S. with L. Paul Bremer as satrap

2-partition, in which the Kurds at least get the self-determination of peoples that we've promised since we signed the UN charter

3-Iraq as a festering failed state and incubator of Terrorists who threaten the world.

    The Iraqi people rightly rejected the first option and the third is intolerable. So lets give serious thought to the second. Iraq's borders have never made ethnic, cultural or political sense. They were drawn in haste as we dismantled the Ottoman empire. The Kurds deserve self-determination no less than do e.g. the Jews.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/militants-in-mosul.html?_r=0

: re: Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army From Big City

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 9:00 PM
Subject: re: Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army From Big City
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

  Seven years ago, when the U.S. embraced general Petraeus' strategy of empowering and arming sectarian militias rather than building national Iraqi institution, we ensured and fueled the civil war that has been churning since. Now, what had been relatively peaceful and prosperous Iraqi Kurdistan is being swept into the maelstrom.

    Maybe when the Iraqis despair utterly, we'll give them a new strongman whom we find convenient.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world/middleeast/militants-in-mosul.html?_r=0

Pakistan’s Latest Crisis

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 9:36 AM
Subject: re: Pakistan’s Latest Crisis
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   For years, first as head of Pakistan's ISI and later as army chief, general Ashfaq Kayyani tolerated, sponsored and even paid elements of the Taliban as a proxy force to use against India in Kashmir. If Pakistan survives the current crisis, it may eventually try him for treason. But for now, Kayyani is living in retirement, and his pet monster is amok. Should we be surprised?

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/opinion/pakistans-latest-crisis.html?_r=0

: Prisoner Trade Yields Rare View Into the Taliban

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:38 PM
Subject: re: Prisoner Trade Yields Rare View Into the Taliban
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   It was widely known in antiquity that Jews felt keenly the obligated to ransom one of their own who was held captive.  this made Jews something of a hot commodity. Every pirate, brigand and thug knew he could extort ransom from the Jewish community by hold one of them prisoner.  This perverse incentive was later modified (Mishna, Gittin 4:6) to preclude ransoming a captive for more than his worth.

    American Jurisprudence has its own rules, but the incentives are the same. By bargaining for the release of Bowe Bergdahl, president Obama has made every American serviceman, diplomat, journalist and tourist a target for kidnapping. As to the second, what is Bergdahl's worth, and what are the prisoners released worth? In American law, a criminal is a criminal only when a court has ruled so. Until then, he is merely a detainee awaiting trial. These five--despite senator McCain's ravings--are alleged to have done awful things, but have been convicted of nothing. To continue holding them is an embarrassment to the United States. We're well rid of them.

  It remains to be seen not so much  if we have paid too much for the release of one of our own, but whether we have paid to much to be rid of these five whom we couldn't legally hold.
Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/world/asia/soldier-prisoner-trade-for-five-taliban-figures-offers-rare-view.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0