U.S. Widens Terror War to Yemen, a Qaeda Bastion

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28yemen.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=u.s.%20widens%20the%20terror%20war%20to%20yemen&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 9:45 AM
Subject: re: U.S. Widens Terror War to Yemen, a Qaeda Bastion
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  After our failed hit on al-Awlaki, it is scarcely news that the U.S. has widened the war to Yemen. Still, the article has the power to surprise. How can a journalist note that al-Awlaki is "a radical cleric in Yemen" but fail to mention that he is an American citizen who fits our Constitutional definition for treason? Noting that our policy is now a year old, how does the article not mention whether this was the first act of the president-elect, or one of the last acts of the lame-duck?  How many hands have edited this piece? After so much scissor work, I marvel that the page didn't dissolve in my hands into a heap of confetti.

Barry Levine

Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/24trading.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=banks%20bundled%20debt&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Subject: re: Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The world of finance is too abstract to grasp easily. I do know however that a professional athlete's earnings go up if he wins and down if he loses. It is therefore prudent that he hedge his bets by betting on his opponent. What is prudent is not legal for the athlete. The laws for investment bankers should be as clear.

Barry Levine

Weighing Medical Costs of End-of-Life Care

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/health/23ucla.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 10:29 AM
Subject: re: Weighing Medical Costs of End-of-Life Care
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    Half a year into the debate on health insurance, we still pretend that that debate is about healthcare. Now when we talk about end-of-life decisions, you characterize that as a discussion of "costs" as if that were different. Dr. Patrick T. Dowling gets to to the heart of the matter: "The more tubes you put in, the more you get paid".  The American healthcare system is therefore geared to do ever more and more, and charge ever more and more, quite independent of what's best for the patient.  Adam Smith taught us 200yrs ago that the incentives are the system. As long as the U.S. keeps a fee-for-service model for our physicians, our healthcare costs will continue to rise, until they consume our entire economy.

Barry Levine

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia Remains a Threat in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/world/middleeast/21qaeda.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=iraqi%20qaeda%20group%20shifts&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 9:01 AM
Subject: re: Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia Remains a Threat in Iraq
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   So Iraqi Sunnis still consider the central government a hostile Shiite tool, and expect open hostilities to erupt between Sunni and Shia and between Sunni and Kurd when the foreign peace-keepers are gone. This isn't news, but perhaps it's necessary background to the war coverage to come.  What is missing is any effort to reconcile this reality with the bland assertions that the Petraeus strategy has succeeded. If this is the model for our Afghan strategy, we  will be stuck a peacekeepers there too until hell freezes over.

Barry Levine

Pakistan Reported to Be Harassing U.S. Diplomats

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/world/asia/17visa.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Subject: re: Pakistan Reported to Be Harassing U.S. Diplomats
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   If the U.S. continues to focus on the Zardari's empty cape instead of Kayani's sword, our adventure in Afghanistan and Pakistan is going to end with out ears hung on someone's trophy wall.   As head of Pakistan's army, Ashfaq Kayani continues to protect assets inside the Taliban whom he cultivated when when he ran the ISI.  This has always been the axis of real power in Pakistan. While we may continue to cheer for the emergence of democracy, there, Zardari isn't the credible partner we need.

Barry Levine

Clinton Outlines U.S. Policy on Human Rights

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/14/world/international-uk-usa-rights.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=clinton%20outlines%20obama's%20"agile"%20agenda&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:41 AM
Subject: re: Clinton Outlines U.S. Policy on Human Rights
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    As long as president Obama's Department of Justice continues to provide immunity for those who tortured and wiretapped in violation of our own laws, his Department of State has no credibility in arguing for Human Rights. "Pragmatic and agile" is high praise for a harlot. I want something more principled in a leader.

Barry Levine

Interest Rates Are Low, but Banks Balk at Refinancing

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/economy/13rates.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 9:21 AM
Subject: re: Interest Rates Are Low, but Banks Balk at Refinancing
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   For a year now, the Federal Reserve has tried to inject money into American society by depressing interest rates. In a well-functioning market, each bank would compete to refinance another bank's loans at a more attractive rate, and the borrowers would have more money to drive the economy. If, instead, the banks collude to line their own pockets and not to lend out this money, they should be broken up without hesitation or sentiment. That's what anti-trust laws are for.

Barry Levine

With Lure of Cash, M.I.T. Group Builds a Balloon-Finding Team to Take Pentagon Prize

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/technology/internet/07contest.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=m.i.t.&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 9:36 AM
Subject: re: With Lure of Cash, M.I.T. Group Builds a Balloon-Finding Team to Take Pentagon Prize
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   It is tempting to speculate how Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon would have found these same eight red balloons. They would spent thousands of tons of aviation fuel flying aircraft with video gear over the whole country, while a crew of image analysts studied the video for signs of red balloons. Given the same task, the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) would have offered small monetary rewards to the millions of people already on the ground to report back where they saw red balloons. One hopes that Obama's Pentagon has the wisdom to learn what they just paid for. Those red balloon could as easily have been leaders of al-Qaeda.

Barry Levine

Similarities to Iraq Surge Plan Mask Risks in Afghanistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/world/05policy.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=surge%20afghanistan&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 10:44 PM
Subject: re: Similarities to Iraq Surge Plan Mask Risks in Afghanistan
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Our Iraq experience is unreliable ground on which to build an Afghanistan strategy. If the Surge in Iraq is judged a success, it is because--in the game of ever-changing criteria of success there--the spinner now points to "minimize monthly death-toll".  Consider how such a criterion would have sounded in January 2003, when zero American servicemen died in Iraq, and it had been zero for a decade. It wouldn't have passed any one's giggle-test, yet that was the time when we needed to enunciate a definition of success.

   President Obama isn't responsible for the messes he inherited, but he is responsible for reading our history responsibly as he commits the lives of American troops looking forward. He has told us that we can succeed in Afghanistan. What will that success look like? 

Barry Levine

3 Secret Service Officers Put on Leave in White House Gate-Crashing To: letters@nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/us/politics/04party.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=service%20officers%20put%20on%20leave&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 9:43 AM
Subject: re: 3 Secret Service Officers Put on Leave in White House Gate-Crashing
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   I am not privy to the raw data. Still, when the head of the president's secret service asserts that there have not been more death threats against president Obama than there were against his predecessors, eyebrows across the country should go up. If our secret service is redefining "death threats" to get the number they want, they are not doing their job. Some of us remember a national security team who insisted they had had no warning of the attacks of 9/11 because they had defined "warning" to give the number they wanted.

Barry Levine

Obama Team Defends Policy on Afghanistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/world/asia/03policy.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=obama%20team%20defends%20policy&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Subject: re: Obama Team Defends Policy on Afghanistan
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Secretary Gates may well be correct when he states that Afghanistan is unique as the site where the attacks of 9/11 were planned. He is also irrelevant. Yemen is unique as the site of the only al-Qaeda attack on a U.S. warship, and Saudi Arabia is unique as the homeland of a majority of th 9/11 bombers  and the list could go on. Let the Department of Justice prosecute the crimes of the past. I need a military leadership that looks to our future good when deciding where to send our troops who are alive today and may be dead tomorrow.

Barry Levine

Oil Companies Look to the Future in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/middleeast/01iraqoil.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=foothold%20in%20iraq&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 9:56 AM
Subject: re: Oil Companies Look to the Future in Iraq
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    From the hour of our invasion, the U.S. has studiously ignored our most important potential ally in Iraq.  Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani welcomed the demise of Saddam Hussein and the advent of democracy in his adopted country. As the highest-ranking Shiite cleric alive, his pronouncements carry huge weight among Iraq's population.  Our Bush administration however couldn't accept his insight that Iraq's mineral wealth belongs to the nation, and cannot be privatized.  Now, the major international oil companies are signing service contracts with the Iraqi government, rather than production-sharing agreements. The implication is that the mineral wealth remains the asset of Iraq.  Now that the interested parties have agreed on this, shouldn't the government of the U.S. enjoy a relationship with the most powerful man in Iraq? The government that prefers a relationship with a fugitive like Chalabi to one with a revered leader like al-Sistani earns only derision in Iraq.

Barry Levine