Weapons Sales to Iraq Move Ahead Despite U.S. Worries

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/29/world/middleeast/us-military-sales-to-iraq-raise-concerns.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 10:40 AM
Subject: re: Weapons Sales to Iraq Move Ahead Despite U.S. Worries
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   It is natural that domestic arms manufacturers want to sell their wares to Iraq. It is even natural that the U.S. department of State takes an interest in increasing U.S. exports in a year of economic stress. But the U.S. has already done more than enough to stoke Iraq's civil war. We purged Sunnis from the Iraqi army and armed Sunni sectarian militias.

   If al-Maliki is going to be the leader of a strong free Iraq, he needs schoolteachers not tanks. If he is to be a new tyrant oppressing Iraq's minorities we don't need his business.

Barry Haskell Levine

Rumors Buzz, but Pakistan’s Military Denies Talk of Coup

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/world/asia/pakistan-military-seeking-to-quash-rumors-denies-conspiracy-to-seize-power.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 7:10 AM
Subject: re: Rumors Buzz, but Pakistan’s Military Denies Talk of Coup
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   General Parvaz Musharref ruled Pakistan from two desks, as both President and Chief of the Military.  On the day those offices were split the civilian side got an empty promise of control. Power in Pakistan has long flowed through the military which Ashfaq Kayani now heads, rather than the Zardari's Presidential office.  Talk of a coup in Pakistan is too late. Scarcely anyone noticed when President Zardari left the country. His microphone hasn't been plugged in in years.

Barry Haskell Levine

As New Gingrich Takes Center Stage, Old Reputation Lurks in Wings

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/politics/new-newts-biggest-rival-may-be-old-newt.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 8:46 AM
Subject: re: As New Gingrich Takes Center Stage, Old Reputation Lurks in Wings
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    We have seen how Newt Gingrich behaves when in high elected office, and when out. If we have learned anything, we will no more give that man power than we would give a bottle to a recovering alcoholic.

Barry Haskell Levine

Iraq’s Latest Battle

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/opinion/iraqs-latest-battle.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 9:50 AM
Subject: re: Iraq’s Latest Battle
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   When the U.S. ratified the charter of the United Nations, we pledged to support National self-determination of peoples. As a ratified treaty, that's the "supreme law of the land". Maintaining the current, arbitrary boundaries of Iraq might be convenient to our allies, but it is certainly not the responsibility of the U.S. The Kurds deserve a national homeland no less than do any other people.  Jake Garner might have gained the U.S. a staunch ally if he had been permitted to create a free, strong Kurdistan. If we are to go on spending American dollars in Iraq, it should be for better reasons than for a nostalgic attachment to a map drawn in haste by the conquering powers of the first World War. Surely we should not spend a dime to suppress the Kurds' legitimate bid for a national homeland.

Barry Haskell Levine

The End, for Now

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/opinion/friedman-the-end-for-now.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 10:11 AM
Subject: re:The End, for Now
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Thomas Friedman's messianic hopes have clouded his political vision, again. Some of us remember Yugoslavia.  Tito's iron fist held Yugoslavia together for seventy years.  In his crucible, all talk of sectarian strife was suppressed. Jew married Serb, Serb married Croat, Croat married Bosnian...three times twenty-one years passed and a generation started thinking that this was the post-sectarian model for modernity.  But all of this dissolved in blood and tears in the nineties.   Yugoslavia had always  been an arbitrary chunk hewed from the corpse of the Austro-Hungarian empire, just as Iraq was a fragment hacked from the Ottoman empire.  

   When we ratified the charter of the United Nations, the U.S. pledged to support the National self-determination of peoples. That can't be served by yoking the Kurds to the Arabs for twenty-one years, or for seventy years.  Now that the U.S. troops are out of the way, Iraq will try to explode as surely as Yugoslavia did, and as messily.

Barry Haskell Levine

Politics Over Principle

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/politics-over-principle.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 11:56 AM
Subject: re: Politics Over Principle
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  For fifty years, I've been a citizen of the United States, endowed by my Creator with certain inalienable Rights. With the signing of the new Defense Appropriation, that will be over. I'll  suddenly be a potential suspect terrorist, enjoying the mere appearance of Rights only until and unless our military decide to detain me indefinitely.  Surely such a change in our form of government deserves a bill of its own, to be debated (and rejected) on its own merits. President Obama doesn't have a line-item veto to reject this provision alone. So he'll have to veto the entire Defense Appropriation Bill. Maybe when Boeing, Ratheon and Northrup don't get paid for the weapons we don't need, their lobbyists will knock some sense into our Congress.

Barry Haskell Levine

U.S. Marks End to 9-Year War, Leaving an Uncertain Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/middleeast/end-for-us-begins-period-of-uncertainty-for-iraqis.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Arango&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 9:23 AM
Subject: re: U.S. Marks End to 9-Year War, Leaving an Uncertain Iraq
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    The president who promised us more transparency in government is now enmeshed in a dangerous double game. He must convince the American people that pulling American troops out of Iraq means that we're out of there. Simultaneously, he must convince the Iraqi people that it's not yet safe to resume their sectarian civil war.  The domestic side of that is easy; The few Americans who read foreign news get it through a small number of controllable corporate media sources. The Iraqi side is harder; people there know well that most of America's forces in Iraq have been "contractors","advisers" or "embassy staff", rather that "troops" for more than a year already.  To maintain the illusion that we have extricated ourselves from a new stable Iraq through our elections in November 2012 will cost tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars, if it can be done at all.

Barry Haskell Levine

Premier’s Actions in Iraq Raise U.S. Concerns

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/world/middleeast/arrests-in-iraq-raise-concerns-about-maliki.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 10:31 AM
Subject: re: Premier’s Actions in Iraq Raise U.S. Concerns
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   It is normal and praiseworthy that premier al-Maliki has worked to rein in Shiite militias in Iraq. As head of state, he has an interest in asserting a monopoly on force in the country.  There are two blocks in his path. One is Moqtada al-Sadr, who feels that his Mahdi army protects him  from prosecution for the murder of Abdul Majid al-Khoei.  The other is the Sunni Awakening, whom the U.S. armed and who now fear persecution from the Shiite majority.   Once they see that the Yankees have gone home and there's no one to keep the lid on, all hell is likely to break out in Iraq.

Barry Haskell Levine

re: Detainee in Iraq Poses a Dilemma as U.S. Exit Nears

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/world/middleeast/militarys-last-detainee-in-iraq-poses-dilemma-for-obama.html

To the Editor:

   If the U.S. has helped establish a free a sovereign government in Iraq as we so proudly claim, surely mr. Daqduq is their problem. If the government in Baghdad is a U.S. puppet regime, surely we can take him.  A problem only arises when we try to claim that the regime in Baghdad is sovereign, but treat it like our puppet. It's not easy being an empire.

Barry Haskell Levine

For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 7:32 AM
Subject: re: For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Through president George W. Bush's years, SEC prosecutions fell drastically. In that climate of non-enforcement, bankers ran amok and our economy crashed. Now this culture of non-prosecution has infected the entire Department of Justice.  We know that men were tortured while in U.S. custody and that torture is a crime, but no one has been shown to have committed the crime. We know that citizens' phonelines were tapped in violation of the FISA statute and their constitutional guarantees against unreasonable search, but no one has been shown to have committed the crime. We learn that men go on dying because coal executives violated safety laws, but we don't finger those executives.  It is not enough that we--through our elected representatives--pass laws. If our executive doesn't deign to enforce them, we don't enjoy the Rule of Law that our forefathers fought for.

Barry Haskell Levine

Lead From Old U.S. Batteries Sent to Mexico Raises Risks

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/science/earth/recycled-battery-lead-puts-mexicans-in-danger.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 9:06 AM
Subject: re: Lead From Old U.S. Batteries Sent to Mexico Raises Risks
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    When Adam Smith made the case for globalization of trade, it was a work of genius. Over the last 235 years his ideas have made the world vastly richer, on average. But Smith wrote at a time when the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man were all in the future. In his day, slavery was still legal in Britain.  To divorce international trade policy from labor law in the twenty-first century is no longer acceptable.  We are not innocent when we import a lead battery from a foreign factory that poisons its workers and neighbors. Economics were simpler in the eighteenth century, when one could externalize risks and environmental damages. The world is smaller since then and we have to grow up.

Barry Haskell Levine

A Banker Speaks, With Regret

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/kristof-a-banker-speaks-with-regret.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 9:22 AM
Subject: re: A Banker Speaks, With Regret
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    Lending money at interest is usually a profitable undertaking for those who control the money. It remains to be explained why the Federal Reserve--wielding Congress' power to create money--handed $13billion in profits to private banks.  If that interest were earned on the banks' own principal, they wouldn't have needed the Fed's intervention. If that interest was earned on the People's principal, surely it should have accrued to the People? Three times the U.S. has handed our monetary policy to a quasi-governmental central bank. In each case, it has enriched the few powerful bankers who controlled it. That seems a priority that rather less than 1% of Americans could endorse.

Barry Haskell Levine

Senate Approves Requiring Military Custody in Terror Cases

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/us/politics/senate-approves-military-custody-for-terror-suspects.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 9:39 AM
Subject: re: Senate Approves Requiring Military Custody in Terror Cases
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that "No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". The amendment does not define "due process", but throughout our history to this point, it has been interpreted to mean that only a duly constituted court of law can wield such power.  A proposed federal statute that would grant to the Executive "the legal authority to keep [citizens] suspect of terrorism in military custody, indefinitely and without trial"  would violate both the separation of powers and the Fifth Amendment.  Congress does not have the power to grant this to the Executive and only a tyrannical Executive would accept it.

Barry Haskell Levine

Things to Tax

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/opinion/krugman-things-to-tax.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:43 AM
Subject: re: Things to Tax
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  It is with some trepidation that I disagree with professor Krugman from whom I have learned so much of economics. But we don't need a new transaction tax to raise revenues. It would be better to tweak our existing capital gains tax.  Any profit on an asset held less than a day should be taxed at no less than 95%. That rate can ramp down to the long-term capital gains rate (15%?) over a year or two.   Unlike the transaction tax, this would have no deterrent effect on those investments which are really fueling the economy and would fall only on those who are using the stock market as a casino.

Barry Haskell Levine

Ratings Shrink President’s List for Judgeships

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/us/politics/screening-panel-rejects-many-obama-picks-for-federal-judgeships.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 7:46 AM
Subject: re: Ratings Shrink President’s List for Judgeships
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

      The ABA deemed 97% of the president's nominees for judgeships "qualified". That seems scant cause for outcry.  These nominees were suggested by members of Congress, among whom partisanship routinely trumps qualifications. Anyone engaged in research will recognize the service the ABA provides here; we call it "peer review".

Barry Haskell Levine

Central Bankers: Stop Dithering. Do Something

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/central-bankers-stop-dithering-do-something.html?ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 12:41 PM
Subject: re: Central Bankers: Stop Dithering. Do Something
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editors:

   If the Federal Reserve were an agency of the U.S. government committed to economic recovery, it would long ago have committed to robust stimulus. The Fed however is only a quasi-governmental agency. It is run by bankers for the banks.  Sure, a bit of inflation is tolerable in a healthy economy.  But bankers fear that inflation would let borrowers (read "us") repay debts to creditors (read "the banks") in debased currency. As long as our monetary policy is in the hands of this cabal, we shouldn't expect the People's interests to be served.

Barry Haskell Levine

Fixing Medicare

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/fixing-medicare.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Subject: re: Fixing Medicare
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Dr. Patrick Dowling diagnosed our problem two years ago on these pages: "the more tubes you put in, the more you get paid".  Americans today pay more for healthcare than anyone ever since the invention of money, and the costs are only increasing. If the current trend continues it will devour our entire economy within the foreseeable future.  This is not a problem that more competition will fix. We need a new paradigm, paying for health, not for treatment.

Barry Haskell Levine

Beyond Seizing Parks, New Paths to Influence

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-organizers-consider-value-of-camps.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 8:23 AM
Subject: re: Beyond Seizing Parks, New Paths to Influence
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  The battleline of Occupy Wall Street now moves from Zuccotti park to cyberspace. In the 21st century, that's the obvious venue for the exercise of our Freedom of Assembly. But the visceral excitement of chanting and marching must now be replaced by the hard work of institutionalizing change.  Any concrete demand risks trivializing and fragmenting the movement, but there's one plank that I think will keep almost everyone on board. We should now turn to working for a constitutional amendment constraining corporate personhood. For our first century, we allowed that corporations were  "legal persons"with whom one could enter contracts, but were not "natural persons" endowed with rights. That distinction was lost in 1886; it's past time that we put it back.
Barry Haskell Levine

Students Lose Zeal for Aiding Obama Again

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/politics/students-lose-enthusiasm-to-fight-for-obama-again.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 8:13 AM
Subject: re: Students Lose Zeal for Aiding Obama Again
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  When senator Obama was building an outsider's campaign on small donations to challenge the entrenched powers, America's youth embraced him as one of their own. Now that he is wooing big donors in the banking, insurance, energy and defense sectors, their ardor has cooled. In each case, the channels of money are the channels of power. If we are to have a government truly of the People, by the People and for the People, it has to be divorced from this courtship of donors, large or small. Until we have public financing for campaigning, "one man one vote" is an empty slogan.

Barry Haskell Levine

How Romney Could Win

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/opinion/keller-how-romney-could-win.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=how%20romney%20could%20win&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Subject: re: How Romney Could Win
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   Bill Keller gazes at the drawn curtain of the voting booth and
projects his own dreams onto others, voting for Obama but wishing he
were more like Romney.  Surely the most parsimonious explanation is
rather that a majority voted for Obama because they wanted a president
like the candidate had portrayed. Americans voted for "change" and
their disappointment is not that president Obama is too far Left. The
disappointment is that we're still living in Cheney's America.  The
hypothetical candidate who could make inroads into president Obama's
majority stands not to his Right but to his Left, .
Barry Haskell Levine

A Gold Rush of Subsidies in the Search for Clean Energy

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/business/energy-environment/a-cornucopia-of-help-for-renewable-energy.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 8:03 AM
Subject: re: A Gold Rush of Subsidies in the Search for Clean Energy
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   American energy policy is stuck in a quagmire of words. When the public eats the cost of mercury in the atmosphere or acid rain or anthropogenic climate change, that's not charged to coal-fired electricity generation. Those are "externalities". But when the public eats the cost of starting up a renewable energy sector that's called "subsidies" and the clamor is predictable. Coal is only "cheap" because we have never tallied its real cost. If our energy policy is going to be a matter of reasoning, rather than partisan sniping, it will have to start with tallying real costs for all the options. Put a price on ocean acidification and global climate change and mercury in the atmosphere and fouled groundwater and 10,000yr safe storage of radioactive wastes and fisheries disrupted. Only then can we make rational choices about our energy future. Solar and wind might look more attractive if we kept honest books.
Barry Haskell Levine

Legends of the Fail

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/opinion/legends-of-the-fail.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=legends%20of%20the%20fail&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 8:33 AM
Subject: re: Legends of the Fail
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Professor Krugman tidily lays out the argument that a sovereign nation needs to command its own currency, but balks at the logical conclusion. The government of the United States needs to nationalize the Federal Reserve.  By 1835, Alexander Hamilton's public/private experiment had served its purpose; It was no longer tolerable to give so much influence to the bankers. It is past time for a new Andrew Jackson to restore sovereignty to the people.

Barry Haskell Levine

Less Than $26 Billion? Don’t Bother.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/less-than-26-billion-dont-bother/?scp=2&sq=emanuel&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 7:10 AM
Subject: re: Less Than $26 Billion? Don’t Bother.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  Dr. Emanuel points to the $11billion that our Health Insurance companies report as annual income and calls it a sum to small to bother with. Doing so, he obscures the larger truth; our Health Insurance companies don't need to exist. Under SinglePayer the function shrivels to paying the healthcare costs as they're incurred.  Add up the profits of the Insurance companies and all their salaries and benefits, and you have a sum that is not negligible. And then we would still have to rein in the costs of delivering too much healthcare to the dying.
Barry Haskell Levine

For Our Allies, Death From Above

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/in-pakistan-drones-kill-our-innocent-allies.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=clive%20stafford%20smith&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 9:59 AM
Subject: re: For Our Allies, Death From Above
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
    The claim that "precision [drone] strikes" had killed "no innocent civilian" in fifteen months is the official U.S. position. It is an officially sanctioned lie. In 1987, attorney general issued a directive authorizing the CIA to lie. Although Meese may have intended only to castrate the Freedom of Information Act, he actually stuck his knife into American democracy.  No CIA statement since then should be taken at face value, and--while that directive remains in place--none of their lies are crimes. Twenty-four years later, our department of Justice is finally revisiting this outrage. It is twenty-four years too late for American democracy, and for our dead allies in Pakistan.
Barry Haskell Levine

re: /health/a-reminder-on-bone-health-and-osteoporosis

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/health/a-reminder-on-bone-health-and-osteoporosis.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bisphosphonates&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 4:09 PM
Subject: re: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/health/a-reminder-on-bone-health-and-osteoporosis.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bisphosphonates&st=cse
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  Before any new drug is approved for sale in the U.S. by the FDA, the manufacturer must submit evidence not only for safety and efficacy, but also how the drug is Absorbed, Distributed through the body's tissues, Metabolized and Excreted. In the case of the bisphosphonate drugs which are laid down in new bone and are never excreted, a sufficient safety trial would have to last to the grave. This study was never done for any of the drugs in this class. Once the FDA gave its approval, the Marketing divisions went into high gear and never looked back. The patients who have now been using these drugs for over a decade are therefore--wittingly or unwittingly--enrolled in this safety study. So far, the side-effects have been rare the risk/benefit ratio looks pretty good. As their patents run out, we will see the big companies flogging newer classes of drugs for osteoporosis. Until then, the very profitability of these drugs poses a barrier to R&D on something better.
Barry Haskell Levine

A President Trying to Work the Levers He Still Possesses

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/politics/congress-and-economy-limit-obamas-domestic-agenda.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a%20president%20trying%20to%20work%20the%20levers&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 9:06 AM
Subject: re: A President Trying to Work the Levers He Still Possesses
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  The power to tax and the power to spend and the power to stimulate are powers of the US Congress. On this, our constitution is clear. An intransigent opposition can deny our President progress on the economy for partisan gain.  The President however remains our Chief Executive, and the department of Justice reports to  him.  As sympathetic as we are to his frustrations with Congress, we still look to him to deliver the promised change. Let him show us the prosecution of torturers. let him tell us who among us were subjects of warrantless wiretaps. Let him dismantle the Bush/Cheney machinery of fear. Let him do this now, because it has always been in his power. Then we'll give him a second term in office, and a loyal Congress that can get his agenda passed.
Barry Haskell Levine

Panetta’s Pentagon, Without the Blank Check II

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/us/at-pentagon-leon-panetta-charts-change-of-course.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Panetta&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 7:53 PM
Subject: re: Panetta’s Pentagon, Without the Blank Check
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
 That secretary Panetta alleges that we "hollowed out" the U.S. military after WWII is newsworthy, and has a proper place in this paper.

 What is missing is a notation that his allegation is false. It is precisely because we didn't hollow out the U.S. military after WWII that 

president Truman was able to go into Korea without consulting Congress. The military was already armed and funded.  No one in Washington

 operates with less oversight than the head of our CIA. It is not comforting to see that his grasp of reality is so tenuous. And it's disappointing

 to see the press so supine.
Barry Haskell Levine

Panetta’s Pentagon, Without the Blank Check

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/us/at-pentagon-leon-panetta-charts-change-of-course.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Panettas%20pentagon&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 9:05 AM
Subject: re: Panetta’s Pentagon, Without the Blank Check
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    It was never clear what secretary Panetta brought to the office of Secretary of Defense. As you note, he knew nothing of making wars. It turns out he knows nothing of history either. It was exactly because we did not "hollow out" our military at the end of WWII that president Truman could invade Korea without going to Congress; the military was already funded and armed.

   No cabinet-level secretary can be expected to know everything that goes into doing the job. That secretary Panetta would blunder ahead with a lie rather than ask a staffer for the facts however should worry us all.

Barry Haskell Levine

U.S. Scales Back Diplomacy in Iraq Amid Fiscal and Security Concerns

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/world/middleeast/us-scales-back-diplomacy-in-iraq-amid-fiscal-and-security-concerns.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=u.s.%20scales%20back%20diplomacy&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 6:49 AM
Subject: re: U.S. Scales Back Diplomacy in Iraq Amid Fiscal and Security Concerns
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   With the capture of Saddam Hussein, a window of opportunity opened for U.S. diplomacy. At that time, we could have created a free Kurdistan. Sure, it would have irked our Turkish ally, and a landlocked Kurdistan would have to live in a rough neighborhood. But we would have gotten in return a staunch ally and a valuable airbase. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld team preferred to double down on a foolish wager. That window has long since closed. Now, we propose to walk away from Bush's $2trillion venture and the graves of 4,000 of our sons and daughters with nothing. And that's the best scenario available anymore.

Barry Haskell Levine

A Mitzvah Behind the Price of a Soldier’s Freedom

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/us/pidyon-shvuyim-validated-the-price-of-shalits-release.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a%20mitzvah&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 7:54 AM
Subject: re: A Mitzvah Behind the Price of a Soldier’s Freedom
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The matter of Gilad Shalit was never going to be easy. The Talmud calls ransoming the captive a great mitzvah, yet forbids paying more than his value.  Abraham risks his own life to redeem his nephew Lot, but he does with at swordpoint, paying no ransom. Likewise when God redeems Israel from Egypt, it is with signs and wonders and eventually violence, not with cash.

  Benjamin Netanyahu's own brother died at Entebbe freeing the captives held there in a military raid, as Abraham freed Lot. This Israeli government however pays ransom like a powerless ghetto Jew. It is them that Meir ben Baruch warned seven hundred years ago. He forbade his friends to pay the exorbitant ransom demanded because to do so would make every Jew a kidnap target. He died in prison, but he was right.

Barry Haskell Levine

Officials Deliver Warning in Pakistan Over Extremists

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/asia/clinton-issues-blunt-warning-to-pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 10:52 AM
Subject: re: U.S. Officials Deliver Warning in Pakistan Over Extremists
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   As commanding general of MNF-I, David Petraeus conceived and implemented a strategy of deferring the Iraqi civil war until we leave. That war is still inevitable--we ourselves armed the partisans--unless we stay forever.  Now, as head of our CIA, he appears in meetings between our secretary of State and Pakistan's (military) head.  Will he propose a permanent U.S. military presence in Afghanistan? Will he tamp down the violence there only long enough for us to leave? However brilliant he is as a soldier and as a leader of soldiers, he was not elected to write our foreign policy.

Barry Haskell Levine

Failed Attack on U.S. Base Rattles an Afghan Valley

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/world/asia/failed-attack-on-us-base-rattles-panjshir-valley-in-afghanistan.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=panjshir&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:43 AM
Subject: re: Failed Attack on U.S. Base Rattles an Afghan Valley
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    To acknowledge that the Taliban are "Pashtun anchored" is much like acknowledging that the Ku Klux Klan is "white anchored". Without being false, it fails to convey what's going on. Of forty-four million Pashtun divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a minority constitute the Taliban. But that minority is determined to either impose their mores and culture on  all of Afghanistan or to have a state of their own. There is no place in their ideology for a free multi-ethnic Afghanistan. Ashfaq Kayani of course prefers that Pashtunistan be carved out of Afghanistan if it is to be created at all, rather than out of his Pakistan. To this end he has continued to harbor and fund the Haqqani network, even when they are killing Americans.  The U.S. has no dog in this fight. The sooner we're out of there, the better.

Barry Haskell Levine

In Israel, Swap Touches Old Wounds

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/middleeast/israel-prisoner-swap-touches-old-wounds.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=swap%20touches%20old%20wounds&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 7:40 AM
Subject: re: In Israel, Swap Touches Old Wounds
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Jewish law (Gittin 45a) forbids ransoming a prisoner for more than his value. It may play well to Netanyahu's backers on the far Right to value Palestinian prisoners at 1/1000th of a buck private in the Israeli army. But the snub will not go unnoticed among those who have long accused him of racism.

Barry Haskell Levine

Justifying the Killing of an American

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/justifying-the-killing-of-an-american.html?scp=1&sq=justifying%20the%20killing%20of%20an%20american&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:31 AM
Subject: re:Justifying the Killing of an American
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   Anwar al-Awlaki was an American citizen, with constitutional guarantees of due process of law. Indeed, if our courts were empowered to strip any of us of citizenship, all our "rights" would be merely boons granted at the courts' pleasure. Unless he walked into a U.S. courthouse or embassy to renounce his citizenship, U.S. law permits only one scenario in which he would not be entitled to a full trial (whether in person on in absentia).  Our statute provides that we can infer that one has renounced U.S. citizenship by:"serving in the armed forces of a foreign state if such armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the United States" .  Name that state and show that al-Awlaki served in armed forces, and you have a case for denying him a trial. Until then, he's a murder victim.
Barry Haskell Levine

The Secrets of Government Killing

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/the-secrets-of-government-killing.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the%20secrets%20of%20government%20killing&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 6:53 AM
Subject: re: The Secrets of Government Killing
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  If our president disdains to tell the people what it is that he's doing in our name, he must be hauled before Congress to answer articles of impeachment. The killing of a citizen without charges, without a trial, without even a nod to due process of law is a crime. Such a precedent cannot stand unchallenged. No man, and no office can be above the law.

Barry Haskell Levine

Confronting the Malefactors

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html?_r=2&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 9:35 AM
Subject: re: Confronting the Malefactors
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  The monstrous edifice that is Wall Street stands on three legs. The first is the vast revenue reaped by millisecond and microsecond trading on the stock market. The second is the vast political influence that this wealth buys. The third is a claim to personhood as interpreted by the Supreme Court in re Citizens United.  The protesters on Wall Street need more that slogans. We need new legislation to topple this monster. The first bill would reform taxes on capital gains. Any profits on an asset held less than an hour should be taxed at no less than 95%.That rate can ramp down to the long-term capital gains rate over two years. The second bill would take donations out of campaigns for federal office. The third bill would define personhood. Corporations may be legal persons in that they can be sued in court, but they do not deserve rights that are properly reserved for humans. Only when campaigns for the senate, for the White House and for the House of Representatives are federally funded will we have achieved one Person, one vote.

Barry Haskell Levine

Iraq Denies Legal Immunity to U.S. Troops After 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/world/middleeast/iraqis-say-no-to-immunity-for-remaining-american-troops.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=iraqis%20say%20no%20to%20immunity%20for%20u.s.%20troops&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Subject: re: Iraq Denies Legal Immunity to U.S. Troops After 2011
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    The U.S. department of State advanced claims of diplomatic immunity for Raymond Davis in bad faith; as a CIA hitman, he had no legitimate expectation of immunity from Pakistani law. Now it seems the department had intended the same deception in Iraq, covering 16,000 "embassy staff".  The surprising display of spine from Pakistan's Foreign Office forced a reevaluation of this policy of perfidy. If we want to claim credit for setting up a free and sovereign Iraq, we must allow Iraq sovereignty. That means American there will have to abide by the law, however inconvenient.

Barry Haskell Levine

Judging a Long, Deadly Reach

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/world/american-strike-on-american-target-revives-contentious-constitutional-issue.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 7:43 AM
Subject: re: Judging a Long, Deadly Reach
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   It would have been easy to convict Anwar al-Awlaki of treason if he had been tried in an American court of law; he had attached himself to our enemies. But he was not tried in court. He was not even charged with a crime. That puts him in the  other category: American citizens who cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Our law provides no third category. Summary execution by the Executive of an American citizen should concern us all. Republicans in congress could initiate impeachment--but many of them seem to believe that Muslims don't deserve constitutional rights. Democrats in congress could initiate impeachment--but many of them seem to believe that re-electing their man is more important than the Rule of Law. It is an occasion for sober reflection on America's values. If you're not queasy, you're not paying attention.

Barry Haskell Levine

As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 9:11 AM
Subject: re: As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Many of our Founding Fathers sincerely believed that they were designing a government for the Ages, but Thomas Jefferson dissented. He held that we would need a new revolution in each generation, because those how hold wealth and power at any moment will always pervert the institutions of government to keep wealth and power. For this, he earned the enmity of many of his colleagues. With time, we're learning that the new revolutions don't come off like clockwork, but neither can they be stopped entirely; an educated electorate will eventually see whose interests are served, and whose are not.

Barry Haskell Levine

The War on Insider Trading: Market-Beaters Beware

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/magazine/in-the-insider-trading-war-market-beaters-beware.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the%20greed%20police&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 8:35 PM
Subject: re: The War on Insider Trading: Market-Beaters Beware
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  The ongoing vigilance of the SEC is necessary if we are to have a fair and open market. "Compliance with the unenforceable" may define ethics, but it doesn't characterize Wall Street. When the Cheney/Bush administration let it be known that SEC prosecutions were not a priority, a few unscrupulous traders made fortunes but faith in the whole market crashed.  Mere enforcement however can never be enough; regulators and legislators are necessarily less nimble than the crooks here. We need to redesign the incentive system. Any profit on an asset held less than an hour should be taxed at no less than 95%. That rate can ramp down to the long-term capital gains rate over a year or two.  Until we change the capital gains incentive system, we will go on losing the Red Queen's race.
Barry Haskell Levine

Split Decision and Barbed Comments Show a Court Deeply Divided on Wiretapping

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/split-court-decision-on-wiretapping-and-barbed-comments.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:29 PM
Subject: re: Split Decision and Barbed Comments Show a Court Deeply Divided on Wiretapping
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has surely fallen halfway through the LookingGlass--or half that court's members have fallen all the way through.  They argue that Americans--who aren't allowed to know that they are suffering searches--still enjoy freedom from unreasonable search, because those searches happened through due process of law--in secret.  The Fisa Amendment doesn't need to be interpreted and it doesn't need to be fixed. It needs to be repealed. It is inimical to legitimate democracy.
Barry Haskell Levine

Obama Rejects Obamaism

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/opinion/brooks-obama-rejects-obamaism.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=david%20brooks&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 8:15 AM
Subject: re: Obama Rejects Obamaism
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Mr. Brooks is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts. The stratum of Americans who pay 31% tax on their salaries pay far less than that on their income because salary is only a small part of their income; income on Capital Gains is taxed at less than half that rate. Traders on Wall Street have long exploited this deception, claiming their contractual compensation (what normal people call "salary") as "capital gains" precisely to get this lower tax rate.

Barry Haskell Levine

How Dick Cheney Reined in Presidential Power

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/how-dick-cheney-reined-in-presidential-power.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 12:24 PM
Subject: re: How Dick Cheney Reined in Presidential Power
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   If Jack Goldsmith had argued that Dick Cheney showed us why we must be ever vigilant to rein in presidential power, I would be applauding. Instead he argued that Cheney had reined in presidential power. He is wrong. Worse than that, he tries to lull us into letting our vigilance lapse. The Obama administration has not rolled back the power grabs of the Cheney years. It continues to invoke "state secrets" to hide the extent of illegal wiretaps and it refuses to honor the treaties our Congress ratified requiring extradition of torturers.  As long as the Obama administration remains complicit in the excesses of the Cheney years, we would be fools to  congratulate ourselves for "reining in" an Executive amok.

Barry Haskell Levine

Support for Obama Slips; Unease on 2012 Candidates

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/us/politics/obamas-support-is-slipping-poll-finds-but-his-jobs-plan-is-well-received.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=obama%20base%20democrat&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 9:32 PM
Subject: re: Support for Obama Slips; Unease on 2012 Candidates
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Since the election of 200, president Obama's political advisors have presumed that his base voters were in the bag. There would be no challenge from the Left in the primary; to whom could we turn?  He was therefore free to drift ever right-wards, in pursuit of the mythical crossover voter.  That--and $10billion in naval contracts--got him exactly two votes in the senate for his stimulus bill. When American voted for CHANGE in 2008, we voted for a broad and a deep repudiation of Cheney's America. Since then, no one has been prosecuted for torture,  no one has been extradited in compliance with out treaty obligations and I am still not allowed to know if I was among those subject to illegal wiretaps. I voted for change in 2008 and  I mean to vote for change again, and again until I get it.

Barry Haskell Levine

re: Palestinian Statehood

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/opinion/palestinian-statehood.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 9:12 AM
Subject: re:
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    An Obama administration determined to "look forward and not backwards" seems to have forgotten that the U.N. has already voted to create a Palestinian State. The partition plan adopted in 1947 created not just Israel but also a new Palestinian State and the International enclave of Jerusalem. Harry Truman was quick to put himself on the right side of history when he welcomed Israel to the community of nations. President Obama seems determined to stake his ground on the wrong side of history in vetoing the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations.

Barry Haskell Levine

U.S. Is Appealing to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=palestinian&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 10:56 PM
Subject: re: U.S. Is Appealing to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  When the U.S. joined the United Nations, we endorsed the UN's call for National Self-determination of Peoples. That applies to Palestinians and Chechens and Tibetans as surely as it applies to Jews and Algerians and Danes.  If the U.S. is no longer a beacon of liberty, but rather the global enforcer of the status quo, we should re-evaluate our participation in the U.N.
Barry Haskell Levine

American Theocracy Revisited

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/american-theocracy-revisited.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=douthat&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:31 AM
Subject: re: American Theocracy Revisited
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Mr. Douthat urges us to take comfort in the record of Republicans past who have betrayed their campaign rhetoric and their backers' hopes once in office. I am not comforted. That is no way to run a republic. Our form of government requires that voters choose a leader with the expectation that she/he will act as they would have wanted on unforeseen issues years after the election campaign.  Although campaign rhetoric corresponds only very imperfectly to a leader's future performance, it is the information we have.  If we are to ignore the rhetoric, our elections would be mere beauty contests.

Barry Haskell Levine

Why Is That a Secret?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/opinion/why-is-that-a-secret.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=why%20is%20that%20a%20secrect&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 10:22 AM
Subject: re: Why Is That a Secret?
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   In any form of government, the sovereign needs to know what is going on.  A monarch can play his cards close to his chest or share them with a privy council, but for a democracy to work, the People need to know the issues and the outcomes.  Tactically, there will always be exceptions (e.g. troop movements) that have to be secret for a time. But a government that reflexively hides matters from the People is a government that is undercutting democracy.

Barry Haskell Levine

How Democrats Hurt Jobs

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/opinion/nocera-how-democrats-hurt-job-creation.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=nocera&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 7:43 PM
Subject: re: How Democrats Hurt Jobs
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

     In the eighteenth century, Adam Smith taught us how nations and people can build wealth by letting resources, labor and capital flow to the demand. By the turn of the twentieth century however it was clear that a brutish fundamentalist adherence to such free-markets spurred a race to the bottom, in which states and nations compete to offer the laxest regulations industry.  In the twenty-first century, Americans largely agree that child-labor laws, workplace safety laws, sick-leave and collective bargaining are good things. It is entirely proper that our federal government should enforce these values.  It's hard enough to maintain our standards against the international race to the bottom. We don't need to be running that race among our United States.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Wrong Idea

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/opinion/austerity-is-the-wrong-idea.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 9:40 AM
Subject: re: The Wrong Idea
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Two constituencies keep the debate in Washington focused on deficits even as the People are focused on jobs. The first are creditors (read "bankers") who don't want borrowers (read "us") paying back out debts in inflated dollars. The second are GOP strategists who are cynically prolonging the recession because Obama would be unbeatable in 2012 if he were to preside over an economic recovery.  Thomas Jefferson foresaw that in time, a government would grow to serve such elites rather than the People. That's why we have a Second Amendment.

Barry Haskell Levine

Attacks in Iraq Heighten Political Tensions

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=attacks%20in%20iraq%20heighten%20political%20tension&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Subject: re: Attacks in Iraq Heighten Political Tensions
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Since the day we first underwrote the Awakening Councils, the Iraqi Sectarian Civil War has merely been on hiatus.  Everyone there knows it will erupt the day the Yankees are no longer imposing calm. We will try to delay and to disguise that day, but the American people have no stomach to occupy Iraq indefinitely as we already occupy Germany, Japan and South Korea.  One day, one of these attacks will show that we are no longer on patrol; that day, the Civil War goes hot.

Barry Levine

Palestinians and the U.N.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/opinion/palestinians-and-the-un.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=palestinians%20and%20the%20UN&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 7:56 AM
Subject: re: Palestinians and the U.N.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  In 1947 the UN voted to create three entities from what had been the British Mandate in Palestine: one Jewish state, one Arab state and an International Enclave of Jerusalem. The proto-Israelis said "yes", the proto-Palestinians said "no" and no one spoke for Jerusalem. After the dust settled and the dead were buried, the Israelis had a state, Jordan had seized Jerusalem and the Palestinians were stateless.  When Palestinians look backwards, they see this as a failure; when they look forward they aspire to a state like the state the Jews have. Their Right to National Self-Determination is as just as anyone else's. Starting again with a UN vote follows the precedent to get there.

Barry Levine

A Right-Wing Monster

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/opinion/25douthat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a%20right-wing%20monster&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 10:42 AM
Subject: re: A Right-Wing Monster
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Mr. Duthout isn't wrong to observe that "Islam and liberal democracy have not yet proven natural bedfellows", but the experiment is only recently under way. One might as easily and as rightly have noted that Protestantism seemed inimical to peace, depending on when one wrote.  The century after Martin Luther's split with Rome saw wars raging across Europe--we even had a massacre of Huguenots in Florida--yet Catholics and Protestants have been living peacefully in Europe and this country for centuries now.  Mr. Duthout may still dream of a Europe united in monolithic allegiance to the Church of Rome (except for those stiff-necked Jews) but the rest of us have found that diversity--and tolerance--can be  very good things.

Barry Haskell Levine

Fast Traders, in Spotlight, Battle Rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/business/fast-traders-under-attack-defend-work.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 8:42 AM
Subject: re Fast Traders, in Spotlight, Battle Rules
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  John Wanamaker famously said "I know that I'm wasting half the money I spend on advertising. I just don't know which half". Likewise, it can be hard to tell if any particular dollar spent on Wall Street is fueling industry and innovation or is merely speculation.  For one group of purchases however, this distinction is clear. These are assets flipped very quickly. The cost is non-trivial; many of our societies best minds are now playing in this casino rather than inventing the technologies of our future.  The fix is not new regulation; we need to change the incentive structure. Profits on any asset held less than an hour should be taxed at no less than 95%. That rate can then ramp down to the long-term capital gains rate at about one percentage point every four days.

Barry Haskell Levine

Behind Battle Over Debt, a War Over Government

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/us/politics/15deficit.html?_r=1&ref=jackiecalmes

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:52 PM
Subject: re: Behind Battle Over Debt, a War Over Government
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Behind the battle over debt brews the clash between what we might call the Keynesian view and the Hooverian view. John Maynard Keynes was awarded the Nobel prize in economics for showing that a responsible government can and should spend money that it doesn't have in times of economic distress.  Herbert Clark Hoover was turned out of office for preaching austerity as the remedy to the Great Depression.  While history never quite repeats itself, the evidence in hand shows that deficit spending for make-work (e.g. raking leaves) and deficit spending for infrastructure (e.g. the TVA) and deficit spending for the U.S. participation in WWII (which dwarfed the other two) brought us from the Great Depression to our Post-War prosperity.  As long as president Obama is merely niggling over how to impose austerity, he is only slightly less wrong in applying the 20th century's lessons than are those who sit across the aisle.

Barry Levine

Utility Shelves Ambitious Plan to Limit Carbon

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/business/energy-environment/utility-shelves-plan-to-capture-carbon-dioxide.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=utility%20shelves%20plan&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Subject: re: Utility Shelves Ambitious Plan to Limit Carbon
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The AEP carbon-capture plan was always a boondoggle, aimed at capturing federal subsidies more than carbon.  To mine coal (which is almost 100% carbon) and re-bury carbon dioxide (which is 27%carbon) you need a repository several times larger than the initial mine. It doesn't exist and never will. Coal is a terrific form in which to sequester carbon; it has worked for 200 million years. We can't afford to go on digging and burning it.

     If we are serious about undoing the damage we've wrought on our atmosphere and oceans since the Industrial Revolution, we need to be re-sequestering carbon not as carbon dioxide by as "biochar" or "anthropogenic peat".  Photosynthetic plants are already stripping twenty times as much carbon from the atmosphere as all of human activity contributes, year by year and hour by hour. We just have to keep some of the cellulose they're making from rotting back into the atmosphere.

Barry Haskell Levine

With Blunt, Salty Talk, Panetta Era Begins

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/world/13military.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=panetta%20era%20begins%20with%20blunt%20talk&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Subject: re: With Blunt, Salty Talk, Panetta Era Begins
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  I am not immune to secretary Panetta's blunt charm, but I attend to his words more than to his tone. His tenure at the CIA began with a promise that "no CIA agent will be prosecuted for torture". Surely that was a decision above his pay-grade.  Was this a promise that he would obstruct justice? Or that his masters did not intend to see that these Laws be faithfully prosecuted?  As secretary of Defense, we now entrust him with billions of our dollars and with the lives of our sons and daughters. We deserve to know if he means to abide by our laws.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Method to Their Madness

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/opinion/11douthat.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 9:58 AM
Subject: re: The Method to Their Madness
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  If president Obama presides over a national economic recovery, he will be unstoppable for re-election in 2012; if he does not, he can be beaten. The U.S. economy and millions of Americans have accordingly been taken hostage by Republican strategists more loyal to their party than to their country. The rest is dust thrown in our eyes.

Barry Haskell Levine

Mexican Citizen Is Executed as Justices Refuse to Step In

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/us/08execute.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Mexican%20Citizen%20is%20executed%20as%20Justices&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 10:39 AM
Subject: re: Mexican Citizen Is Executed as Justices Refuse to Step In
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  In his dissent, justice Breyer enumerates three counts on which a majority of our Supreme Court erred in the matter of Humberto Leal Garcia Jr. In each case he is right, but he is too diplomatic to add a fourth; the Court's action violates the plain meaning of our Constitution.  Our constitution provides that a foreign treaty duly ratified by our Senate is Federal Law. As such, when there is a conflict between State law and such a treaty, it is the treaty that is binding. Our supreme court got this wrong in re Medellin and it will continue to get this wrong until it overthrows that mistake.

Barry Haskell Levine

U.S. Widens Inquiries Into 2 Jail Deaths

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/us/politics/01DETAIN.html/?_r=1&scp=2&sq=cia%20investigation%20deaths&st=cse

- Hide quoted text -

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 7:13 PM
Subject: re: U.S. Widens Inquiries Into 2 Jail Deaths
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Under the circumstances, John Durham has done a remarkable job. The two deaths he identified need to be investigated further. But the Durham inquiry was crippled from the inception. He was charged only to investigate violations of the DoJ's guidelines.  The president--and thus the whole Executive--is responsible not for the execution of DoJ guidelines, but to see that the law is faithfully executed. That means our statutes, our constitution and our treaty obligations, not some DoJ guideline document drafted in a back room.  Those 200 other deaths can't be dismissed until they have been investigated to this tougher standard.

Barry Haskell Levine

Spike in U.S. Deaths in Iraq Raises Worries

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html?ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Subject: re: Spike in U.S. Deaths in Iraq Raises Worries
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    No one should doubt that Moqtada al-Sadr will remobilize his mahdi army if the U.S. doesn't pull out of Iraq on schedule. Nor should we doubt that he will mobilize his mahdi army when we do pull out. The Iraqi civil war is merely on hold, We can keep out finger in that dike a while longer--at the cost of American lives and billions of dollars--or pull it out. But what comes next is civil war in either case. I can't imagine that any American mother wants to send her son to die for such a paltry benefit.

Barry Haskell Levine

Those Manly Men of Yore

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17lipton.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 12:01 PM
Subject: re: Those Manly Men of Yore
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  The idea that womanizing is a vice of the immature isn't an innovation of late antiquity. Twenty eight centuries ago, Homer contrasted Paris with his own brother, Hector. Whereas Paris was an object of scorn for embroiling Troy in a ruinous war to serve his libido, Hector is portrayed as a great warrior, great king, great father, and great husband. Overall, he's the best man in the Iliad. For those without the attention span to read Homer, Robin Williams summarized the lesson: "God showed her sense of humor when she gave Man both a brain and a penis but only enough blood to operate one or the other at a time."

Barry Levine

Pakistan’s Chief of Army Fights to Keep His Job

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/world/asia/16pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=ashfaqparvezkayani

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:58 PM
Subject: re: Pakistan’s Chief of Army Fights to Keep His Job
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  For too long--first as head of ISI and now as head of Pakistan's military--general Ashfaq Kayani has accepted billions in U.S. aid while sheltering the Haqqani network, Lashgar e Taiba and Osama bin Laden.  That others in the Pakistani military are more hostile to the U.S. scarcely seems relevant. As long as we underwrite general Kayani's double game, every American taxpayer is a sponsor of terror.Every dollar and every life we spend in this relationship makes us less secure and not more.  The people of Pakistan have crying needs for foreign aid to build literacy and infrastructure.Building Pakistan's military is not in our interest.

Barry Levine

Blocking Elizabeth Warren

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/opinion/11nocera.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=blocking%20Elizabeth%20Warren&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Subject: re: Blocking Elizabeth Warren
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  If president Obama hasn't the spine to nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she should be nominated instead to fill his office in 2012. To be an effective president requires both vision and balls. It's increasingly clear that Ms. Warren is the best man for the job.

Barry Levine

Where Wisdom Lives

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/opinion/07brooks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=where%20wisdom%20lives&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 8:32 AM
Subject: re: Where Wisdom Lives
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Through David Brooks' looking-glass, giving powers of life and death to big corporations and taking it from public servants would be a move towards empowering the people.  Those who can get their heads around that will have no trouble swallowing the argument that the PATRIOT act safeguards Americans' freedom from unreasonable search. As George Orwell might have put it, the logic is double plus ungood.

Barry Haskell Levine

Complex Case Ahead for Prosecutors

http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=complex+case+ahead&srchst=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 8:02 AM
Subject: re: Complex Case Ahead for Prosecutors
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   After two and a half years of "looking forwards and not backwards", the Obama Department of Justice is finally engaging in law enforcement. This is welcome; it is in the past, of course that evidence of wrongdoing will be found. Yet it is troubling that the department's finite resources are allocated to prosecuting senator Edwards.  Edwards admits that he broke faith with his wife and with his backers, but that's not a crime. On the other hand, we know that men were waterboarded while in U.S. custody, that waterboarding is torture and that torture is a crime.  The role of money in our political campaigns needs to be redefined, but that is a matter for the Congress and the courts. Attorney General Holder needs to be prosecuting war crimes and not a senator's amorous adventures.

Barry Levine

The Depravity Factor

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03brooks.html?scp=2&sq=david%20brooks&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 3:14 PM
Subject: re: The Depravity Factor
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    The Assad regime continues to visit horrors on the people of Syria. Until it is toppled, much will not be right in that part of the world. The governments of Israel and Syria will remain formally at war as they have for 63 years. That can in no way absolve Israel from  making peace with the Palestinians.  The Syrian people deserves a better government and I hope that that government will finally negotiate a peace with Israel.  But ousting Bashar al-Assad will no more bring peace to the region than did ousting Saddam Hussein. That will require leadership on the Israeli side as well.

Barry Levine

Netanyahu Gives No Ground in Congress Speech

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/middleeast/25diplo.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Netanyahu%20gives%20no%20ground&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 9:08 AM
Subject: re: Netanyahu Gives No Ground in Congress Speech
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Before PM Netanyahu's words are taken at face value, they should be weighed against the historic record. Israel's pre-1967 borders have been battle-tested and defended. To now call them "indefensible" as he does it to defy logic. It's now nine years since Sari Nusseibeh and Danny Ayalon sketched what a two-state peace agreement will look like. What they couldn't tell us was how to get there. It increasing looks like that will require not only the death of Arafat, but also the retirement of Netanyahu.

Barry Haskell Levine

Divisions Are Clear as Obama and Netanyahu Discuss Peace

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/world/middleeast/21prexy.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 7:20 AM
Subject: re: Divisions Are Clear as Obama and Netanyahu Discuss Peace
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Perhaps president Netanyahu doesn't know what "indefensible" means. Israel's pre-1967 borders were battle-tested and defended (as were those of '47). To call what has been defended "indefensible" is to play at language without communicating.  As horrific as they are, Israel has never lost a shooting war. What is indefensible is the status-quo.  Israel needs peace, not this indefinite hostile cease-fire.That's going to require bold leadership all around, not sterile word-games.

Barry Haskell Levine

Church Report Cites Social Tumult in Priest Scandals

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18bishops.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, May 18, 2011 at 9:22 AM
Subject: re: Church Report Cites Social Tumult in Priest Scandals
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    American society changed on many fronts in the Sixties. The Bishops point to changing attitudes towards sex. I would point to changing attitudes towards authority.  The generation that decided that they did not deserve to be sent to Vietnam by their government also decided that they did not deserve to be raped by their priests. In each case the struggle has been long and the outcome remains uncertain. In each case, abuses were fostered by secrecy. In each case, we had to drag the horrors into the daylight--against the protests of the powerful--to build a better society.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Long Overdue Palestinian State

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17abbas.html?scp=1&sq=the%20long%20overdue%20Palestinian%20State&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, May 17, 2011 at 8:22 AM
Subject: re: The Long Overdue Palestinian State
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The United Nations has met to consider the matter of a Palestinian State and voted in the affirmative. That was sixty-four years ago. Of course the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria promptly seized those lands and more. Now the U.N. proposes to revisit the issue. What has changed? The partition of 1947 conferred legitimacy on three entities. One Jewish State, one Arab State and the International Enclave of Jerusalem that would belong to neither because it belongs to the world.  Did the military seizures of 1948 change what was settled in the U. N. general council? That's not a definition of legitimacy that the U N. has ever embraced until now. The Palestinian State is long overdue; so is the International Enclave.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Rush to Secret Money

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/opinion/16mon3.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the%20rush%20to%20secret&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, May 16, 2011 at 8:33 AM
Subject: re: The Rush to Secret Money
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   This paper's plea to clean up the functioning of our democracy is muffled by a Malaprop image. The house where the wealthy trade cash for the gratification of their desires in the dark isn't a "casino"; it's a brothel.

Barry Haskell Levine

The best hope for getting out of Afghanistan is some political deal with the Taliban.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/opinion/14sat1.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, May 14, 2011 at 2:42 PM
Subject: re: The best hope for getting out of Afghanistan is some political deal with the Taliban.
To: letters@nytimes.com


to the Editor:

   There is a crying need for non-military US aid to Pakistan. Decades of governments that have misappropriated billions of our dollars to develop nuclear weapons have left Pakistanis poor, illiterate and disease-ridden.  We need, however to disentangle that from military aid. The best way for us to get out of Afghanistan is to get out of Afghanistan. That's not contingent on the Taliban, or on the Pakistanis or on anyone else. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of American can and should bring our troops and contractors home because that's in our interest. If we didn't need to supply an army in Afghanistan, we wouldn't need to buy the good will of the government in Islamabad.

Barry Haskell Levine

Coal Curriculum Called Unfit for 4th Graders

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/education/12coal.html?_r=1

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 12:50 PM
Subject: re: Coal Curriculum Called Unfit for 4th Graders
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
 I applaud the initiative of the groups opposing the coal curriculum.
But shouldn't they be aiming higher? Why shouldn't the coal industry
have as free a hand in shaping public school curricula as it has in
writing the federal regulation of it's own practices.  The kids
deserve a fair and unbiased education on energy policy as on all
things. They are going to grow into the citizens who have to wrest
control of our Energy Policies from the interests of the few,
including Big Coal. Our Congress has utterly failed in that task.
Barry Haskell Levine