: re: Turkey Uneasy as U.S. Support of Syrian Kurds Grows

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 9:41 AM
Subject: re: Turkey Uneasy as U.S. Support of Syrian Kurds Grows
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   For years, the Kurds of Syria and Iraq have been America's staunchest allies. Erdogan's Turkey by contrast while profiting from American airbases at Batman and incirlik has refused to use those bases when we wanted them. So if Erdogan is angry, let him be angry. Turkey was a key ally against a Soviet Union that no longer exists.
       A free Kurdistan would give us airbases every bit as nice as Batman or Incirlik. And the Kurds don't shoot, imprison and torture their own citizens.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/world/middleeast/turkey-uneasy-as-us-support-of-syrian-kurds-grows.html

: re: Supreme Court Blocks Obama’s Limits on Power Plants

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 6:09 PM
Subject: re: Supreme Court Blocks Obama’s Limits on Power Plants
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

to the Editor:

   For 200 yrs, the illusion of cheap coal has been sustained by externalizing most of its costs. The public has borne the burden of sickness, death and environmental degradation while mine owners have pocketed the profits. Until now, that fiction has been tacit. Only now with the Supreme Court's ruling in Michigan v EPA has this lie become the Law of the Land.
   it is long established since Marbury v. Madison that the Law means what the SCOTUS says it means. But nothing in the Clean Air Act speaks of the cost competitiveness of coal-fired power generation. It is the Court's pure, unsupported invention that coal mine operators have a right to profits while foisting their costs onto the public's lungs, the public's wallets, and the public's children.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/us/supreme-court-blocks-obamas-limits-on-power-plants.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

: re: In Hostage-Terrorist Policy Shift, Obama Admits Failures

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 9:31 AM
Subject: re: In Hostage-Terrorist Policy Shift, Obama Admits Failures
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

     In July, 2006, Hezbollah abducted two israeli soldiers. Israel responded with an invasion of Lebanon in which hundreds died. The only worse response the Israelis could have made would have been to pay the abductors what they asked. To pay ransom in any one case is to be complicit in the next abduction, and the next, and in the destruction of society.
   You don't have to take this analysis on my word. Here it is from Hassan Nasrullah, who directed the Hezbollah abductions:

"We did not think that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not,"

 There you have it from the director of kidnappings. They won't happen when everyone knows there will be no pay out.

      However much president Obama wants to mollify the families of kidnap victims, he cannot apologize for doing what is right. We must never reward kidnappers.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.haaretz.com/news/nasrallah-we-wouldn-t-have-snatched-soldiers-if-we-thought-it-would-spark-war-1.199556

: re: Slavery’s Long Shadow

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 5:32 PM
Subject: re: Slavery’s Long Shadow
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

  Considering the Slave vs. Free state map of 1860 and the Gore vs Bush electoral map of 2000 and the distribution of states refusing to expand Medicare in 2015, it is ever clearer that president Lincoln was wrong. Ours is not "a house divided against itself"; it is two houses. Much of the Old South rejects my values as I reject its values, not on a single ballot issue but rather as two irreconcilable polities. Southerners deserve national self-determination as much as do anyone. So let them take their hateful flag and go back to the 19th century if that is what they want. The Union will be enriched by their refugees.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/22/opinion/paul-krugman-slaverys-long-shadow.html

: re: How not to save Iraq

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 9:37 AM
Subject: re: How not to save Iraq
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

     Owen West gets to the right conclusion--we need to be arming free Kurdistan if we mean to oppose ISIS effectively--but he inflicts unconscionable collateral damage to the English language along the way.  In plain English, those who "set the example in combat...shared the risk...[took]casualties over 30%" are combat troops, not "military advisers". That Orwellian euphemism goes back to Eisenhower's meddling in Vietnam, and has only grown more noxious with the passing years.
Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/opinion/why-obamas-plan-to-send-advisers-to-iraq-will-fail.html

: re: Who’s Willing to Fight for Iraq?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 7:55 PM
Subject: re: Who’s Willing to Fight for Iraq?
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    If the U.S. is willing to circumvent the government in Baghdad "to get weapons and training directly into the hands of Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar", we should be willing to circumvent Baghdad to arm the Kurds. It is they--and not the government in Baghdad, nor the Sunni tribes of Anbar--who are our best ally in the region.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/opinion/whos-willing-to-fight-for-iraq.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0