: re: A Road to Damascus, via Moscow

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 8:11 AM
Subject: re: A Road to Damascus, via Moscow
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    There have long been voices in America who favor the stability a strongman promises over the messiness of legitimate democracy. The U.S. armed Josef Stalin as he murdered millions of his own Russians, and we backed or installed the Shah in Iran, and Marcos in the Philippines and Pinochet in Chile...This week, the face of the tyrant is al-Assad and the short-term goal of reducing mayhem in Syria is appealing. But al-Assad never had any legitimacy, and he has gained none in recent years by imprisoning, torturing and killing thousands of Syrians.

   Let's join with our allies in eradicating the blight of ISIS from the region. But that does not require embracing al-Assad, his murderous regime, or his lies.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/opinion/a-road-to-damascus-via-moscow.html