To the Editor:
It is remarkable that yet another American administration has, in the face of scant understanding of far-off societies, willfully overlooked the bitter lessons of history in trying to overthrow brutal regimes or insurgencies.
For example, look at the damages and suffering that the United States endured (and caused) by intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq without any appreciation for the past struggles of those countries.
More recently, there are the experiences of the United States’ ally Israel. In the face of the seemingly well-known knowledge of the ferocity of its foes, Israel thought it could eliminate a small number of Hamas fighters in a small territory, but after several years of combat they remain active.
Why does the United States think it can defeat Iran, with its huge size and a population of more than 90 million, in four or five weeks — much less four or five years — especially, as Iran’s own history shows, it was willing to sacrifice thousands of troops, without a hint of regret, in its war with Iraq several decades ago?
The warnings of the past remain unheeded.
Stephen Schlesinger New York The writer is a historian and a fellow at the Century Foundation.
To the Editor:
Re “The Legality, or Not, of Killing the Leader of a Foreign Country” (news article, March 4):
The Times sheds much needed light on the international legal framework applicable to the United States’ use of military force abroad.
Let’s bear in mind that regardless of whether Congress approves President Trump’s actions as the Constitution requires, the attacks on Venezuela and Iran will remain illegal because they violate international law.
These violations tear at the heart of the international rules-based order that the United States championed at the end of World War II and that have ushered in an unprecedented period of peace, security, human rights, human development and equality.
I think of our children’s future. If our conduct makes it impossible for us to credibly critique Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we will have truly killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
Gabor Rona New York The writer is a professor of practice at Cardozo Law School.
To the Editor:
As a progressive and an Iranian, I find it rich that many of those most vociferous in denouncing the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses are the quickest to condemn intervention that might end those abuses.
Decades of failed protests have shown that there is no other way. The prospects of regime change remain uncertain, but they are better than at any time in the past 47 years.
Aris Daghighian Toronto
Don’t Let Nixon (or Trump) Off the Hook
To the Editor:
Re “Seven Pages of a Sealed Watergate File Sat Undiscovered. Until Now,” by James Rosen (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Feb. 8):
As scholars who have studied Richard Nixon, we are well versed in the Radford-Moorer affair, in which Yeoman First Class Charles Radford of the Navy spied on the White House at the behest of his superiors in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The incident is well known. It was investigated by the Senate in 1974 and has been written about often since.
For years, conspiracy theorists and Nixon apologists have tried to use the affair to cast Nixon as a victim of others’ secret machinations and to downplay Watergate itself. Mr. Rosen’s own attempt at this demands a clarifying response.
Mr. Rosen lets stand Nixon’s claim in his 1975 grand jury testimony that the Plumbers, his dirty tricks squad, were involved in protecting “vital national security interests.” They were not. The Plumbers served time for burglary, wiretapping and conspiracy. They forged documents, plotted violence and conspired to assassinate a journalist.
Mr. Rosen claims that by spying on the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff created a “unique constitutional crisis,” akin to Alger Hiss’s “passing documents to a Soviet agent.” But Yeoman Radford gave the information he gleaned to members of Nixon’s own national security team, not a hostile foreign government. This was bureaucratic infighting, not treason.
Mr. Rosen concludes by suggesting that President Trump is justified in his ruthless purge of the “deep state,” so that he won’t be similarly undermined by the “enemy within.” Twisting history to justify a contemporary political agenda disserves both the past and the present.
Mark Feldstein David Greenberg The writers are, respectively, a journalism historian at the University of Maryland and a political historian at Rutgers University and the authors of books about the Nixon era.
America’s Voting Problem
To the Editor:
Re “U.S., Where Gerrymandering Is All the Rage, Stands Alone” (news article, Feb. 21):
In discussing the methods other countries use to draw district lines, this article paints a stark contrast with the dysfunctions of the American system. But there’s also a more basic reason politicians in many other countries don’t even bother trying to gerrymander: proportional representation.
In legislative elections in the United States, we typically elect a single representative per district and award the seat to whoever gets the most votes. This kind of system is more vulnerable than others to politicians manipulating district lines for electoral advantage.
In contrast, about 75 percent of other democracies elect multiple representatives per district and allocate those seats in proportion to voter support. In those systems, gerrymandering becomes extremely difficult — even functionally impossible.
Proportional representation makes it easier for politicians in those democracies to accept independent boundary commissions and other guardrails because it largely removes the temptation to do otherwise.
Preventing gerrymandering is just one of many ways that proportional representation could make our democracy more representative and responsive than ever — something that Americans of all political stripes would welcome.
Jennifer Dresden Springfield, Ill. The writer is a policy strategist at Protect Democracy.
Scenes From ‘The Pitt’
To the Editor:
Re “The Television Show Every American Should Watch,” by Frank Bruni (Opinion, Feb. 24):
In every episode of “The Pitt,” the hospital staff grapples with human as well as medical challenges, as Mr. Bruni points out. Most of the challenges would be familiar to hospitals across the industrialized world, but one may be unique to the United States.
Over and over again, the staff confronts the reality of uninsured or underinsured patients, patients staggering under unsustainable levels of medical debt and making a choice between feeding their children or getting the medical care they need.
It is shaming to watch the very real depictions of hospital workers struggling to find workarounds for these problems, using time and energy that could be spent meeting their patients’ medical needs.
Want a treatment from which our ailing country could benefit? Provide single-payer health care for all Americans, not just the elderly and the military.
Jean I. Layzer Belmont, Mass.
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