The history lesson of the war in Afghanistan; a shortage of lawyers for death row inmates in California; Charlotte Allen’s take on Sandra Lee

A history lesson

Re “Afghan war as long as the Soviets’, “ Nov. 27

In the 1980s, our political leaders celebrated the Soviet Union’s decision to squander its status as a world power by stubbornly remaining in Afghanistan fighting a war that could not be won. Yet today’s political leaders are taking America down the same road that destroyed the Soviet Union.

The whole idea of leadership is to make prudent decisions based on a thoughtful assessment of the past. The “past” in Afghanistan fairly screams at us to get out of that country before it is too late. But our political leaders in both parties seem willing to sacrifice our own status as a world power by taking us ever deeper into the “graveyard of empires.”

Are our leaders unable to see the patterns of history, or are there other motives behind this looming national tragedy?

Dennis M. Clausen

Escondido

Lawyers for the condemned

Re “Inmates on death row wait years for lawyers,” Nov. 27

The problem with California’s death penalty system is not just that many lawyers are unwilling to take on cases. A more pressing issue is the prejudice against meaningful appeal.

Many expect appellate lawyers to simply rubber stamp a process that has a foregone conclusion. Luckily, we have a dedicated core of death penalty lawyers who attempt to turn over every stone before the irrevocable death sentence is carried out.

Simply staffing up to meet a demand for attorneys is not the answer to the costly and ineffective system. Our Legislature should undertake a rational analysis of the value of the death penalty and assess whether we can still support a broken system.

Jose Varela

San Rafael, Calif.

The writer is president of the California Public Defenders Assn.

The Times didn’t reveal that the murderer it portrays is also a serial rapist. Before his final conviction, he was jailed for beating and raping two 16-year-old girls.

His last victim was raped, tortured and killed while the horrible crime was videotaped by a surveillance camera. You should have run his last victim’s photo instead of his. Or is it too grisly for you?

David Meyers

Tujunga

Kent Scheidegger says that pulling out all the stops in every capital case is “excessive.” He might not be so coldhearted if it was his life on the line, or if he understood the canons of ethics for lawyers.

He also says the state doesn’t have to pay for zealous representation. Wrong again. Indigent defendants are constitutionally entitled to have a state-paid defense every bit as vigorous as the representation Scheidegger can pay for.

Elizabeth Zitrin

San Francisco

Playing dumb isn’t smart

Re “Talks pave way for tax-cut negotiations,” Dec. 1

I was disheartened to read that Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) had jumped on the buffoon bandwagon that is sweeping through American politics. He was quoted as saying: “No tax increases for nobody. It’s poor grammar but it’s great economics.”

I guess he never learned that two negatives equal a positive, and so therefore what he is promoting with his silly proclamation is actually “tax increases for everybody.”

It is very troubling to me that sounding dumb seems to be a popular political tactic. How can this ever be good for us?

T.S. Fox

Torrance

Re “Obama runs play from the GOP book,” Nov. 30

The mentality that saving only $5 billion is a “mere sliver” of the budget is what causes our problem. How many taxpayers who make less than $250,000 does it take to pay this amount?

Lawrence Nowak

Torrance

Obama is acting like a lame-duck president in the middle of a second term. This is interesting because he’s in the middle of his first term.

It appears that he’s given himself very bad marks for his first two years.

Charles K. Sergis

Redondo Beach

Home-cooked political hash

Re “Sandra Lee’s red-state recipes,” Opinion, Nov. 28

There’s a thinly veiled insult for everyone in Charlotte Allen’s hash of logic and opinion: Blue-state voters, Democrats, Andrew Cuomo’s “live-in” (gasp!) girlfriend and Allen’s bad guys, “the condescending elite.”

Allen can always be counted on for some absurd racial inference; in this case, it’s Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa cake recipe, which made her “want to tip off the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.” Really?

Because Allen’s opinion piece suggests we can’t even reconcile our ideological differences over a meal, how does this mean-spirited article contribute anything to the national dialogue? Shame on The Times for giving space to this scold.

Luan Gaines

Dana Point

Allen suggests we quit “looking down our noses at Lee’s fans and start taking them, and what they believe, seriously.”

I am an African American woman trying to save my home. I do not fit

Allen’s stereotype of people who consider themselves “too good” for “Lee’s people.” But with diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure affecting blacks in great numbers, I intend to keep looking down my nose at Lee’s promotion of processed foods. I am not going to stop looking down my nose at “Lee’s people,” who continue to deny that the Earth’s warming is being accelerated due to human activity. Some of the ideas of “Lee’s people” result in negative outcomes for others.

No politician should pander to bad ideas just because they are popular. Anyone who encourages such behavior can kiss the wide, black nose I am using to look down at them.

Adreana Langston

Long Beach

Will the buses stop there?

Re “Bus-only lanes are proposed for Wilshire,” Nov. 28

I hope the Westwood condo owners do not jeopardize the bus-only lane proposed for Wilshire Boulevard.

We need to encourage as many individuals as possible to get out of their cars. Individual cars are not a sustainable form of transportation for a major metropolitan area.

On a recent trip to London, I saw that cross-town travel can be a dream, not a nightmare. In addition to having one of the most extensive subway networks in the world, buses in their own lanes meant that bus travel was a swift and predictable way to get around.

Once people learn that you can get from Point A to Point B faster in a bus than in a car, they just might switch.

Andrea Spatz

Beverly Hills

Bus speeds in the residential area along the Wilshire corridor are just fine and will only worsen for the rapid buses that use mixed-flow lanes.

Moving buses faster along Wilshire is a laudable goal. But if the section of Wilshire in Westwood isn’t eliminated from the project, our community will be left with even more of the most congested intersections in the country, not to mention the loss of valuable parking for the Wilshire-area residents.

And let’s not forget that for more than a mile of Wilshire in Beverly Hills, there will be no dedicated bus lanes.

For all of us who have had the privilege of that bone-jarring ride through the broken sections of Wilshire, Metro would do well to spend some of that $30 million on street

repairs.

Stephen Resnick

Westwood

The writer is president of the Westwood Homeowners Assn.