war – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Getting into Putin’s mind

David Posnett — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 19:35:27 +0000

Two interesting and excellent analyses:

(1) New Yorker Hour on NPR for 3/11 Stephen Kotkin on Ukraine (20 min – Apple Podcast)

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/id1050430296?i=1000553758866

It’s impossible to understand the destruction and death that Vladimir Putin is unleashing in Ukraine without understanding his most basic conviction: that the breakup of the Soviet empire was a catastrophe from which Russia has yet to recover. Some experts, including John Mearsheimer, have blamed NATO expansion for the invasion of Ukraine, arguing that it has provoked Vladimir Putin to defend his sphere of influence. Stephen Kotkin, a professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University, and a research scholar at the Hoover Institution, respectfully disagrees. Putin’s aggression is “not some kind of deviation from the historical pattern,” he tells David Remnick. Russia in the nineteenth century looked much as it does today, he says. “It had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West.” Kotkin describes how and why the Putin regime has evolved toward despotism, and he speculates that the strategic blunders in invading Ukraine likely resulted from the biases of authoritarian rulers like Putin, and the lack of good information available to them. Kotkin is the author of an authoritative biography of Joseph Stalin, two volumes of which have been published; a third is in the making.

And this one too:

Putin’s Road to War: Julia Ioffe (interview) | PBS FRONTLINE

Mar 9, 2022

“Brilliant analysis of Putin’s current mindset and it’s implications. About 40 minutes well spent.”

1,333,616 views

Why Start a War with Iran? Trump in his own Words…

David Posnett — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 01:09:25 +0000

No comment.

Bombing Hospitals in Syria: a Crime against Humanity

David Posnett — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 19:06:58 +0000

I just saw a documentary on a Syrian underground hospital: The Cave. It should be compulsory viewing for everyone. INCLUDING Rep. Lee Zeldin. He too lived thru a period where his premature born twin girls where in the NICU. Might he identify with the story of a 30 year old pediatrician running an underground hospital in northern Syria under horrendous conditions and constant bombardment? I have spoken with Lee Zeldin, and he is aware of how lucky his family was.

Here is a review of The CAVE: https://www.thewrap.com/the-cave-film-review-syrian-documentary-goes-underground-to-find-a-new-face-of-tragedy/

And here is the trailer: https://www.firstshowing.net/2019/official-trailer-for-the-cave-doc-film-about-a-hidden-syrian-hospital/

If you have any doubt about the culprits, read more in the NY Times (Oct. 13). There is an 8 min video attached to the article and it contains ample proof of Russian planes specifically targeting hospitals. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/world/middleeast/russia-bombing-syrian-hospitals.html

In my book this is a crime against humanity. It should be prosecuted at The Hague. And the prime suspects/culprits are Syrian President Assad and Russian President Putin.

This all is relevant to our most recent national disaster in foreign policy: inviting Turkey to invade parts of northern Syria, where our previous allies, the Kurds, live. The bombs have started falling as reported today. The players are likely to have blood on their hands. Erdogan? Donald Trump? And Lee Zeldin ? He habitually supports Trump, irrespective of common sense.

Drumbeat of War

David Posnett — Sun, 26 May 2019 18:39:19 +0000

John Bolton is at it again. Watch the video and then please share !

From: https://www.facebook.com/moveon/videos/2379403038949493/?v=2379403038949493

Zeldin on Yemen

David Posnett — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 02:14:02 +0000

By Ken Dorph

Amal Hussein, the seven-year-old in the two photos below, died of starvation last week in Yemen. I am working with a Yemeni team here in Cairo and I can’t help but despair over the never-ending war there. Our American leadership has created a human catastrophe in Yemen, taking sides in a tribal conflict driven by our greed to sell weapons. I asked our Congressman, Lee Zeldin, who has consistently supported the sale of weapons used to kill civilians to the Saudis, if we could somehow stop these sales. His response, verbatim:

“Not unless there’s, not unless … I’m not completely … No one’s read members of Congress like myself completely what strategically the big picture is with that deal. So I’m left to speculate. I don’t believe that that is a solely Yemen play, what the President agreed to in Saudi Arabia. That there is more of a regional play there that’s going on right now. Yemen is a piece of it. If everything got narrowed down to that we’re giving weapons in order to fight in Yemen, it would be a different analysis of what I am speculating to be part of the picture, not all of it.”

Our leadership will only change if we change them.
Vote for Perry Gershon on November 6th.

Depressing Half-hour Meeting with Lee Zeldin

David Posnett — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 23:40:18 +0000

Ken Dorph 7:05pm Oct 27

I wrote this letter to a Long Island newspaper in reaction to my depressing half-hour meeting with our local Congressman, Lee Zeldin, to discuss the Middle East.
Let’s hope it gets published. Feel free to read and share.

Lee Zeldin, the Middle East, and Me

I knew before meeting Congressman Zeldin that our views would differ. He avidly supports President Trump’s bullying approach to foreign policy. But I did not expect to get massively depressed afterwards.

Received wisdom is that Long Island voters don’t give a whit about foreign policy. This is a shame, given that our disastrous overseas adventures have sucked our economy dry and ruined our global standing.

I’ve lived in the Middle East for a good portion of my life, from Morocco to Syria. I was invited to share my views with Congressman Zeldin based on my unusual experience. I was told that Zeldin wanted me to send detailed questions beforehand. I painstakingly constructed seven questions of concern, from the war in Yemen to the plight of the Palestinians. In each case, I shared my own experience on the ground.

When we were settled in Zeldin’s office, I asked if we should start with the prepared questions that he’d requested. Puzzled, he looked at his assistant. He hadn’t seen them. Fortunately, I had a copy with me.

I am now working on my third project in Iraq since the invasion. Zeldin puts himself forth as a veteran of the Iraqi war. Someone told me that they thought he had been a parachutist. I was curious.

So I told him about my various projects in Iraq – always out there with the Iraqis, sleeves rolled up. I am now on working a project in Mosul, trying to entice small businesses back amid the ruins.

I asked about his experience in Iraq. He was cagey, evasive. I later pressed him a second time and again, no details. I later learned from a fellow politician that Zeldin’s war experience consisted of a few weeks in Iraq as a JAG officer working in some back office with Americans, no contact with the Iraqis. Our perspectives could not have been more different.

I am also working on a project with the woebegone Yemenis. The Saudi-American destruction of that country is at the forefront of my mind. So I asked why we are taking sides in a tribal war in Yemen that’s killing so many civilians.

“There is a plan of the Iranians of a growing regional influence that is a threat for US Interests, whether it’s the US itself or Israel, in the region.”

Yemen is really far from Israel, so that was a puzzling response. In the Middle East, it is widely believed that US foreign policy is concocted in Israel. His response seemed to affirm that.

I asked why he and the President are so rabidly anti-Iran and pro-Saudi. I’ve lived in Saudi Arabia, the country that supplied most of the perpetrators of 9/11. I personally like many individual Saudis but their government is less democratic and less free than Iran. Why were they the good guys?

A muddled answer for that one, except that we’re ‘defending American interests.’ I took this to mean cheap gas and weapons sales. It’s hard to defend Saudi Arabia as a beacon of human rights, and this before Khashoggi’s brutal murder and dismemberment.

Ok, but then how do we get back to peace in Yemen? I didn’t understand how selling all these arms to the Saudis was going to help. Shouldn’t we stop supplying the weapons and logistical support that are killing so many civilians, including children?

His response: “Not unless there’s, not unless … I’m not completely … No one’s read members of Congress like myself completely what strategically the big picture is with that deal. So I’m left to speculate. I don’t believe that that is a solely Yemen play, what the President agreed to in Saudi Arabia. That there is more of a regional play there that’s going on right now. Yemen is a piece of it. If everything got narrowed down to that we’re giving weapons in order to fight in Yemen, it would be a different analysis of what I am speculating to be part of the picture, not all of it.”

I then questioned our foreign aid to Egypt, almost all of it military in a country where over two thirds of the people have no bank account. Since Camp David, Egypt has been the second largest recipient of our funds after Israel. Together the two have received almost half of all US foreign aid for decades. Egypt is a dictatorship arising from a coup. According to US law (Section 508) we must cut aid to countries whose democratic leaders are overturned by a military coup. I personally know Egyptians who have been arrested or have fled for speaking their minds.

Why didn’t we question what’s going on in Egypt?

Long silence, then: “I don’t know exactly what the play is as far as leveraging the money [to Egypt].” Zeldin changed the subject to cutting foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, whose aid has been cut to zero. Egypt still gets billions. But they are the good guys. Like the Saudis.

Tunisia is the Great Hope for democracy in the Arab world, which we Americans purport to care about. Yet the day before our chat, the US Government had cut the already paltry aid to Tunisia from US$120 to US$70 million. Meanwhile Israel, less than half Tunisia’s size, gets several billion in aid a year, receiving each day more than Tunisia’s yearly package. Why in the world would we cut back such critical aid?

“I don’t know, how much did we cut?”

Almost half. This happened yesterday. You voted to support the cut, as I understand.

“I have to dig into that one deeper.”

Well, I never heard back on that, but I didn’t expect to.

We ended on the most delicate of issues, Israel and the Palestinians. I said I thought it was fairly simple: One state or two. Most Americans, including most American Jews, oppose Israel’s colonizing of the occupied territories. The massive settling of the West Bank by Israeli Jews was clearly ending the possibility of two separate states. A single state that absorbed the Palestinian lands, if democratic, would mean the end of the Jewish state, since the majority would be non-Jewish. So how could he support the settlements if he supported two states, as he claimed? Zeldin started to talk about the occupied territories, then corrected himself and said, “the disputed territories.” I’d heard about this trick of right-wing Israelis to falsify the narrative. I corrected him, a bit heated now: I pointed out that since the territories were taken in war, they were occupied, as per the Geneva Convention, to which the US is a signatory. Colonizing occupied territories is illegal. I tried to get him to commit to opposing the settlement project, but he refused.

By this time we realized we had no common ground, and it was time to go. I shook his hand but was deeply saddened to think that this man represented me on the world stage. No wonder Americans are so unpopular.

I went home and went to bed for three hours with the blanket over my head. If this is the best we have to offer, there is little hope for anything but more needless confrontation and endless war.

We are at a crossroads. Lee Zeldin personifies the wrecking ball diplomacy of Sheldon Adelson, John Bolton, and Donald Trump: Tear up treaties negotiated by people of good faith, make enemies of old friends (Canada!), and bully nations big and small. This election we can choose a grown-up who can play well with others. I have met Perry Gershon several times and the difference cannot be more dramatic. Folks like Zeldin gave us the disaster of the Iraq war, trillions of our good money down the drain, and whole nations laid waste. This same clique now wants to do battle with Iran, an even more terrifying prospect. More than half our discretionary budget goes to the Pentagon and our foreign wars, leaving us with a failing national infrastructure and a growing national debt.

Great nations die by battling on all fronts while letting their heartlands wither. Let us not follow that path.

Bolton War(s)?

David Posnett — Mon, 14 May 2018 18:21:02 +0000

It is unambiguous! Any war ensuing due to the Bolton appointment can now be squarely blamed on Zeldin and his fellow Republicans who have endorsed Bolton for National Security Adviser.

The reations from different law makers were recently reported in the NY Times and they include this:

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York: “Ambassador John Bolton is ridiculously knowledgeable and will be a great national security adviser. The leaks coming out of the National Security Council will end, Obama administration holdovers will be gone, and the team, chemistry and work product will all be improved. Ambassador Bolton is a very underrated, amazing American, and I applaud this extraordinarily talented pick. I look forward to working closely with Ambassador Bolton on the many national security concerns facing our exceptional country.”

Unfortunately, this appointment did not require Senate confirmation. Unlike Bolton’s unsuccessful nomination for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005.

Let me sum up why Bolton is so dangerous. Bolton has been preaching pre-emptive war for decades: war in Iraq, war against Iran, war in Syria, war against N. Korea.

John Bolton, who served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush, had a recent Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal calling for pre-emptive war against North Korea. According to foreignpolicy.com/:

Trump shocked the world by agreeing to meet with Kim sometime before the end of May. Reports suggest that the timing of Trump’s move to replace McMaster with Bolton, as well as the president’s earlier decision to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replace him with Mike Pompeo, is an effort to put key personnel aligned with his views in place leading into the summit. Yet if Bolton reflects, or influences, Trump’s position on North Korea, the entire endeavor is doomed. Indeed, Bolton reacted to news of the summit by dismissing any prospect for success and rooting for a quick failure. According to Bolton, the only value in having this “unproductive” leader-to-leader meeting now, instead of starting with a more deliberate set of working-level talks, is to “foreshorten the amount of time that we’re going to waste in negotiations that will never produce the result we want, which is Kim giving up his nuclear program.”

John Bolton has a history of skewing intellingence and is known to retaliate against people he disagrees with. Here is a sample from talkingpointsmemo.com:

A biological warfare analyst wrote back that Bolton’s proposed comments overstated what U.S. intelligence agencies really knew about the matter, and, as routinely happens, suggested some small changes.

The analyst was summoned to Bolton’s office. “He got very red in the face, and shaking his finger at me, and explained to me that I was acting way beyond my position,” the analyst, Christian Westermann, recalled later during a Senate inquiry. Bolton then demanded that Westermann’s supervisor remove him permanently from the biological weapons portfolio, thundering that “he wasn’t going to be told what he could say by a mid-level munchkin.”

Jimmy Carter is warning of a looming nuclear war!

My Sources

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/john-bolton-is-foolishly-calling-for-preemptive-war-against-north-korea/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-legal-case-for-striking-north-korea-first-1519862374

https://www.theaustralian.com

http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/23/john-bolton-is-a-national-security-threat/

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/john-bolton-skewed-intelligence

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/938108/North-Korea-news-World-War-3-Donald-Trump-Kim-Jong-un-USA-Jimmy-Carter-latest-video

Scrapping the Iran Nuclear Deal: War?

David Posnett — Wed, 09 May 2018 20:17:08 +0000

Netanyahu in the Golan Heights looking out at Syria and warning Iran not to “test” Israel’s resolve, on Feb. 6, 2018. From his twitter feed.

Scrapping the Iran Nuclear Deal (or JCPOA as it is formally called) is likely to have all sorts of bad side effects. I have collected some thoughts from friends and experts:

Scrapping JCPOA undercuts the moderate wing within Iran and empowers the hardliners;
Will likely lead to a return to nuclear enrichment and possibly a military program for nuclear weapons too — if only to strengthen their hand in negotiations
The U.S. is seen to ally itself with Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Iran, Syria (and Iraq).
Emboldens Saudi Arabia to step up its attacks on Yemen and Lebanon.
Further increases the refugee flow.
Emboldens Netanyahu to do whatever … (Israel has been flying sorties over Syria and attacking different targets in the vicinity of Damascus over the past week, killing Syrians and apparently some Iranian troops as well).
We will have a realignment with Iran and the Syrians becoming even closer to Russia and possibly giving Russians the option of air bases on Iranian territory for the first time, while the US will become even more closely tied to Saudi Prince Mohamed Bin Salman whose grip on his own country is almost certainly very fragile after he has violently burned all his bridges with those who have real power in the country.
A subdued Iran would lead to an unfettered Saudi Arabia with an aggressive leader, Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia has been the most important exporter of radical Wahabi/Salafi fundamentalism around the world
Then of course there is the question of how Trump’s performance is perceived by Kim Jong Un and how he feels he has to position himself in the upcoming negotiations. “If I were Kim, I would definitely not give up nuclear weapons — it really is the only significant card that he holds.”
Sanctions won’t work any longer (e.g. when not everyone is on board), and it was the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table.
It looks very much like a strategy to have an excuse to bomb…or “regime change”, meaning war.

A bipartisan group of more than 100 US national security experts — including nearly 50 retired military officers and more than 30 former ambassadors –had urged President Donald Trump to remain in the Iran nuclear deal.

On the other side we have John Bolton, Trump’s new National Secrutiy Advisor, who repeatedly advocated regime change in Teheran. Bolton’s hawkish views on Iran mirror those of Israel, Saudi Arabia and one of his key ideological partners, the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK). It is also a victory for Netanyahu who has viewed Iran as the arch enemy for the past 25 years! Recently Israel has been bombing missile stock piles in Syria, apparently from Iran and meant for Syria and for Hezbolah. CBC news reports:

“The worry for Israel is that Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement could embolden Tehran to retaliate against Israel for a number of recent airstrikes in Syria, believed to be carried out by Israeli warplanes.

The most recent incident unfolded about an hour after Trump spoke in Washington, when explosions were reported near Damascus. Syrian state media reported that eight Iranians were among the 15 killed in the attack.

This is yet another in a string of bombings that are thought to be part of the shadow war Israel is engaged in with the Iranians, who have built up their military muscle — including stockpiling surface-to-surface missiles — inside Syria. “

Our reperesentative, Lee Zeldin, is an unabashed cheer leader for Trump and John Bolton. He also cheers on the Israeli war mongers and Netanyahu. And by-the-way, that same John Bolton led a superPAC that employed Cambridge Analytica ! Yes, those are the people that got your FB info and sold it to the Trump campaign. Sound like a swamp?

A Mom Speaks Out: Wake up America, we are at War!

David Posnett — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 22:50:15 +0000

Speaking at Tuesday’s Feb 20 Rally on gun violence and international security: Mara Gerstein

Thank you for being here. I’m Mara. I’m a mom, a lifelong New Yorker, and a constituent of Lee Zeldin. And I’m here to tell my representative, and everyone who will listen, that as of this week, I am a single issue voter.

I only vote for people who will take basic steps to protect me and my family from preventable threats – both foreign and domestic. I am here to tell Rep Zeldin that if he cannot fight for the most basic measures to keep our children safe from gun violence. If he cannot fight for our country to defend itself from information and cyber warfare, then he is worse than useless to any of us.

Trump and Rep Zeldin and so many men like them run on “law and order”, borders, “security”, building up our military, “keeping us safe”. And here we are: 100 of us dying daily from gun violence, another day, another school shooting. Another 15, 20, 50 young lives lost. There is not a parent in this country who wasn’t afraid to send their children to school this week. There wasn’t a kid over the age of 5 in America who didn’t sit in their
classrooms this week afraid that maybe they were next. What is this? Why do we have to live like this? When the majority of Americans are desperate for sensible gun safety laws, why is Lee Zeldin actively working hard to make gun laws more lax?

At what point does this failure to address gun violence become a dereliction of his basic duty to protect us? At what point? A long time ago!

We have a couple of brilliant people who will talk more about our so-called “moderate” congressman’s voting record on gun safety so we can all understand why the NRA loves Zeldin so much. But I want to talk about one specific bill, voted on and passed by the House of Representatives in December. H.R. 38/ Senate Bill 446, the so called “concealed carry reciprocity” bill. It means that states with the weakest requirements for allowing people to carry concealed, loaded guns in their communities will set the national standard. So whereas now states are free to decide what gun laws will keep their communities safe, and can then enter into agreements with other states to honor out of state gun laws. Concealed Carry would mean that all states would be forced to accept the lowest gun safety standards in the country. And no one is talking about it.

It is time that we understand – and make sure everyone we know understands – what HR 38 / Senate Bill 446 – Concealed Carry will mean for New York.

NY awards concealed carry permission only to citizens with justifiable need who are not a danger to themselves or others, and can demonstrate a high level of knowledge of firearm use and safety. Our laws recognize and protect us from the potential threat of dangerous and violent people carrying concealed guns. This is one reason why NY has such a low incidence of gun deaths and injuries per capita. If the NRA – with the tens of millions of dollars they have spent to do so — succeeds in getting the Senate to pass Zeldin’s Concealed Carry Bill it would put domestic abusers and people convicted of violent crimes with hidden weapons on the streets of our towns — Patchogue, Bellport, Montauk, Smithtown, etc. I want Zeldin to tell me how this will make it more safe for me and my child to walk those streets, to go to school, to go to work. Tell me how!

And when you tell me, I will tell you this. You are lying to our faces. More guns, more concealed weapons, and looser gun laws will not make us safer. Until you stop serving the NRA over your constituents, until you stop selling our children’s lives to gun manufacturers, we are all single issue voters. And I ask all of you to tell everyone you know, about what HR 38 / Senate Bill 446 – Concealed Carry will do to NY and why it is
keeping you up at night. Here’s what else is keeping me up at night! We learned this week that there is incontrovertible evidence that the US is under attack from a foreign adversary. What most defense experts are calling the worst attack on our country since 9/11.

We know that Russia penetrated the systems of our major political parties, tampered with our voting machines, discouraged voting with fake information and media campaigns built on lies, that they rounded up support for Trump and are sowing disinformation and confusion about the harm he is inflicting upon us every day. We know that Russia helped sway public opinion to push Al Franken out of office. That they are acting to control social discourse after the Parkland shooting last week. America
needs to wake up. We are at war.

And the president said nothing. He attacks the FBI and goes golfing. He spends NO TIME thinking about how to protect us from the very real threat that Russia will decide in 2018, who runs our government. Russia, is clearly exercising control over the people they have handpicked for the job. Why are Trump and Zeldin doing nothing? Why won’t Trump institute sanctions (H.R. 3364) that were passed by a huge margin 419-3 in the House?

Why is that ok with Zeldin? Is it because the GOP & Zeldin know that they can only stay in power with Russia’s help? Well I’m sorry. That’s too bad. If you can only keep your jobs with Russian help, you’re out. This is OUR country. Not Russia’s.

The people in Washington running the Republican party are dirty. They give tax cuts to the rich and spend millions of dollars to fly first class, and in the same breath take away veterans healthcare, children’s healthcare, food for the poor. They are dirty and corrupt from the inside out. Lying to the FBI, money laundering, tax evasion, defrauding consumers, bank fraud, exploiting their office for personal gain.

Before we even get to collusion with a foreign adversary, if even half of the things these people are accused of are true, Republican leadership in Washington should be in jail. And if they were black they would be.

Every day in this country feels more and more like a national version of the godfather. Here’s what we know. 130 white house staff didn’t have security clearance as of Nov of 2017. The people with the highest levels of security access in the country, have been deemed by our FBI to be unfit for that access. Unfit means that – for whatever reason – be it domestic abuse or foreign debts or lying repeatedly on disclosure forms – our top law enforcement has said that giving these people access puts our lives in danger.

This is not hyberbole. Our government is burning. It is being run by people who are beholden, literally, financially and probably more, to a foreign adversary, and special interests, like the NRA, that is controlled by companies who sell guns and, it turns out, has its own ties to Russia.

What has happened, and is happening, in our government is so insane that we can’t admit it. Because no one knows what to do in the face of this all being true.

What does Donald Trump do? He goes golfing. And what does Lee Zeldin do? He defends him. And worse. Zeldin is actively working to derail the Russia investigation and to attack people who have devoted their lives to protecting our country. A proud member of Devin Nunes #CoverUpCaucus, Zeldin is doing far worse than nothing. Just this morning on Twitter, Zeldin continues his constant and desperate scramble to undermine the efforts of those who are trying to understand what happened and protect us from attack.

And all of these people – Trump, Zeldin, Devin Nunes – every person who holds elected office – has taken an oath to “protect and defend our constitution.” And they won’t even try. A basic dereliction of duty to perform their basic oath of office.

So we are all single issue voters! If Zeldin cannot take basic steps to protect us from threats – both foreign and domestic – he is worse than useless, he is doing us great harm. He is endangering our children, our rule of law, our constitution, and our basic rights as Americans. Zeldin, we are all single issue voters. If you cannot put basic gun safety measures in place, you need to step aside. If you fail to recognize and respond to Russia’s attacks, you need to step aside. You need to step aside and make room for someone who will do their job to protect us and to protect our constitution.

Holocaust Seen Through the Eyes of a Child

David Posnett — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 19:11:21 +0000

Letter published in the Newburyport News, Massachusetts, by Steve Ludsin of R&R

Very moving’ article about local author’s book, Oct 12, 2017

To the editor:

The article “Local author writes about Holocaust through her father’s eyes” by Dyke Hendrickson, [Daily News, Oct. 10] was very moving. It is true that for many Jews with a European background, the past is never the past.

Margaret A. McQuillan’s recent book, “An Orange in Winter: The Beginning of the Holocaust as Seen Through the Eyes of a Child“, written about a child who was her father was an emotional challenge. I am also a child of a Holocaust survivor and I know the additional stress that can create. I have begun to explore the studies about the possible inheritance of post-traumatic stress syndrome through the DNA from the traumatized parent.

The need to remember the evil of the Holocaust is self-evident, particularly when there is a tendency to forget and in the face of the heated rhetoric from the alt-right movement. I think the author’s goal to portray oppression eight decades ago to young people today will help to rebut the threatening words of people who exclaim you will not replace us with chants of “Blood and soil”. The flame of remembrance should not be extinguished.

Steven A. Ludsin, East Hampton, N.Y. The writer was a member of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust and the first U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council that built the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Comment from D. Posnett MD:

The medical and psychology literature is replete with studies on the epigenetic effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome, which can be inherited. In lay language: DNA (inheritance of specific genes) is the Christmas tree, while “epigenetics” is the decorations we put on the tree. Curiously, there is mounting evidence that sometimes these decorations become part of the tree itself and subsequent generations of the trees grow with the decorations!!!

A PubMed search for “epigenetics post-traumatic stress syndrome” came up with 48 articles, 27 of them were reviews.

Examples:

The epigenetic impacts of social stress: how does social adversity become biologically embedded? Cunliffe VT. Epigenomics. 2016 Dec;8(12):1653-1669. Epub 2016 Nov 21.
Epigenetic Alterations Associated with War Trauma and Childhood Maltreatment. Ramo-Fernández L, Schneider A, Wilker S, Kolassa IT. Behav Sci Law. 2015 Oct;33(5):701-21.