Boot’s Imagination Works Overtime

When the 9/11 commission pointed out a “failure of imagination,” they were definitely not referring to the creative efforts of our own pro-war propagandists. Max Boot chuckles with glee in his “Neocons May Get the Last Laugh” (Commentary, March 3), gathering up carefully culled “evidence” to hide the fact that millions of innocent men, women and children have been left physically and emotionally traumatized, suffering in the rubble of their ruined homes and lives, surrounded by loss and pain and the economic and social chaos wrought by the punitively cruel, destructive power of war.

Spreading happy-happy joy-joy pro-war propaganda to American taxpayers is not the same thing as spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. Last I checked, Palestinian elections did not exactly free Palestine from Israel’s stranglehold. And last I checked, Iraq was not exactly a haven of peace and security. War does not plant peace -- war encourages chaos, cruelty and eventual retaliation.

Anne Selden Annab

Mechanicsburg, Pa.

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Re Max Boot’s column: The notion that the ends justify the means has been at the heart of some of the greatest tragedies in history. In searching for different utopias -- whether communist, Christian or Muslim in origin -- wars have become justified and individual lives expendable. One cannot help but feel sad that we have yet to learn from the tragedies of the past.

Thousands upon thousands of people have died as a direct result of the war in Iraq. No political development (no matter how welcome) could ever justify the blood that has been spilled, the lives that have been lost.

Daniel Drugge

London

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You know Robert Scheer is desperate to bash President Bush when to do so he’s willing to give a nod to his two old nemeses, capitalism and Richard Nixon. In his March 1 commentary, “The Force Bush Won’t Use on Iran,” Scheer ignores the historic good news coming out of Lebanon and Egypt in the last week, because these tiny but important steps may signal that Bush’s policy of confronting tyranny in the Middle East may be working. Instead, Scheer takes Bush to task for not trading with and using our economic power to transform Iran, as Nixon did with China by achieving detente.

Scheer ignores that a large reason for the awful Middle East status quo has been Western nations’ longtime policy of trading with and propping up stable but despotic regimes.

Does anyone doubt that if Bush was pursuing economic detente with the mullahs, as Scheer suggests, that he would be calling Bush a sellout of the Iranian people for the sake of his corporate buddies?

Vincent Basehart

Los Angeles

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In his blistering indictment of Bush’s policy on Iran’s potential nuclear threat, Scheer overlooked one major point. The president assumes the role of world enforcer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even though the U.S. itself violates the treaty and also stimulates the dynamics of international nuclear competition.

America dishonors its treaty pledge to work for nuclear weapons disarmament. The Pentagon’s clear intention is to permanently retain its nuclear arsenal. Our country has refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, thus leaving open its possible future tests. We are also doing research on new types of nukes. We have refused to give a no-first-use pledge and instead have indicated that under certain circumstances we might use them. Is the self-appointed global sheriff wearing the black hat? Many around the world may think so.

Benjamin Solomon

Evanston, Ill.