Boot is wrong about use of military force in Iraq

Re “Staying the wrong course in Iraq,” Opinion, June 28

Max Boot reveals that he would only amplify the wrong course we are on in that tragic country. Although the Bush administration is desperately trying to find a graceful way to extricate itself from continued military involvement in Iraq without having to admit it has committed grievous mistakes, and the majority opinion in our country is increasingly that the war has been a misguided endeavor and is failing to achieve desired ends, Boot holds stubbornly to the concept that all we need there are more troops and more military force to turn failure into victory. The belief that any nation can impose its will on the internal affairs of another nation through the exercise of military power should have gone out of vogue with the decline of empires in the 18th and 19th centuries, but Boot and those who follow his archaic line of thought just don’t seem to get it.

BILL HESSELL

Culver City

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I have always understood Boot to be a principal shill and spokes-puppet for the Bush administration. Consequently, I was astonished to read his piece criticizing the president’s Iraq policy. What, I wondered, could this Republican loyalist be up to? Then I came to the end of the piece in which Boot argues for “a new secretary of Defense.” Ah ha! So the bell is tolling for Rumsfeld. Now the only question is how the president is going to find someone dumb enough to take the job.

JONATHAN SCHWARTZ

Marina del Rey

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Perhaps Boot is too young to remember Vietnam. I remember the steady drumbeat and the repeated calls: “Send more troops. Send more troops. We can win. Just send more troops.”

JERRY G. ELLIOTT

San Juan Capistrano