Iraq and the Echoes of Vietnam

Re “Why the Rebels Will Lose,” Commentary, June 23: Max Boot concedes that pacifying Iraq will be “a long, hard slog,” but counsels “patience.” There’s light at the end of the tunnel. As Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said of Vietnam in 1963, all the indicators are that we’re winning. Comfortably ensconced in his office, Boot may have patience to spare, but the real story is that the U.S. is running out of troops. Even Boot knows this -- why else would he propose hiring mercenaries and making them citizens (June 16)? Shall I notify the recruiting office that Boot is on his way down?

Russell Burgos

Thousand Oaks

*

Re “Normalcy Amid the Violence,” June 22: Army Lt. Col. James Guillory describes the present state in Iraq as “a war of attrition” and that “we can only wear them down.” With the possibility of jihadists streaming in from the greater Muslim world, isn’t this another Ho Chi Minh Trail carrying with it the promise of endless war?

George McGinnis

Glendale

*

A recent CIA report states that Iraq has surpassed Afghanistan as the leading motivator and training ground for anti-American terrorists. In a separate press appearance, CIA Director Porter Goss made a similar observation. Clearly, an isolated dictatorship has mutated into a lethal academy that did not exist between 9/11 and the opening salvos of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The war’s defenders argue that it’s better to fight them there than here, but it’s a delaying action at best. And if the war in Iraq has inspired new jihadists, while the occupation prepares them, it is no stretch to conclude that every dollar we’ve spent on that war has paid for a program to recruit and train our enemies, with American troops as live targets. That’s enough to indict George W. Bush as Osama bin Laden’s most effective fundraiser and the world’s leading sponsor of anti-American terrorism.

Keith Cornell

Santa Monica