Max Boot Draws Fire on Use of Casualty Rates
Max Boot’s so-called analysis (“Reality Check -- This Is War,” Commentary, May 27) compares apples to oranges. A more useful reference point would be the percentage of U.S. soldiers who died during the first few years of our involvement in Vietnam. Our battle tactics in Iraq are driven primarily by political considerations, not a clear and present danger to the republic as was the case during the Civil War or in WWII. When the rubber recently hit the road in Fallouja, we turned over “control” to a militia of former Baathists and Republican Guards (evildoers) -- many of whom freely admitted to using their AK-47s against our troops. The Bush administration is not willing to endure the inevitable mass casualties (on both sides) of heavy house-to-house urban combat.
By their actions, it is clear that President Bush and his advisors secretly recognize that the Iraq war is a conflict born of choice, not necessity. They know they cannot justify -- politically or ethically -- a “total war” in Iraq. When will Boot wake up and smell the quagmire?
Roy Perkins
Del Mar
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Gosh, I feel so much better about the casualties in Iraq after reading Boot’s piece. And I’m sure the families of those lost or gravely wounded must feel as though a great weight has been lifted when they view their losses in “perspective.” Darn those nagging doubts one has about comparing casualties in a war we need not be fighting to past wars mostly fought when all means to avoid them had been exhausted. As Boot points out, this war is barely a year old. God forbid that those (Bush included) who predict that things will get worse before they get better should cause these numbers -- also known as human beings -- to change.
Dirk Blocker
Santa Barbara
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Boot’s cheery assurance that the Iraq war has produced one of the lowest casualty rates in our history contains an obvious but, I suppose, predictable omission. Iraqi civilian casualties through May 7 have been estimated at a minimum of 9,187 and a maximum of 11,046. And Bob Woodward in “Plan of Attack” quotes Army Gen. Tommy Franks early in the war estimating 30,000 Iraqi military casualties before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cut him off, saying, “It would not be helpful that people walked out of the room with that number in their heads.”
Edgar Schell
Irvine
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Here’s a “reality check” for the heartless Boot: My cousin, Phil Witowski, was killed in Afghanistan three weeks ago. He leaves behind a 3-month-old infant, a 3-year-old toddler and a 22-year-old wife. Has Phil’s death made us any safer? No. It has just made two orphans and a widow. Mr. Boot, statistics are meaningless if you can’t put a face or a life on them.
Jeff Wolfe
Granada Hills
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Boot seeks to remind us that Iraq “is war.” Having returned from a year’s service in Iraq just 15 days ago, I hardly needed reminding. What dismayed me was that Boot’s intent was not to educate but to absolve the Bush administration of any responsibility for Americans’ seeming failure to understand.
He quickly dispenses with complaints about casualty rates, the lack of progress toward a democratic Iraq and the ongoing scandal over Abu Ghraib by noting that on the historical scale, casualty and torture rates are low. Americans don’t think casualty rates are high based on historical analysis; they think casualty rates are high because the continued killing of Americans doesn’t jibe with prewar White House publicity about just how thankful these long-suffering Iraqis would prove to be.
In his cursory dismissal of legitimate concerns, Boot manages to pin the blame for Iraq naysaying on an increasingly critical American public, rather than on those who created the expectations that he now finds unrealistic. Like a Hollywood remake, the war was pitched as a “re-vision” of a past hit, with heroic Americans greeted by freshly liberated and adoring common folk. For a couple of days, the box office was good. But we quickly wore out our welcome. Our failure to have anticipated Iraqis’ thank-you-now-go-home attitude belongs to the White House, not to the voters.
Russell A. Burgos
Thousand Oaks
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Sorry, Mr. Boot, I thought the war was declared over and won last year with the “Mission Accomplished” fiasco. Are we at war or are we at “occupation”? And remember, this was a war of choice, not of necessity. We ignored history, we ignored allies around the world, we ignored common sense. What you sow, you also shall reap.
Mary Brennan
Atlanta
