Boot Blackens the Left for Turning a Blind Eye

Re “Oh, the Company They Keep,” Commentary, Nov. 27:

Max Boot just doesn’t get it. The “left” dislikes Saddam Hussein and cares about threats posed by Islamist terrorists as much as the “right.” However, only the left seems to realize that before the war, the connection between Islamist terrorism and Iraq was nebulous at best, if not nonexistent. Thanks to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there is now a connection. Just ask our brave soldiers patrolling “Ambush Alley,” dodging rocket-propelled grenades south of Baghdad.

The protesters in London were rightfully opposing an unjustified and ill-timed war. Was the threat of attack so imminent that it was not worth taking the necessary time to build an international coalition of support?

Boot doesn’t bother to mention weapons of mass destruction because he knows how weak this argument has become. He instead justifies the push to war by the atrocities committed by Hussein against his own people. If this was the reasoning behind the invasion, why now? Boot cites the 300,000 Iraqi citizens Hussein murdered. These innocents were not killed yesterday. In fact, when Hussein committed some of these atrocities, years ago, Vice President Dick Cheney was (literally) cozying up to him on a sofa and the U.S. was one of Hussein’s strongest supporters.

Boot accuses those on the left of caring only about “advancing their own ideological agenda.” Might I suggest this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

Kai Kittscher

Pasadena

Boot’s article was excellent. The best line in Boot’s commentary was “the fact that Saddam Hussein murdered more than 300,000 of his own people is a matter of complete indifference to the ‘Stop the War’ brigade.” Though I, too, would have liked to have seen an alternative to the invasion of Iraq, it didn’t happen. One thing is obvious: Most of the mainstream media are afraid to play the devil’s advocate with the so-called peace activists or protesters. God forbid they should be asked questions like, “Where was the outcry when Hussein was murdering, raping or torturing his people?” Or, “Why no protest marches in the Palestinian territories against the suicide bombers?”

Frank Dayton

Hesperia

Oh, you are mistaken, Mr. Boot. We leftists do care, very much, for the people who are being killed in Turkey, Iraq and other countries. But these killings are more likely to occur because of our country’s policies.

Charlene Elgart

Los Angeles

I have just read Boot’s commentary and am frankly confused by a term he uses. What, pray tell, is a “smoked-salmon socialist”? Is this a reference to the said socialist’s ethnicity?

Scandinavians eat smoked salmon, and I hear many of them are socialists. Does Boot mean to imply that progressive Americans of Scandinavian descent dislike dictators who are “in cahoots with the United States”?

But then, I eat smoked salmon, and I am not of Scandinavian descent. Is Boot a “knockwurst conservative”? This is all very confusing, and I look forward to some clarification.

Janet Brody Esser

San Diego