Winning a war doesn’t erase criminal conduct

Re “Win the war and we’ll forgive Haditha,” Opinion, June 7

According to Max Boot’s logic, had Germany won World War II, the significance of the Holocaust would have been diminished. War crimes are war crimes, no matter how big or small. Who won the war does not alter facts. Ask the millions of Holocaust survivors and their families if their pain and grief would have been less significant had Germany won.

A war crime should not be forgiven simply because one side won the war. Or does victory mean “might is right” and therefore creates the moral high ground?

Boot’s piece is really about how the Bush administration can survive. Maybe it should have been about the morality of war and war crimes.

DEAN OKRAND

Van Nuys

*

Boot unwittingly sums up the moral bankruptcy of the Bush administration and the Republican Party. He says that the “administration can weather the excesses of some soldiers; it cannot survive the perception that we are losing.” Boot is right about Bush and his propaganda machine. If they keep lying and giving us the perception that they are honest, then the Republicans will keep winning elections even as they lose the war in Iraq, wipe out the middle class and destroy the Constitution.

Boot states: “Victory diminishes the significance of war crimes; defeat magnifies them into defining events.” This could have been Karl Rove whispering into Bush’s ear, saying: “Victory diminishes all the crimes of our administration. We must therefore continue to steal elections because defeat will magnify our crimes and we’ll all end up in a prison.”

LEON M. SALTER

Los Angeles

*

What an arrogant approach. It’s up to the innocent victims to forgive, not the American public. Actions powered by such thinking are causing the ongoing deterioration of the American reputation in the world.

MICHAEL JANZ

Laatzen, Germany