Generals against Rumsfeld.

This is an excellent piece that precisely captures this administration and its political ideologies ("Hawks for Dissent" by Ralph Peters, June). Like most administrations, it reflects the attitudes of the president in charge. The fact that George W. Bush has no meaningful military experience means that, when put in a wartime environment, he's totally lost. When his previous track record is analyzed, it reveals a succession of failures at endeavors he knew nothing about. In fact, it is predictive of the actions he has taken since he started the Iraq conflict. Since his father had always bailed him out before but wasn't going to for this "adventure," he went looking for a father figure to bless his Iraq adventure and even take charge of it. This also gave him a political straw man to hide behind.

Like most of Bush's schemes in the past, this one hasn't worked out either. Because it's obvious now that Iraq isn't going to establish the legacy he had in mind, Bush desperately needs Rumsfeld as a flack catcher. He's no more incompetent than the rest of the sycophants he surrounds himself with. Like Vietnam, this misadventure is going to cost us dearly far into the future.

T. A. Glidewell

Stephenville, Texas

Ralph Peters may be correct that it is bad to have Donald Rumsfeld, "who never saw combat, interpreting warfare to a president who never saw combat." But Peters goes on to make a weak case for his real agenda--to bash Rumsfeld and President Bush and to defend the six retired generals who recently called for Rumsfeld to be fired. First, he points to successful "partnerships" between active-duty generals and Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt, which worked because the generals presumably gave those presidents expert and "unfiltered" advice. Perhaps true. But then he links them to the six, retired "dissident" generals who, rather than offering unvarnished and private advice to Bush, issue a public call for him to fire his secretary of defense. Is Peters seriously suggesting that FDR would have taken kindly to retired generals going to the press to second-guess his decisions or appointments?

Second, Peters bemoans the fact that these generals are now "automatically blackballed from ... lucrative defense industry jobs ... and they'll never be offered plum posts in any future administration" because of their criticism. But, in his next breath, he says that such contracts or jobs "corrode the ethics" of retired senior officers. Why is he complaining about the loss of something he finds so sleazy?

Finally, he contends that these poor, retired generals (who collect rather handsome pensions, by the way) have been subject to "character assassination" by the administration. I don't spend a lot of my time in the fringe blogosphere, but that's not what I've seen. I've seen them lionized in the mainstream media. Indeed, I've never seen the media fawn over generals who support the administration, retired or otherwise, like they have over these six. It seems that Peters wants them held immune from any disagreement or criticism. Free speech cuts both ways. They have every right to attack Rumsfeld, and those who disagree have every right to attack them.

Taylor Armerding

Ipswich, Mass.