In a Dec. 8 Sunday Telegram op-ed (“To appoint Hegseth would be a grave dereliction of duty“), authors Jim Settele and Kenneth Hillas warned that Peter Hegseth’s appointment would make the world a more dangerous place because he lacks “senior level” experience.

Mr. Settele’s “senior level” experience as aide to Donald Rumsfeld was so destructive that it led to the unjustified invasion of a sovereign Iraq over fabricated “weapons of mass destruction charges.” This invasion resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers, and the deaths of as many as 600,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, and involved the scandalous torture of thousands of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison, which increased resentment of the U.S. and, in fact, made the world less safe.

Mr. Hillas’ resume trumpets his accomplishments in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region so obscure that most commonsense Americans, however deprived of “senior level” experience, instinctively know that we shouldn’t waste time trying to resolve centuries-old disputes between ethnic factions halfway around the world. Despite Mr. Hillas’ dissipation of American resources, Nagorno-Karabakh was dissolved in 2023.

Other “senior level” failures: Secretary McNamara’s continued prosecution of the Vietnam War, after his own study reported the futility of U.S. involvement and, just recently, the disastrous and chaotic “withdrawal” from Iraq by “senior level” experienced Lloyd Austin.

Mr. Hegseth knows the horror of combat, something anyone (male or female) would seek to avoid after experiencing it firsthand. Mr. Hegseth, like President-elect Trump, vows not to use American troops in futile missions designed only to satisfy the military industrial complex’s ravenous appetite for more U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Timothy Michalak
Cumberland