NYT Editorial Demands Immediate Withdrawal Decision

[Michael Tee]

Today's editorial in the NYT calls for immediate withdrawal to begin now and complete in less than a year.  The whole thing is worth reading, many paragraphs are little gems in and of themselves.  This is only one of them:

<<Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.>>

Succinct and to the point.  There is no question of where the blame lies for this disaster, nor any attempt to disguise that it IS a disaster.

On a weekend where headlines announce the deaths of 220 Iraqis in various bombings and explosions, the folly of the "surge" - - Bush's latest and hopefully last fraud on the American people - - is fully exposed for the silly nonsense which anyone with half a brain could have foretold it was from the beginning.  Crack down here, they pop up there.  What high-school senior couldn't have figured out as much?  Pacifying that country would take AT LEAST half a million troops for an indefinite time.  And the alienation of every Sunni Muslim on the planet.  It's cheaper to just buy the fucking oil at any price.

So Bush's house of cards is falling apart one card after another.  As I said when it all started, you can fool some of the people all the time . . . . . And gee, the Emperor really does have no clothes, doesn't he?  [Not to worry, for some guys like sirs, he'll always be clad in glorious silken raiment with cords of spun gold.]

[gipper]

I will read that tonight, Michael. But unless they can explain why a small- or large-scale genocide should be risked by a plan implemented before its time, or why they have come to the conclusion that (most likely) ceding a failed state to the cutthroats is an acceptable outcome (indeed, do they clearly and unequivocally predict military-political failure going forward, or some magical boon to American standing from being a voluntary loser), then I'd have to say "get back to me."

[Michael Tee]

Read between the lines, domer.  You think anyone in control of your country really gives a rat's ass about genocide?  Don't make me laugh.  FDR slammed the door in the face of Jews seeking refuge from Nazi Germany and wouldn't authorize a single air raid to block the rail lines to Auschwitz, nor would Bomber Command.  Six million fucking Jews up the chimney in smoke and a few token executions later, the fucking bastards who did it were in bed with the Americans and the British.  And now you think they're going to get their knickers in a knot because some dumb fucking Arabs might hurt one another after they're gone?  You really got a lot to learn about international politics.

This thing has come to the point where Bush had every chance to demonstrate he could pull it off (at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis just vainly trying to make it from one day to the next)  And now it's clear beyond any doubt that the project is doomed.  Bush and his crew begged for chance after chance, and the powers that be gave it to them.  His last chance was the "surge" a dumb and bone-headed idea that even a moron could see through, but still they gave it to him.  He had the run of the casino but never got to win even once and now his markers are all due and they're being called in.  The Times editorial is serious.  They always backed him where it counted and now they're not.  Bad sign.  They know which way the wind is blowing.  They're never out in front of anything.

This has got nothing to do with genocide, domer.  If genocide happens, it happens.  It's all about failure.  An invasion predicated on the ability of American firepower and reliable puppets to rapidly subdue a small Arab country and bring it to heel, has failed miserably and the last chance to redeem the failure has just passed. 

Every day this farce continues is an embarrassment and a slap in the face to the United States of America, administered by faceless Arab rebels using bargain-basement weaponry against what is supposedly the "mightiest military" in the whole world.  What do you think this is doing to American prestige?  How many Arabs - - how many oppressed Third World people - - formerly convinced of the hopelessness of taking on their oppressors mano-a-mano are now getting a different view of their chances?  In the face of the mighty "surge," the biggest bombings of the war rack up ever bigger scores of dead Shi'ites, making a mockery of every "protection" America promises to its quislings and collaborators.  This bullshit is not going to be allowed to continue.  The curtain is being run down.

[BT]

If that is what the people want, and theNYT certainly speaks for someone, fine with me.

Let the days of reckoning begin.

The blood of innocent Iraqi's will be on their hands. And apparently that is ok.

[Michael Tee]

<<If that is what the people want, and theNYT certainly speaks for someone, fine with me.

<<Let the days of reckoning begin.

<<The blood of innocent Iraqi's will be on their hands. And apparently that is ok. >>


The blood of innocent Iraqis is on the hands of the man who, in Shakespeare's words, "Cried havoc and unleashed the dogs of war."  His name is George W. Bush, in case you forgot.  I don't think the Iraqis forgot.

The Iraqis unfortunately don't have the luxury of viewing their tragedy through a computer terminal.  When they lose a loved one, they know who is to blame, sometimes even by name.  None of them is likely ever to blame the editor of the New York Times.  I think they realize he didn't start the war (though he sure as hell contributed) and he didn't kill their loved one. 

Sorry, but I don't think your Mr. Bush can wriggle out of his responsibility for this one, BT.  It's his war, he CHOSE to start it, and he's stuck with the consequences of it.  All of them.

[Mucho]

If that is what the people want, and theNYT certainly speaks for someone, fine with me.

Let the days of reckoning begin.

The blood of innocent Iraqi's will be on their hands. And apparently that is ok.

There is plenty of blood of innocent Iraqis on your hands right now. One might think you should like the NYT to take over responsibility now.Perhps you fear the bloodbath wont continue after we leave. You fear being wrong  more than human life anyway.

[BT]

We'll just have to disagree.

I can't recall Bush saying genocide was acceptable.

The NYT just did.

And i'm pretty sure the Iraqi's quite understand who is doing the killing.

It would be the "others" The Shiites or the Sunnis or AQI. Depending on perspective.

It will be interesting in seeing what pols come out in support of the NYT's new tolerance.

[BT]

There is plenty of blood of innocent Iraqis on your hands right now.

Please explain. Coherently, if possible.

[gipper]

I resent your tone, Michael; don't ever take that with me again. I read the editorial, in the newspaper, prior to my (late) dinner. I will have to dwell on it for a while. As you say, there's scant, if any, allusion to genocide, a failing sufficient to sink their pitch for now. Nor do they predict an outcome, only saying a host of possibles. This, I speculate, leaves open a failed state and the creation of terrorist enclaves, unrestrained. To me, that represents a worst-possible outcome, one, I note, the Times is not prepared to say couldn't be averted by a longer in-country deployment. So too, regarding world standing, is a frank defeat better than an extended engagement in terms of dissuading other groups with aims on our interests? What the Times says on the whole matter is something to the effect that "whatever Bush's goal was, it's lost now." Well, does Bush himself, and does the Times in its critical chair, care about the issues I've highlighted: potential genocide and a potential failed state? Or is it "throw your hands in the air and say fuck it time"?

[Michael Tee]

<<There is plenty of blood of innocent Iraqis on your hands right now. >>

Come on, knute.  You know and I know that real American concern for the "blood of innocent Iraqis" is about as deeply felt as concern for the fate of the spotted owl.  Accusing an avid war supporter of having innocent Iraqi blood on his hands is less offensive than accusing him of wearing eye makeup. 

As a talking point, however, the concern for the "blood of innocent Iraqis" is the latest in a sequence of failed or failing excuses for invading Iraq and staying on long after any rational excuse for either had evaporated.  The "blood of innocent Iraqis" has replaced "bringing a stable democracy to the Middle East," which itself had replaced "removing the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Soon the "blood of innocent Iraqis" excuse will have to go, because it's already being spilled in such copious quantities by all parties involved that any pretence of being there to stop some future bloodshed becomes every day more and more surrealistic and absurdist.  At that point, I really don't know what new excuse they can think up, even the brain-dead American sheeple are finally starting to catch on and demand some answers.  This farce can't continue indefinitely.

[gipper]

The wildcard, which may be the clincher is this: would withdrawal have a better chance of averting a region-wide belligerency? There are two sides: withdrawing, it seems, would put surrounding countries in more of a frame of mind to intervene constructively, one could argue, but withdrawing also would increase chances of a stepped up civil war and its logical atrocity, genocide, which would induce intervention but in an arguably destructive manner.

[BT]

Soon the "blood of innocent Iraqis" excuse will have to go, because it's already being spilled in such copious quantities by all parties involved that any pretence of being there to stop some future bloodshed becomes every day more and more surrealistic and absurdist.

Either way blood will flow. The NY Times endorses that. Apparently so do you.

[Michael Tee]

I re-read my post, domer, because I take complaints and criticism from you seriously, and the only possibly offensive line I could find was the one beginning with "You got a lot to learn . . . " which obviously is patronizing but not something that I wouldn't say in an argument with someone I respected as a person, if I felt he or she was displaying a lot of naivete.   However, I believe I inadvertently offended you with that, and if I did, then I apologize. 

Looking at your questions (all of which are unanswered and IMHO unanswerable)  they seem to run the gamut of post-withdrawal "bad outcomes" - - "stepped-up" civil war with genocide, "stepped-up" civil war without genocide, stepped up civil war with French fries, failed state with terrorist enclaves, failed state without terrorist enclaves, etc.  Not mentioned were the less dire outcomes, such as, Iraqi factions, finally convinced that America will not help them prevail over their domestic enemies, forced to come to grips with their differences and hammer out a political settlement despite themselves, not a totally unrealistic expectation and certainly no more or no less predictable than any of the other "disaster" predictions made.

I think you nailed it with your "the Hamlet of East Orange" line.  Since no one can predict any of the outcomes with any reasonable degree of certainty, your endless agonizing over what'll happen after a pull-out is pointless and counter-productive.  Since the present situation is, in the eyes of the NYT (and IMHO in the eyes of those whom the NYT has identified correctly or not as the real decision-makers in American foreign affairs and quite possibly for whom they speak) untenable regardless of the possibility of genocide, it must be terminated.  Meaning that whatever the outcome, it (the outcome) will have to be dealt with tomorrow and not today.  Another excellent illustration of that magnificent Biblical line, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

[Mucho]

Soon the "blood of innocent Iraqis" excuse will have to go, because it's already being spilled in such copious quantities by all parties involved that any pretence of being there to stop some future bloodshed becomes every day more and more surrealistic and absurdist.

Either way blood will flow. The NY Times endorses that. Apparently so do you.

When you point a finger four point back at you.

[Michael Tee]

<<Either way blood will flow. The NY Times endorses that. Apparently so do you.>>

Yeah.  Right.  I endorse the blood flowing.  If you remember, I was opposed to the invasion from the beginning.  Because of the bloodshed.  But now I want the war to stop.  Because I want to see more bloodshed.

You guys live in some never-never land where logic and reason are permanently suspended or run in reverse and facts are whatever you say they are.  I've never seen such screwed up reasoning but I think I can summarize some of it as follows:  People who oppose Bush and his war are "haters" who love to see blood flow and people who support Bush and his war are mature and responsible even as the tab run up by these "mature" and "responsible" people tops the half-trillion mark and continues to rise at record levels.  The "mature and responsible" people can now claim credit for about 25,000 wounded and presumably seriously fucked-up Americans and over 3500 dead Americans (minus a few hundred green-card seekers) whereas the "shrill" and "irresponsible" Americans run around screaming about such trivial inconveniences and annoyances as the loss of a son, the lack of proper health-care, housing and education, the failure to rebuild New Orleans.  A typical conclusion based on such Bizarro-World logic is that someone who wants a war to stop is someone looking to see more blood shed.