Time to Exit Iraq, A Leading Paper Declares

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002200415

Editorials criticizing our adventure in Iraq are a dime a dozen, but very few have called for a U.S. pullout. But on Sunday, one of the most respected papers, The Des Moines Register, called on the president to set a timetable for a phased American withdrawal.

<snip>

Set Timetable to Leave Iraq

The Des Moines Register, March 19, 2006.

The time has come for President Bush to do what he has resolutely insisted he would never do: Set a timetable to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The old notion of an open-ended commitment to "stay the course" no longer makes sense. The nature of the conflict has changed. So must American strategy.

A date certain to end the U.S. occupation should be the linchpin of that strategy--not to abandon Iraq but to put its feuding factions on notice that the United States isn't going to hang around to baby-sit their civil war.

[LynnTheDem]

1. "US isn't going to hang around to baby-sit their civil war"...

Hell no, not after WE CAUSED IT. Why should we have to do EVERYTHING! What, we haven't destroyed enough of Iraq already? We haven't slaughtered enough men, women and kids yet?

GEEEZ!

Yeah I would suspect this post is :sarcasm:

[pinto]

2. More from the Register's editorial, and E&P's Greg Mitchell

the Des Moines Register:

The U.S. invasion produced chaos and unleashed ancient hatreds, as experts on the Middle East warned it would. President Bush chose not to listen, preferring to believe his own fairy-tale vision of happy Iraqis welcoming Americans. Now, in the words of the nursery rhyme, all the king¹s horses and all the king's men can't put Iraq back together again.

Only the Iraqis themselves can halt the madness.

The last hope for averting all-out civil war and the possible breakup of Iraq is if a national unity government can be established, but members of the ethnically divided parliament have been unable to form such a government.

An announcement by the United States that our troops will pull out might help focus the minds of the Baghdad politicians. It would force them to stare into the abyss of a full-blown ethnic civil war with no American troops around to keep the country in one piece.

and from Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell, in intro to the editorial:

(March 21, 2006) -- For about as long as I can remember (which these days, is about two years), I've have been agitating in this space for major daily newspapers to call for a phased U.S. pullout from Iraq, or at least the setting of a timetable for same. Once these editorials got the ball rolling, many others would follow, I presumed, and policy might actually change.

Alas, not many have answered the call, as I observed once again two days ago in reviewing some of the third anniversary editorials. Like the vast majority of Americans, editorialists have turned against the war but are hesitant, or just plain afraid, to suggest that the U.S. reverse course. Maybe President Bush admitting on Tuesday that he planned to keep U.S. troops in Iraq at least until he leaves office will force some to confront this prospect.

Since I have hectored here for so many months, it is only right that I tip my hat when a respected metro joins the very thin ranks of those proposing an exit strategy. This past Sunday, The Des Moines (Iowa) Register carried a tough-minded, but hardly radical, editorial that deserves reprinting in full.

It calls for setting a timetable for a full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. As recently as last July, the newspaper editorialized against such an action.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002200415