"Oops. This didn't go as planned" Nicholas Kristof (NYT)

[kpete]

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 13, 2005
So how do we get out of Iraq?

It's easy to be antiwar, and tempting just to blast away at the Bush administration for getting us into this quagmire. But the essential question is how do we extricate ourselves, and that's a hard one to answer.

Before offering my preferred approach, let me dissect two of the main alternatives under discussion:

Cut our losses This has an obvious merit: Iraq may fall apart no matter what we do, and if we're going to give up and pull out we should do so now rather than wait until after we've spilled more blood.

That said, immediate withdrawal strikes me as utterly immoral. A surgeon who botches an operation should not walk off and leave the patient on the table with a note: "Oops. This didn't go as planned. Good luck, but I'm outta here."

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/opinion/13kristof.html?hp

[July]

1. "Tune in . . ."

This is one of the things I dislike about Kristof's columns. He's always got a prescription, a detailed one at that. Usually one that has no chance of being adopted.

[punpirate]

5. His notions about what...

... could happen were we to leave are pretty much happening now or are in their formative stages already.

And we aren't a surgeon who's just made an oopsy. We're an occupying army with, after 2-1/2 bloody years, the apparent intention to stay for as long as we like. That attitude kept us in Vietnam for nearly seventeen years (more than twenty years if you count the time the CIA was trying to destabilize the country and disrupt the 1956 elections).

So, whatever Kristof comes up with for a graduated withdrawal, you're right--it's not going to happen. We might see some troops back--for a while--but the intentions have always been to keep a large military presence in the Middle East, particularly air power. That started with the elder Bush and the Saudis--and that started terrorist attacks against us. The neo-cons want to use that force to move outward from Iraq. If they prevail, that's what we'll end up trying to do.

The easiest way to keep a perpetual "war" on terror going is to continue to provoke the terrorists into more terrorism. That's what's going on now, and it's what we have to look forward to as long as we maintain that military presence in the Middle East. Wonder if Kristof will consider that in his next column....

[Sapphire Blue]

2. Oops... need to edit...

You may not be familiar w/DU rules...

Copyrights: Do not copy-and-paste entire articles onto this discussion forum. When referencing copyrighted work, post a short excerpt (not exceeding 4 paragraphs) with a link back to the original.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html

[BobBoudelangFan69]

3. "First To Be Wrong About Iraq." - Jon Stewart

[Toots]

4. I do not like his analogy of a surgeon at all.

In the first place no patient came in asking for surgery. It is as if a surgeon went out in the world and found someone and captured them by force and cut them open looking for something that was not there. After they cut them open and found nothing instead of closing them back up to heal they decided to let the wound get infected. After they allowed the wound to get infected they would allow no other surgeon or doctor to tend to the wound and said by Gawd I will watch this wound until either the patient dies or the wound heals itself. If I was that patient I would want that surgeon as far away from me as possible as soon as possible. I believe after the surgeon left I would be able to find competent medical assistance and my life might be saved but with the surgeon hanging around I have no chance....

[kentuck]

6. And it was not "immoral" to invade the country in the first place ?

But it would now be immoral to pull out? How do these people think?