In Iraq, Liberals Flip on Genocide(Jonah Goldberg)

los angeles times ^ | July 24, 2007 | Jonah Goldberg

[kellynla]

Barack Obama says preventing genocide isn't a good enough reason to stay in Iraq.

"By that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now -- where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife -- which we haven't done," he told the Associated Press. "We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea."

It's worth at least pointing out a key difference between the potential genocide in Iraq and the heart-wrenching slaughters in Congo and Sudan: The latter aren't our fault. But if genocide unfolds in Iraq after American troops depart, it would be hard to argue that we weren't at least partly to blame. Yes, the mass murder would have more immediate authors than the United States of America, but we would undeniably be responsible, at least in part, for giving a green light to genocide. Obama offers precisely that green light in his proposed Iraq War De-escalation Act.

Of course, some advocates of withdrawal try to maintain the moral high ground by arguing that there won't be genocidal slaughter -- though that usually sounds like self-delusion to me. Most close observers of the situation believe that if the U.S. were to sail out of Iraq, it would be on a river of Iraqi blood.

"The only thing standing between Iraq and a descent into a Lebanon- or Bosnia-like maelstrom," a new report from the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution concludes, "is 135,000 American troops." Rapid withdrawal, the report says, could bring "a humanitarian nightmare" in which we should expect "hundreds of thousands (conceivably even millions) of people to die."

[kellynla]

Notice the LAT didn't even credit Jonah Goldberg for the piece .

[Slings and Arrows]

Notice the LAT didn't even credit Jonah Goldberg for the piece .

Considering that his e-mail addy is at the end of the piece and his name is in the URL, I think that's incompetence rather than malice.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

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NEVER FORGET

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The last time a Democrat Congress cut and ran from funding a Free People’s fight for their own Freedom came:

Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education (SLAVE LABOR) Camp

http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts

http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1806248/posts

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What price for the still Free to pay now in a new time of war, I wonder, with our own Freedom directly at stake right here at home..?

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NEVER FORGET

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[americanophile]

...well, I’ll give the Dems one thing, they’re consistent. Consistently wrong, but consistent.

[ari-freedom]

but we're not risking our troops in some global campaign against genocide and we shouldn't be fighting to spread democracy to cultures that are fundamentally opposed to it (look at democratically elected hamas in gaza)

What we are doing is eliminating al qaeda from its nest and removed a major arab bad guy who had big nasty plans with his oil (and UN oil for food) bucks

The conservative case for war is neutralizing radical islam and arab nationalism because they pose a threat to our country and way of life.

[gondramB]

>>Notice the LAT didn’t even credit Jonah Goldberg for the piece .<<

I don’t know that name - is he not a regular at the LA Times? I thought maybe they were showing more sense than usual.

>>It’s worth at least pointing out a key difference between the potential genocide in Iraq and the heart-wrenching slaughters in Congo and Sudan: The latter aren’t our fault. But if genocide unfolds in Iraq after American troops depart, it would be hard to argue that we weren’t at least partly to blame. Yes, the mass murder would have more immediate authors than the United States of America, but we would undeniably be responsible, at least in part, for giving a green light to genocide. Obama offers precisely that green light in his proposed Iraq War De-escalation Act.<<

[Future Snake Eater]

But if genocide unfolds in Iraq after American troops depart, it would be hard to argue that we weren't at least partly to blame. Yes, the mass murder would have more immediate authors than the United States of America, but we would undeniably be responsible, at least in part, for giving a green light to genocide.

Utter crap from someone who's probably never even met a real life Iraqi before. So who are we trying to keep from committing genocide? Sunnis? Are they the bad guys? Because I've taken a hell of a lot of contact from Shi'ites and seen more than a few reports of their death squads slaughtering Sunni civilians. Or are we just going to keep playing police officer against both sides, and hope that Christ comes again soon to keep them from killing each other? That's about the only event that could change it all. The only progress being made is that the locals are getting sick of AQ. That doesn't do much to stop the "genocide."

[Alberta's Child]

He presents a terrible argument here -- though he does, in fact, do a fantastic job of reflecting Colin Powell's warning to George W. Bush back in 2002-03 about this stupid war.

135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq should not bear the responsibility of maintaining order in a dysfunctional Third World sh!t-hole just because the civilian leadership of their country didn't have the intelligence and/or the imagination to foresee what would happen there.