Posted on 12/05/2006 3:55:50 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
Give New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof credit for a couple things. First, he is as far from an armchair pundit as you can get, having been virtually everywhere and put himself on the line innumerable times. Check his bio . Second, he makes no bones about what he is proposing in Iraq in his pay-per-view column of today. "Cut and walk" isn't my gloss; it's Kristof's headline.
That said, Kristof's column reads like something that might have been written by the warm 'n fuzzy Stuart Smalley, the SNL character Al Franken hilariously immortalized before deciding he had serious things to say.
According to Kristof, the key to success in Iraq is raising our EQ - our "Emotional Intelligence Quotient." We "desperately" need more emotional intelligence. And because we're not "sensitive enough," we empower extremists who destabilize the country.
Kristof offers what he calls "Exhibit A" in support of his theory one Abu Deraa, a Shia madman who "specializes in using electric drills on [Sunni] skulls" and is reported to have driven "ambulances into a Sunni neighborhood and used loudspeakers to call on young men to donate blood to help fellow Sunnis injured by Shiites. Dozens of young men came forward — and were executed."
Kristof himself describes Deraa as "a psychopathic thug." Does the Times columnist really believe that giving Deraa a hug and getting him to join in a round of "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and, Doggonnit, People Like Me!" is going to change anything?
Kristof then moves to his recommendations for ending the conflict - or at least US involvement in it. Predictably, he endorses the anticipated recommendation from the Iraq Study Group that we undertake talks with Iran and syria.
Then, reverting to theme, he counsels us to "raise our E.Q.," "take account of Iraqi emotions and nationalist sensitivities," and "quickly give back up to 50 of our 55 military bases in Iraq" while stating that "we will not keep any permanent military bases in Iraq."
Most breathtakingly, he asserts that "the same logic argues for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, ending by November 2007." I suppose "the same logic" does. In calling for an apparently total pull-out in less than a year, Kristof one-ups even the Nancy Pelosis of the world. Kristof acknowledges "there is a real risk that the bloodbath will worsen significantly." But hey, that doesn't matter - as long as we feel better about things.
I have not been a regular Kristof reader. But if this column is any indication, great experience has not in his case brought great wisdom.
Finkelstein recently returned from Iraq. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
Doggone-it-people-like-me ping to Today show list.
A size 12 up where the sun doesn't shine would raise this idiot's emotional intelligence.
I'd like to waterboard this terrorist operative!
LLS
The US is like a championship boxer with one hand tied behind his back, (going into the ring after days of newspaper headlines filled with nasty quotes about him from his so-called "friends") fighting in front of an audience filled only with folks cheering his opponents.
The boxer has an uphill fight.
Democrats think the War on Terror is a video game
It doesn't take much intelligence to be emotional. He is confused. The problem has been a constant over emotional drumbeat from the media and the left. I believe some thinking would be a better idea than feeling.
If you start from the basic -- demonstrable -- premise that liberals want America utterly destroyed, their behavior is much easier to understand.
Kristof obviously has no intelligence. Apparently, he was beaten up quite a bit as a child. Typical liberal...every issue decided by "emotion" and no substance.
Good point Laz. I mostly see this as an emotional appeal to the NY Times faithful to keep buying there rag. Totally worthless tripe meant to sell papers.
Life-imitates-SNL bump. Also life-imitates-Alice-in-Wonderland because it seems we have truly gone through the looking glass or down the rabbit hole or some damn thing. The inmates are running the asylum and have been for a while now.
Peace, Love, No War, Hug A Terrorist
No thanks .. just kill them
Then, reverting to theme, he counsels us to "raise our E.Q.," "take account of Iraqi emotions and nationalist sensitivities," and "quickly give back up to 50 of our 55 military bases in Iraq" while stating that "we will not keep any permanent military bases in Iraq."
Here is a good example. Our military, after failing to secure Iraq via conventional means, has pretended to take steps to do so using counterinsurgency methods. In reality, it's been the same old conventional pig with counterinsurgency lipstick on it.
We had a very similar experience in the Philippines, about 100 years ago. The conventional U.S. Army smashed a popular uprising, yet found itself ensnared in a brutal war of occupation that superior firepower and massive enemy body counts wasn't winning. Army commanders at the time realized that they were using the wrong tactics, and thought their way out of the problem.
Causing massive casualties, treated the locals like dirt, and remaining aloof, fearsome and unapproachable, can destroy a regime, but it won't win a counterinsurgency effort. Far from it.
Belatedly, the commanders of the time realized this. Rather than remain consolidated on highly guarded fortress firebases, they dispersed into the local communities in smaller outposts. They walked the streets with the people, learned the language, got to know the people. If the town needed a well, they build them a well. If the town needed a road, they built them a road. Within a few years, casualties dropped to almost nothing, and the country became, by and large, the pro-American haven it is today.
Neither Kristof nor our Army possesses the correct type of emotional intelligence needed to win this war. Kristof approaches the idea like a wide eyed, tearful schoolgirl who skinned her knee, and wants to leave the playground because it's "not safe". The metric-centric Army brass looks at everything like a numbers game, except for the Special Operations folks, who don't have a seat at the big table to make their opinions heard.
Playing the numbers like it's a sporting event won't win. Running from the schoolyard in tears won't either. We need leaders who can think and feel their way out of this problem, not blast or blubber their way through it.
Nice post.
The problem of course (and I'm sure you know this) is not simply the lack of leadership but also the dumbed-down, brainwashed populace (here stateside) led by the anti-American drive-by media.
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