Bored With Baghdad — Already

The New York Times Company ^ | May 18, 2003 | THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

[Paul Atreides]

Iraq can still go wrong for a hundred Iraqi reasons

Wishful thinking.

[Arkie2]

I agree with this assesment. We're walking away from our problem there and it will bite us in the butt down the road.

[Free ThinkerNY]

The Left said, "Give the U.N. inspectors more time. There's no need to rush." Now they say, "Find WMD's immediately! Establish perfect democracy in Iraq overnight!" Typical Lefty hypocricy.

[Chi-townChief]

"Why doesn't Mr. Rumsfeld brief reporters every day about rebuilding Iraq, the way he did about destroying Saddam?"

Probably for the same reason that your newspaper's sports section doesn't cover the Jets and Giants daily during baseball season. Idiot !

[anniegetyourgun]

If the Left had won this argument, Iraqis would still be maimed, raped, tortured and murdered. Now they whine that we have (gasp) American generals who won't off looters. Where is "reinventing government" Al Gore when you need him? What? The Left has nothing but complaints - and no suggestions or offers of assistance (aside from, forget Iraq and get back to the [real] war on terror')? I'm shocked.....

[MEG33]

Who has walked away?

[MinuteGal]

God, this columnist hates his country. Why isn't he over there lending a hand instead of pounding out criticisms in his comfy computer chair?

I'm waiting for a column from him that dumps on the shortcomings of his own NYT instead of our guys striving to do a job over in the Iraqi mare's nest.

Leni

[TomB]

Who has walked away?

LOL. The media.

Unfortunately, some people gauge how much importance the Administration places on an issue by looking at how much coverage it gets on cable news.

[RightWhale]

We don't hear much about Bagdad, just little events and various little people complaining about little things as if these represent Bagdad life these days. Heard someone in the military admin saying that Bagdad is a mess and not because of the war. It is a mess due to neglect by Saddam's regieme for however many years. There's a lot of building to do. Who knows, it could end up being the most modern city in the ME. Right now, it's a mess and hearing about one more little looter is a waste of bandwidth. Let's hear about city utilities: electric grid, water and sewer, communication, markets, housing, city buses, the things that everybody needs in their city but no one seems to pay any attention to until they are a mess. Even news about the 30s art deco airport with avocado appliances would be better than interviews with rabble-rouser malcontents.

[cornelis]

But when Saddam vanished, so did his police and government. This created a power vacuum that we were not ready to fill. This unleashed the looting, which Donald Rumsfeld blithely dismissed with his infamous line: "Freedom is untidy. Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

So there is a difference between liberating Iraq and liberating Europe?

[McGavin999]

Yes, it can, but it's not going to. He's right about getting a telephone system and television as soon as possible, but they also need electricity to run those TVs.

We probably should get some policemen in there as soon as possible, not just from the US but from the UK, Poland, Spain, and as many of the other countries as we can (The Aussies are busy in their own part of the world and we can't ask them)

They need to explain to the Iraqis that they don't want the old guys to come back because of the corruption and it's going to take some time to train new people. We need their help. Each local leader should get volunteers to help guard things to stop the looting.

[MEG33]

Friedman is being so... Friedman!

[jalisco555]

God, this columnist hates his country.

He doesn't hate America, he's just badly conflicted. I believe that in his heart of hearts he really is a right-wing hawk but he tries hard to suppress these feelings given that he thinks he is a progressive and he works at the Times. He just needs therapy to work through his inner demons.

[Free ThinkerNY]

You're right. Also, they have been anxious from the minute the war ended to find anything they could use to discredit Bush. The phony "museum looting" story is a perfect example.

[george wythe]

The United States never lost a war or won a [peace] conference.

Will Rogers, remarks following the Versailles Peace Conference

[dufekin]

Face it: he's about as close to a conservative Republican as one can get at The New York Times. Dowd, of course, is an incoherent lefty whose columns make no sense whatsoever. But think of what Krugman would write as a foreign-affairs columnist. He might be coherent, but his facts would be as far from the truth as those promulgated by a famous Iraqi, Muhammad Saeed al-Sabri.

[husky ed]

Who has walked away?

The media. What they need is a Laci Peterson type story over there so they can get some coverage again.

[MEG33]

I miss the embeds...

[MinuteGal]

Sorry, Friedman is a leftist, period. Occasionally, like a blind squirrel he drops a column that gets conservatives all a-twitter. I don't care to psycholanalyze his inner core. To me, he and the NYT which pays him are foes of conservatives and our President. I don't get all fuzzy when he finds an acorn once in a while.

Leni