Advertisement

Opinion: In today’s pages: Newt, Arianna, and Vietnam

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The editorial board deconstructs the Vietnam analogy in President Bush’s latest Iraq speech:

The president’s Vietnam-Iraq analogy begins with a large kernel of truth, but goes astray. First, no serious Iraq expert believes U.S. withdrawal would end the killing.... It’s true that millions of Iraqi civilians have already paid a terrible price and may suffer even more as fighting may well worsen after a U.S. withdrawal -- whenever that occurs. But it seems equally clear that the civil war cannot be suppressed indefinitely unless the U.S. plans to occupy the country for decades. Killing fields? Iraq’s already got them: A dozen or two corpses are found dumped in the streets each morning, and bombs go off daily. Boat people? Two million Iraqis have already fled the country, and perhaps 50,000 more leave each month. Could it get worse? Absolutely.

Advertisement

The board also explains how California’s budget battle ended up helping the environment, and what Congress can do to stop Bush from cheating poor kids from having expanded health insurance coverage.

Newt Gingrich challenges presidential candidates to debate in the traditional Lincoln-Douglas way: with no rules or moderation. Contributing editor Arianna Huffington probes deeper into Utah’s mining disaster. University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone asks if hate crimes legislation makes it impossible to preach that homosexuality is a sin. And columnist Patt Morrison tells the story of Chauncey Bailey, who, like Daniel Pearl, was killed for what he did for a living.

Readers react to The Times’ homocide reporting. Jackson K. Eskew of Norwalk asks, ‘Why depersonalize murder? Is The Times now so captive to the tyranny of political correctness that it can no longer face reality because that harsh reality might offend many?’

Advertisement