WP,pg1: Now, we're blaming the Iraqis: "It's their fault, and by implication not ours."

[DeepModem Mom]

Analysis
As Iraq Deteriorates, Iraqis Get More Blame
U.S. Officials, Lawmakers Change Tone
By Thomas E. Ricks and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; Page A01

From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.

Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.

This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement....

***

Iraqis' role in their own suffering has been an issue since shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, when looters ransacked the national museum and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed it by saying, "Stuff happens." But more than three years later, with schools and hospitals struggling, electrical service faltering, and police and government agencies infiltrated by sectarian death squads, the question of blame is more urgent....

***

"It's their fault, and by implication not ours, is clearly a theme that's in the air," said retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran and longtime skeptic of the war in Iraq. It reminds him, he said, of the sour last days of the Vietnam War, when "there was a tendency to blame everything on the 'gooks' -- meaning our South Vietnamese allies who had disappointed us."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801499.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Preparing to wash our hands, no doubt.

[Solly Mack]

2. I've been saying it for a long time now

the language used was nothing more than an attempt to take the blame away from where it belongs - On America.

[aquart]

3. We broke it. We don't know how to fix it. It's someone else's fault?

WE INVADED A NATION THAT NEVER ATTACKED US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT'S OUR FAULT. ALL OF IT IS OUR FAULT.

[Briar]

4. It's good that

people have started to pick up this disgraceful effort to scapegoat the victims. I was shocked to see that democrat politicians are indulging in it as well - how little has been learnt from the neo-imperial adventure embarked on by Bush and co. No country has the right, divine or otherwise, to intervene in another country and devastate it "for its own good". What appalling arrogance.