"Obama: Don't Stay in Iraq Over Genocide"

Let's say you are not a very good swimmer and you see someone drowning in a pool. Are you under a moral obligation to jump in and try to save the person? I would say no.

But now imagine that you pushed the drowning person into the pool. Clearly now you do have an obligation to jump in and attempt a rescue.

Barack Obama said that "preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there. " He has argued that "Well, look, if that's the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then 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."

But Obama's argument is flawed since the U.S. didn't cause the Congo problem while we are directly responsible for the mess in Iraq.