Sunday, June 20, 2004

Yay Inky

Inquirer comes out swinging hard against the Bushies and Iraq.

I think this line is important:

First, preparation for the invasion's aftermath was tragically inept. That easily predictable failure has cost many Iraqis, Americans and others their lives.


Al Gore said something rather similar which made the usual suspects (almost everybody in the media) go apeshit. You know, "Gore blames Bush for deaths of Americans!!!!!"

But, look, it's clearly true. They did screw up. Those screwups have led to more deaths - American and Iraqi, civilian and military - than their would have otherwise been. This is pretty much unarguable. Why this line of thought is generally considered to be beyond the pale is beyond me. Failures of consequences. No one who points this out is arguing that Bush personally planted the roadside bombs which killed our soldiers, but planning and failures of planning have consequences. The failures of the Bush administration include putting our soldiers' in harms way without adequate armor, failure in the immediate aftermath of the war to provide decent security in Iraq, and failure in reconstruction planning which has helped to turn the population of Iraq, which was once largely supportive, almost entirely against us. Those failures, and others, have indeed led to preventable deaths.