contrapositive

SERIOUSNESS WATCH Andrew Sullivan publishes a reader e-mail that gets to the heart of the matter:

What has always horrified me about Bush's approach to the war on terrorism, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq in particular, has been that his stated goals and motivations have not been supported--even contradicted--by the actions he has chosen to take.

WMD? Why didn't we attempt to prevent weapons from leaving or coming into Iraq, when we were concerned they might get into the hands of terrorists from outside Iraq's borders?

Yellowcake uranium? We didn't even bother to secure the known Al Tuwaitha yellowcake storage site, so it was looted.

Protecting Iraqis from the insurgency? How can they trust that we're serious about that when we did it Rumsfeld's way (on the cheap) and still haven't even stabilized the key areas (including the road near the Baghdad airport) after 2 1/2 years?

Bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqis? Why should anyone believe that--just because we say we mean well? What do those concepts mean to Iraqis when lawlessness and fear and destruction are still so widespread? Are we just going to pay lip service to the idea of a "constitution" and an "election," declare victory and then "turn it over to the Iraqis" and run like GHW Bush did in 1991?

Why won't Bush reassure Americans and Iraqis with a concrete set of initiatives and steps to achieving them? Apparently, according to Krepinevich, it's because the Bushies still don't have any plan, any strategy, or any serious desire to achieve success. If they think they are serious about achieving a recognizable democracy in the Middle East, then why aren't they doing the things necessary to achieving it?

It blows my mind that people like Christopher Hitchens can rip apart a symbolic mom like Cindy Sheehan and not see that the greater threat to the success of the Iraqi invasion comes from the ignorance, ineptitude (and, perhaps, political cowardice) within the Bush administration itself.

Are they serious? Where's the evidence since March, 2003?

Any Bush defenders in the audience? We'd love to see refutations of these points.

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