Would You Blame the Shooter If You Gave Him the Loaded Gun?

Timothy Noah warned that "Blaming Iraqis" would be the latest method of deflecting any criticism about the war from the Bush Administration. Well, he was right:

Whose fault is the trouble in Iraq? Bush's fault? No, it's the Iraqis' fault. They're the ones who are committing sectarian violence, not American troops. They're the ones who are using their freedom from Saddam [Hussein] to kill their neighbors instead of trying to get the power running or pump the oil or pave the streets or fix the schools or repair the hospitals.

If the Iraqi death toll is horrendous -- and no one can seriously claim it isn't -- you have to ask, "Who is doing this stuff?" Are there terrorists in Iraq causing trouble? Sure, but not this many. The death toll in Iraq is clearly the doing of Iraqis. And we ought to be saying to the Iraqi government, "Look, your fingerprints are all over this Shia death squad stuff. They're operating in Iraqi police uniforms, driving official Iraqi vehicles, both of which we gave you. And this was not our intention when we made it possible for you to have your own democratic government."

Because, you know, Iraq just begged us to come over and help them, so this is totally their fault. Oh wait, they didn't invite us, we invaded their country! I guess America has to take some of the blame as well then, especially the leader of the country at the time and his/her military advisors and foreign experts. Now who were those people again?