We Destroyed the Civilization in Order to Save It

The day's slaughter in Iraq:

At least 83 people were killed during a two-day spree of sectarian revenge killings, as Iraq's government said Sunday it was indefinitely postponing a much-anticipated national reconciliation conference.

The same article reports that a militant Islamic group announced that six Sunni provinces and portions of two mostly Shiite provinces have become an "Islamic Iraqi state."

AP has a piece titled "Bush Keeps Revising War Justification":

President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.

Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

But 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive "struggle between good and evil."
[...]
"We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West," Bush said in a news conference last week in the Rose Garden.

When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Bush shifted his war justification to one of liberating Iraqis from a brutal ruler.

After Saddam's capture in December 2003, the rationale became helping to spread democracy through the Middle East. Then it was confronting terrorists in Iraq "so we do not have to face them here at home," and "making America safer," themes Bush pounds today.

"We're in the ideological struggle of the 21st century," he told a California audience this month. "It's a struggle between good and evil."

So interesting. First, we destroy the cradle of civilization -- including standing by while thousands-of-years-old treasures of Mesopotamian art and culture, and ancient, irreplaceable books and documents from Iraq's National Library and Archives, are looted, burned, and laid to waste -- and then we say that we're defending civilization.

Via John Amato, who also has this gem:

David Brooks has incredible access to the White House so when he said this shocker on "The Chris Matthews Show," I believed him. Bush is thinking about replacing the entire Iraq government. I kid you not.

So much for purple fingers, eh?