At least President Kennedy didn’t invade countries in order to send them Peace Corps volunteers

When the WMDs didn’t turn up, the rationale for the Iraq invasion and occupation shifted from WMDs to building democracy, and then, when the long-term success of democratization came more and more into doubt, the rationale shifted to improving Iraqis’ lives.

It’s quite amazing. As soon as the question of “Are we winning” comes up, the Bush supporters all start to say, “We built a school, we fixed a pipe line, we’re making friends among the locals, they like us, they really like us!“ Even our military leaders (who are actually just liberal bureaucrats in uniform) now talk like Sally Fields. And no one ever points out the fact that we’re not simply fixing up Iraq from the damage caused by our invasion (“You break it, you fix it”), we’re involved in an open-ended project to do good works in Iraq.

As John Derbyshire puts it at The Corner:

What business is it of mine, to improve Iraqi lives? Would Iraqis improve my life, if they could?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 15, 2006 09:56 AM | Send