We've replaced this Repressive Regime with Massive Death, Great Expense, and perpetual Civil War, USA! USA!

I guess the Fred Hiatts of the world will always have their fantasies.

Watch Fred jump on a portion of this sentence like the NRA and the last clause of the Second Amendment:

The number of Iraqi civilians killed in violence in Iraq this year fell to its lowest level since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion...

The operative word, of course, is "since", but more importantly to the all-knowing beltway, the second part of the full sentence will be left unacknowledged:

...but the decline is slowing as low-level conflict takes root, a study showed on Thursday.

Let's just shorten this to what it is. The bloodbath we enabled led to the ethnic cleansing we sponsored and we leave (sort of) a damaged people to their perpetual resentments -- and a LOT of weapons. Oh we got rid of that asshole we helped make, for the prettied-up rubble. And it only injured or killed somewhere around a million and cost a few trillion bucks.

So really how dare we castigate Bill Kristol's nearly decade-long victory lap. We're clearly the crazy ones.

(photo via the U.S. Army at flickr.com -- so see your tax dollars at work!)

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]