Bush's own agencies say Iraq war has generated more terrorists and made us less safe...

A story in Sunday's New York Times--"Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat"--details a National Intelligence report that describes how the invasion and occupation of Iraq has fueled radical Islamic violence around the world.

Unless you've been viewing the world strictly through the rose-colored neo-conservative glasses apparently issued to every member of the Bush administration and its shrinking fan base, then you know that the world isn't a better place now than it was three years ago when the Bushies took their eye off the ball and invaded Iraq.

We can all agree that Saddam Husein isn't a nice guy. As dictator of Iraq he was responsible for any number of inhumane acts of unspeakable violence against the people in his own country. However, the same thing can be said about any number of despotic leaders across the world. Why don't we care enough about the people of those countries to invade and force a regime change? Simple. They don't have oil so they don't count. Oh, and there's that little matter of those other leaders never having threatened to kill the elder Bush, so baby Bush doesn't have the same perverse obsession with them as he has with Husein.

Now, here we are, five years after 9/11 and three years after the invasion of Iraq where American forces have been doing their damnedest to stay a step ahead of the growing violence brought on by an ever-strengthening insurgence made up of some mix of sectarian violence (religious infighting between the various sects in Iraq) and Islamic fundamentalists who now have an unstable country to launch endless attacks from now that Saddam is gone.

Yup, come to find out (wouldn't you have thought this would have been part of the "intelligence" that was considered when we got into this war?) Saddam hated Islamic fundamentalists, had nothing to do with AL Qaeda and, in fact, worked aggressively to keep them and their influence out of Iraq. Was he a nice man or a just leader, no. Was he an important check on Islamic fundamentalism that is spawning unspeakable violence across the globe, absolutely.

Not only is Iraq suffering the impacts of a civil war, as order has been lost in the country it's opened it up as a launching pad for Islamic violence. In case you're buying the Bush administration's line that Iraq isn't in the midst of a civil war, consider this from a New York Times article last week.

"The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July and August hit 6,599, a record-high number that is far greater than initial estimates suggested, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The report from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq's Human Rights office highlighted the sectarian crisis gripping the country, offering a grim assessment across a range of indicators - worrying evidence of torture, unlawful detentions, growth of sectarian militias and death squads, and a rise in "honor killings" of women."

What would you call it if thousands of Americans were being killed and tortured every month at the hands of other Americans with differing ideologies? I'd call it civil war.