Moving goalposts and shifting rationals

Does anyone remember the original rationale for invading Iraq? Wasn't it something about WMD's? I thought so. When no WMD's were found, it became about toppling a brutal dictator, right? And after Saddam was captured, I seem to recall the rationale morphed into something about spreading democracy. (Because as we all know, democracy is most effectively spread by invading a sovereign and contained nation, toppling and imprisoning it's leader and summarily executing his sons.) When the "spreading democracy at gunpoint" meme failed, the rationale was recast as one of fighting terrorism. Then that NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) was leaked, and it was revealed that all sixteen of America's intelligence agancies reported that Iraq was actually fueling terrorism, rather than quelling it's spread. So now it has been repackaged once again - it is a "struggle for civilization as we know it" and failure to prevail is not an option. We must take the fight across the globe. (It got past a lot of folks when he said that.)

Since the other side doesn't feel like failure is an option either, we have a prescription for perpetual warfare, fought over energy sources.

1984 isn't a work of eerily prescient fiction to these fascists (who misuse the term horribly when they apply it to Islamic fundamentalist extremists. Fascism, like socialism, is a word that many people would be well served to look up in an actual dictionary before they throw it around so freely. They look like idiots to the truly informed.)

No, to them, 1984 is an operations manual.