We may get Democracy, but we may not like it...

[Ed]

and for how much treasure and lives (on both sides)?

CAIRO, Nov. 27 - The Muslim Brotherhood may be banned, but it has demonstrated in the latest parliamentary elections that it is by far the strongest Egyptian opposition group, trouncing the secular political opposition and weakening the governing party's power monopoly.

Results released by the government on Sunday showed the Brotherhood winning 29 more seats in the runoff on Saturday for the second round of parliamentary voting. It won 47 seats in the first round this month, meaning that with just one more round of elections to go, the Brotherhood already has 76 seats - more than five times its total in the departing Parliament
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/28/international/africa/28cairo.html

And this charmer that should have been dealt with long ago...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 26 - Men loyal to Moktada al-Sadr piled out of their cars at a plantation near Baghdad on a recent morning, bristling with Kalashnikov rifles and eager to exact vengeance on the Sunni Arab fighters who had butchered one of their Shiite militia brothers.
arge This Image

Mahdi militiamen in the rubble of a Nov. 12 bombing in Baghdad.
When the smoke cleared after the fight, at least 21 bodies lay scattered among the weeds, making it the deadliest militia battle in months. The black-clad Shiites swaggered away, boasting about the carnage.

Even as that battle raged on Oct. 27, Mr. Sadr's aides in Baghdad were quietly closing a deal that would signal his official debut as a kingmaker in Iraqi politics, placing his handpicked candidates on the same slate - and on equal footing - with the Shiite governing parties in the December parliamentary elections. The country's rulers had come courting him, and he had forced them to meet his terms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/international/middleeast/27sadr.html

They really aren't like us. What a mess and still importing oil and no end in sight.

 

[Dr Adequate]

You're to blame for low troop morale, did you know that?

 

[Ed]

You're to blame for low troop morale, did you know that?

Yup, me. Has nothing to do with the millions that take their religion seriously (which somehow escaped the idiots in DC).

I accept full responsibility. Do I get my own Fox show now? The title could be "World Shaker" with little emaciated me behind a big desk.

 

[shecky]

Ed knows...

 

[peptoabysmal]

Yup, me. Has nothing to do with the millions that take their religion seriously (which somehow escaped the idiots in DC).

I accept full responsibility. Do I get my own Fox show now? The title could be "World Shaker" with little emaciated me behind a big desk.

You might get a radio show that would capture perhaps 5% of the market share. You could call it something like Air UnAmerica? j/k

I would be disappointed if I had gone into this expecting to get oil in return. I only expected to rid the world of a dangerous dictator.

Perhaps the most basic method for Iraq to skirt international scrutiny was to simply list a neighboring country as the final destination, when in fact the commodities were only held there until they could be smuggled to Iraq by Saddam’s agents. Because of the high amount of ordinary trade occurring under the bilateral trade protocols, and government complicity, Syria and Jordan were the most common transit countries used as false destinations for prohibited commodities bound for Iraq. The UAE also served as a transit location and, according to reporting, profiteers in Iran even took part in transiting Russian goods into Iraq. The MIC paid these transit services with the profits of oil sales under the trade protocols.
Iraq Survey Group Final Report