Looting

Explain to me how this works. The Iraqi people are looting their museums, their banks, their hospitals, and suddenly, it’s the fault of the U.S.? If you don’t have enough respect for your own community to even make an attempt at protecting it, how is it my fault?

While it’s all tragic, I think it’s a small price to pay for the transition. If in the next year we can actually get the Iraqi government running well enough to start profiting from it’s own oil, we will have accomplished an amazing feat.

I’m very excited to see it happen. There’s an entire industry of people here in DC who focus on creating democracies and you know, they don’t get that many opportunities to practice their craft. In addition, I find the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan fascinating. Afghanistan is a religiously-governed country with a long history of extra-governmental warlords who have run the country for years. Iraq has little of that baggage, and despite it’s nearness to Afghanistan, will probably do much better.