Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo has done a lot of amazing writing about the longer range implications of day to day events in the war - deep well thought out concerns that would be easy to miss.

"I was watching a British military briefing this morning when a reporter asked one of the British generals what he thought of the fact that the running of the port of Umm Qasr has apparently already been raffled off to some American company. The look on his face was priceless. Sort of the Blair tragedy writ small."

So are we going to give a share of the pork to Britain or not? And how much say is the democratic government we are so excited about building going to have about this?

That same Talkiing Points Memo post has other juicy bits towards the end. I sure hope there's enough oil to pay for Qualcomm AND the occupation AND rebuilding Iraq. It might be enough, assuming we don't load on too much more. And we may be sending Franklin Graham to help with the relief efforts. According to Josh Marshall he's repeatedly called Islam a wicked religion. Josh also quotes him directly. "God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his Son... We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a Christian I do this in the name of Jesus Christ."