Our allies

Nope. Nothing about Japan. One can criticize Japan (well, some folks think that you cannot) but there is no comparison with anything here with out allies or enemies in Iraq. If Bush's plan had been successful, and we had been able to make Iraq a functioning democracy with human rights respected, certainly the area would have been a better place. It's pretty obvious that isn't going to happen.

One of the areas of Iraq in which we reportedly have had some success is in the Kurdish area. But, from this news report and videos, it appears that we may have a long way to go. In fact, it appears that we are deceiving ourselves there much more than anywhere.

This report and embedded videos are brutal. A group of 1,000 men beat a teenage girl to death while the police watch (and help kill her) because she was running away from her family to marry a Muslim. From AINA here.