Mika wrote:

>It seems that I'm getting some very filtered noos here too. There were
>Danish troops involved in OIL?

Don't know that they are involved in fossil fuels, but yes. Both in
Afghanistan and Iraq. During and after combat.

>Of course you are right, though. There is no such thing as 'handing IT OVER
>to the people right away." To whom? In a country with no democratic
>tradition? Can't just hand it to the exiles who haven't been there the last
>40 years. And a popular vote might swing Islamic, oops. And how do you get
>the Turks out of the North?.

Exactly. Setting aside the issue of lies and deceptions, which is a
different debate to me, I was merely baffled that the many statements about
creating democracy in Iraq made prior to the war apparently never filtered
through to to the US population :-)

I certainly agree that the media filters the news, I'm not that dumb. But by
reading a broad selection of news sources will usually crate a better
picture. I know you know and do.

>Maybe the US should have hired some French
>guys, they seem to know more about the Arab world and at the very least
>have people that speak the language.

I'm not sure the APPARENT lack of success is down to this. By that logic,
they should have hired Israelis :-))

Bjorn