Flit

I JUST HAVE TO SAY...

...I really loved this Penny-Arcade.

KUT AND RUN?

The Ukrainians aren't having a good day, having surrendered their base in Kut to the Mahdi militia. Just one more city to retake now, I guess.

It should probably be noted that the Spanish, who several have claimed were in the throes of a panicky retreat due to their craven national character flaws, are at least still at THEIR bases.

One more thing: it's always nice to claim your opponents are irrational, but they very rarely are. You should always assume they have a half-way reasonable estimation of their own chances of success. So why revolt now? The logical conclusion is that those factions who've been saving their strength for post-June 30 have figured out that's basically a lie, that the Americans aren't handing over anything important any time soon, so there's no point in waiting any longer to start heading for the pole position. In which case, maybe we non-Iraqis should stop treating it as a date of any significance, either. At most, all that's going to happen on June 30 now is the Americans appointing a pliant figurehead as Prime Minister, without even as much to actually control as Karzai has in Kabul. Other than attracting a few bomb and rocket attacks meant for Bremer, it's hard to see what the resultant Stooge Primus will be good for. Good pick in a death pool, though.

NOTE: There have been no reports of any Marine fatalities in Fallujah released in the last two days. I suspect we're going to see this kind of embargo more often from now on.

DOSTUM ON THE MOVE

This is not good. Dostum is a murderous psychopath, but at least for a brief time he was OUR psychopath. For him to part ways with Karzai (shortly after Karzai apparently tried to unseat the much more sane Ismail Khan last month, and failed) could well result in a further day in national elections, which should show up more or less around the time Kyoto is ratified at this rate.