"Gratuitous and unhelpful" indeed -- the furor is growing today over the U.S. policy banning countries who oppose the Iraq Whatever from competing for reconstruction contracts. It does seem strictly fair for the Pentagon to spend taxpayer money only on companies who cooperate with American policies -- setting aside for a moment the pesky idea that those policies are deeply flawed, and that the Pentagon also tends to reward big Republican campaign contributors, but I digress. The issue of Iraq's outstanding foreign debt will prove even trickier -- most of it is owed to France, Germany and Russia, who are not going to play the forgiving creditors if they are blocked from cashing in on post-war "opportunities" because they stood by their principles (setting aside, in that case, that rather dicey moral arrangement, i.e. if they could cash in wouldn't that be war profiteering from a war they refused to participate in?). To me this is a great example of how this whole mess is really just about money. Feh.