The Washington Post reports that the U.S. and Iraq have abandoned attempts to forge a long-term security agreement. The focus is now on a “bridge document” that would provide for basic military operations after the UN mandate expires at the end of this year, and it would fall to the next administration to deal with any extended security agreement.

Story here.

I came across the following quote below. I hope when you read this kind of stuff from the US military that just because the military is arrogant enough to claim democracy is a “western idea,” as though democracy is some sort of ideological colonization, that doesn’t mean you have to get it wrong too. Popular democratic movements in Pakistan, Iraq and Palestine have resisted US coercion, and are causing a major pain in the ass right now for Prez Bush.

... so said Faiz Ahmed Faiz, probably the most popular poet of revolution in the latter half of the 20th century in South Asia; Pakistan, India, and particularly on the Left.