I heard the highly-praised, General David Petraeus, give a briefing at the Pentagon today. Two things got my attention: 1) he told the press that Iraq now has private banking. He underlined the significance of that. So the war was about that? It was for private banking? We had private banking at the height of the civil war in Lebanon, and you don't see us bragging. 2) he said that the press should know that Iraqis should be able to live with car bombs and violence. He reminded the press that people in Northern Ireland were able to live with violence and bombings for year. So the American invasion of Iraq was a social science project to see whether the Iraqi people are capable like the people of Northern Ireland to live with bombings??