Can you wrap that turbo prop for me?

The New York Times reports on the difficulties of equipping Iraq’s armed forces without running into incompetence and corruption (two problems which usually go hand-in-hand). The ever-vigilant Talisman Gate dissects the article and points out the key phrase:

Those with knowledge of the Serbian arms deal said they knew of no specific crimes, but warned that with so little transparency and such poor oversight, problems were likely to emerge, as they did with the 2004 deal.

So no actual problems, just the hint of problems to come! It’s a whole new form of predictive journalism over there at the NYT.

All I can think of, however, is that there’s something vaguely yet deeply ironic about one country that we invaded buying arms behind our backs from another country that we invaded. Gosh, anybody would think that the international arms trade was riddled with corrupt practices that undermine efforts to establish transparency and accountability in developing countries, and clearly that can’t be right!