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Of course Katharine Gun was free to have a conscience, as long as it didn't interfere with her work at a British intelligence agency. To the authorities, practically speaking, a conscience was apt to be less tangible than a pixel on a computer screen. But suddenly - one routine morning, while she was scrolling through e-mail at her desk - conscience struck. It changed Katharine Gun's life, and it changed history. Despite the nationality of this young Englishwoman, her story is profoundly American - all the more so because it has remained largely hidden from the public in the United States. When Katharine Gun chose, at great personal risk, to reveal an illicit spying operation at the United Nations in which the U.S. government was the senior partner, she brought out of the transatlantic shadows a special relationship that could not stand the light of day.

Many years ago, during the 1970s if memory serves, neoconservative Irving Kristol, echoing John Stuart Mill, called his conservative party, the Republican Party, "the stupid party." Kristol was referring to the Republican's inability to compete on the policy front. Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan led the Republicans out of the wilderness, but now Republicans have reverted to the stupid party, or more precisely the moronic party.

As an additional preamble, when I say that the West has no more credibility than Russia on this conflict, it does not mean that Russia has any credibility, or that I love Putin, it means that the West has no credibility whatsoever; when I mock the West's claims about human rights and democracy, it does not mean that I think Russia is a defender of human rights and democracy, just that we have no credibility either on the topic. All of that stated, here are a few facts worth noting about Georgia and the current behavior of its president, Russia, and decision makers in Washington:

The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq -- questions that should certainly be addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the population has little if any role in determining the future of its country.