I have to wonder, and will for a while, is there a parallel to this coming out of Iraq? I mean we've all heard stories about the soldiers riding shotgun for the CheneyBurton/Brown and Root folks. How long untiil this becomes more and more like the East India Company?

The East India Company had the unusual distinction of ruling an entire country. Its origins were much humbler. On 31 December 1600, a group of merchants who had incorporated themselves into the East India Company were given monopoly privileges on all trade with the East Indies.
...
The Company saw the rise of its fortunes, and its transformation from a trading venture to a ruling enterprise, when one of its military officials, Robert Clive, defeated the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah , at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. A few years later the Company acquired the right to collect revenues on behalf of the Mughal Emperor, but the initial years of its administration were calamitous for the people of Bengal. The Company's servants were largely a rapacious and self-aggrandizing lot, and the plunder of Bengal left the formerly rich province in a state of utter destitution.
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In 1858 the East India Company was dissolved, despite a valiant defense of its purported achievements by John Stuart Mill, and the administration of India became the responsibility of the Crown.

Too bad that President Academically Impaired spent more time in the skull-and-bones house shitfaced than he did reading his clif notes for history classes. He might have known some of this, and several hundred US Soldiers would still be alive as well as thousands of Iraqis.

But as we see, alcohol and drug use trumps responsibility.

Bush Got High, Soldiers Now Die.