http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EL25Ak05.html
from which...
Not even trying
The US and its contractors are not even trying, for a simple reason: it's not the point. To assume that they are striving, but are merely failing because of factors beyond their control, is to presuppose that there is an earnest effort to succeed. There isn't. If there were, there should have been a coherent plan and process in which the welfare of the Iraqis - and not of the corporations - actually comes first. Instead, the Iraqis' need for electricity comes after Bechtel's need for billion-dollar projects. The Iraqis' need for decent living wages becomes relevant only after Halliburton has maximized its profits.
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An excellent article and a perfect X-Mas gift. Everyone who needs solid background data on the occupation's corporate *reconstruction* failures should give it a whirl.
The author marries moral indignation over the occupation's illegality with concrete examples of how and why it's failing to re-construct - a killer union of thought and feeling.
He also manages to perform a good pretty good structural dissection of what's wrong with profit driven projects of this sort generally.
This should be sent to all the middle class free marketeer true believers, *we need a biz-a-ness man in the White House* and *we're helping those people over there* folks in your life.
DRM