Saturday, September 16, 2006
To Republicans everything is pork
And along the way, all of "our kind" get a piece of the action. Sadly, skills and knowledge were unnecessary to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority in the days following the conquest of Iraq. All you needed was a level of correct political thought not seen since Mao's Great Leap Forward. And like the GLF, it was just as successful.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.Before you feel sorry for the Iraqis, remember that this is how they have hired all their people in DC, too.
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
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