Summers without running water....

Simone Ledeen has a splendid rebuttal to Paul Krugman's stupid smear of her and her CPA colleagues. Lord, what an ass that man is. Suggesting that working 18 hours a day convoying cash-money around Baghdad is some sort of cushy post given to Republican princelings is just too stupid for words. Quintessential BDS.

...Mr. Krugman appears oblivious to the difficulties associated with rebuilding a formerly totalitarian state. Having worked in a rigid "command" bureaucracy — in which decisions were dictated from above, and deviation from the established ways of doing things was often severely punished — many Iraqis needed to learn to make decisions rather than waiting for orders. And the Baathist state had employed some unique methods: For example, some of my colleagues came across a payroll sheet from the ministry of education that detailed how one teacher was being paid 30 times what any other teacher received. Why? That teacher had been spying on all the others.

One of the greatest challenges we faced was the reluctance of Iraqis to disburse funds. Under the old regime, government employees were rewarded for withholding funds and punished — sometimes even executed — for spending money. This structure allowed regime loyalists to live in giant mansions surrounded by man-made lakes, while the average Iraqi suffered through summers without running water. These attitudes had to be immediately and drastically corrected...

People like Krug would gladly watch them die of thirst, if it would win them back political power. Which is precisely the reason they are losing all political power.

Posted by John Weidner at July 9, 2004 06:40 PM | TrackBack