Paul Krugman: As Bechtel Goes

Paul Krugman on the administration's cut and run strategy for Iraq:

As Bechtel Goes, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Bechtel, the giant engineering company, is leaving Iraq. Its mission — to rebuild power, water and sewage plants — wasn’t accomplished: Baghdad received less than six hours a day of electricity last month, and much of Iraq’s population lives with untreated sewage and without clean water. But Bechtel, having received $2.3 billion of taxpayers’ money and having lost the lives of 52 employees, has come to the end of its last government contract.

As Bechtel goes, so goes the whole reconstruction effort. Whatever our leaders may say about their determination to stay the course complete the mission, when it comes to rebuilding Iraq they’ve already cut and run. The $21 billion allocated for reconstruction ... has been spent, much of it on security rather than its intended purpose, and there’s no more money in the pipeline.

The failure of reconstruction in Iraq raises three questions. First, how much did that failure contribute to the overall failure of the war? Second, how was it that America, the great can-do nation, in this case couldn’t and didn’t? Finally, if we’ve given up on rebuilding Iraq, what are our troops dying for?

There’s no definitive way to answer the first question. You can make a good case that the invasion of Iraq was doomed no matter what... But the lack of electricity and clean water did a lot to dissipate any initial good will... And Iraqis are well aware that the billions squandered by American contractors included a lot of Iraqi oil revenue...

Consider the symbolism of Iraq’s new police academy, ... “the most essential civil security project in the country.” It was built at a cost of $75 million by Parsons Corporation.... But the academy was so badly built that feces and urine leak from the ceilings in the student barracks.

Think about it. We want the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down. But if they do stand up, we’ll dump excrement on their heads.

As for how this could have happened, that’s easy: major contractors believed, correctly, that their political connections insulated them from accountability. Halliburton and other companies ... were ... so closely identified with President Bush and, especially, Vice President Cheney that firing or even disciplining them would have been seen as an admission of personal failure on the part of top elected officials.

As a result, the administration and its allies in Congress fought accountability all the way. Administration officials have made repeated backdoor efforts to close the office of Mr. Bowen, whose job is to oversee the use of reconstruction money. ... And now, ... Congress has passed a bill whose provisions include the complete elimination of his agency next October. ...

But that’s all in the past. What about the future?

Back in June, ... Mr. Bush said something I agree with. “You can measure progress in megawatts of electricity delivered,” he declared. “You can measure progress in terms of oil sold on the market on behalf of the Iraqi people.” But what those measures actually show is the absence of progress. By any material measure, Iraqis are worse off than they were under Saddam.

And we’re not planning to do anything about it: the U.S.-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is basically over. ...[T]he United States has accepted defeat on reconstruction.

Yet Americans are still fighting and dying in Iraq. For what?

_________________________
Previous (10/30) column: Paul Krugman: Bursting Bubble Blues
Next (11/6) column: Paul Krugman: Limiting the Damage

Comments

[ECONOMISTA NON GRATA]

"Yet Americans are still fighting and dying in Irqaq. For what?"

I'll tell you for what...... For Freedom and Democracy.... That's for what.....!

Isn't it....?

[a]

"For Freedom and Democracy"
Either you are joking, or these two words are still good enough for self-deception. Because Freedom --- means freedom to die, to be robbed of your own natural resource, to be dumped "feces and urine" on, or what? What Freedom is that?

And with people bumbing and slaugthering in the street, what Democracy is that?

[maria]

Hey....lessee, Americans have been dying in Iraq for__________________ (fill in the blank with whatever reason, however silly, that comes to mind at the moment). If not for that, then for the greater glory of Bush, to add to the number of his "martyrs."

[maria]

Asked on Monday if he was expecting Mr Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, to remain in their jobs until he left office in January 2009, Mr Bush replied “Yes, I am”, before adding: “Both men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them.”

[Hey Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job.]

You just can't make this stuff up.

[maria]

Illustration for prior post:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/
stevebell/0,,1938626,00.html

[maria]

All of them did a "heck of a job", no doubt about it.

http://thinkprogress.org/the-architects-where-are-they-now/

[ilsm]

Lawrence Korb wrote a peice in the Boston Globe.

His point: if the waste in Iraq is incredible how about the rest of the waste in the pentagon?

A positive effect of the iraq may be knowledge of the rampant waste in the DoD budget.

First point: huge weapon systems that have no adversary.

Like huge public works that do not work.

[evagrius]

Can I mention "Katrina"?

If they can't do it at home, why think they can do it elsewhere?

[Bruce Webb]

"Yet Americans are still fighting and dying in Iraq. For what?"

For Black & Decker. Because from what I read power drill sales in Iraq are blowing the roof off of quarterly sales results.

"Ya want a free router bit with that?"

[GaTech Capitalist]

I have one company bidding on contracts in Iraq.

The information here doesn't explain that the govt. of Iraq took over most of the responsibilities for reconstruct/new proj work in the past two months.

Becthel's contracts were drawing down, and its departure was known for some time.

The readers do not appear to be offering serious comments, so I'll stop here. No purpose in explaining what is really happening on the reconstruct scope.

[Lafayette]

"Becthel's contracts were drawing down, and its departure was known for some time. The readers do not appear to be offering serious comments, so I'll stop here."

OK, we'll all stop a nanosecond to read your serious comment about how Bechtel met its requirements in rebuilding Iraq.

The bit about raw sewage and undrinkable water is as true as the 6 hours per day of electricity.

Let me tell you what is going to happen: The Iraqis are going to continue selling their oil and with the funds obtained call on qualified international - but non-American - companies to rebuild their infrastructure. The Russian, French and Chinese construction companies will be all over Iraq doing what Bechtel and Halliburton couldn’t.

And, you won’t see an American tourist in Iraq for at least another two decades. Not one will dare.

You cannot imagine how this folly has seriously damaged the image of America, not only in Iraq where it is irretrievable, but across the world.

And, all this, for a nerd who was trying to prove he had bigger balls than his father.

One would think that one learns from one’s mistakes. But, no. After Vietnam, now Iraq … are there any lessons left to learn? Just one. Maybe, after all, God is NOT on your side?

[ilsm]

I am with Lafayette.

The other nations' contractors dealing with the Iraqis will pay the baqshir which Bechtel is denied to bill because of our "law" and the fact the contracts were US G contracts.

Bechtel might compete if they could pay the bribes like the Russians et al.

Having not paid the bribe meant they were suckers for any Iraqi supporting the tradition of baqshir.

This is not an excuse, just a reason we shouldhave looked before we leapt.

[anne]

Thank you, Lafayette.

There is an economic irony of much significance now and in future years to China holding a summit meeting of African leaders, while we do all we can to ignore Africa, even to the extent of fielding theorists who can tell us why Africa should be ignored.

[anne]

From the we have better things to do desk:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/asia/03china.html?hp&ex=1162616400&en=c6ed62bb9e2aa04b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

November 3, 2006

China Courts Africa, Angling for Strategic Gains
By JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING — Billboards here show elephants and giraffes roaming the savanna. Traffic has been curtailed, construction sites shut down and even the sky has been tantalizingly, if temporarily, blue.

Beijing has put on its best face to court Africa, "the land of myth and miracles," as official posters call it. Political leaders of 48 of the 53 African countries, including 40 heads of state, are to arrive this weekend for a huge diplomatic event, the China-Africa forum.

The official purposes of the three-day event are to expand trade, to allow China to secure the oil and ore it needs for its booming economy and to offer aid to help African nations improve roads, railways and schools.

The unofficial purpose is to redraw the world's strategic map by forming tighter political ties between China, which has the world's fastest-growing major economy, and Africa, a continent whose leaders often complain about being neglected by the United States and Europe.

"African leaders see China as a new kind of global partner that has lots of money but treats them as equals," said Wenran Jiang, a political scientist at the University of Alberta who has studied Chinese-African ties. "Chinese leaders see Africa, in a strategic sense, as up for grabs." ...

[anne]

Notice then the sentence that goes "China's enthusiasm for Africa has raised concerns among many in the West...." There is irony. No matter, we are elsewhere.

[Bruce Wilder]

I would read the narrative differently from Lafayette. The issues are not the nationality of contractors or bribes. Halliburton and Bechtel and Parsons pay and paid plenty in bribes, both locally in Iraq and Kuwait, as well as in Washington.

The deep and immediate issue is the immiseration of the Iraqi people by the abject failure of Reconstruction.

The Bush Administration and the Media frequently report on the Iraqi situation as if the issues were similar to a playground spat by teenagers with differing ethnic backgrounds. There's an unworldly focus on politicians getting together to make political agreements, when the driving factors include problems no one has addressed, like a very young population and 50% unemployment and failing infrastructure.

[anne]

While it is understandable that we are focused on American casualties, and I fully understand and appreciate this emphasis of Paul Krugman, what has happened and is happening to Iraqis always needs remembering as well. Evidently there are 2 million refugees in and from Iraq now.

[Nabs]

Ok, ya Americans cut and run, nothing to see here move along people...I'm thinking, fine they are gone, but what about the Iraqis, haven't we just made a whole nation of people really really hate us? They already hated Israel and hated America because of our support for Israel. But now they will also hate us because we blew up everything that they had, in the name of helping them, and then just walked away...and people wonder why these guys are blowing themselves up.

[anne]

Notice, by the way, how suddenly a complaint is made on an old post by a complainer who would have no reason to know about the post and would never have read the comments and then the complainer goes right for another post that relates to the first post in ways that would only have been clear to a reader following along at the time. Last there is the complaint about Paul Krugman. Well, we have a professional complainer sort of like the professional Wal-Marters or justifiers of a regressive tax structure in Alabama.

[lonesome moderate]

I have one company bidding on contracts in Iraq.

The information here doesn't explain that the govt. of Iraq took over most of the responsibilities for reconstruct/new proj work in the past two months.

Becthel's contracts were drawing down, and its departure was known for some time.

Are you actually in the process of bidding on reconstruction work, to be done inside Iraq under the oversight of the Iraqi government? Wow. Except maybe for a few small projects in Kurdistan, I can't imagine what you expect to get done or how you expect to do it.

I for one would be very much interested in hearing how you plan to go about this. Skeptical, but interested. Seriously.

[Lafayette]

I doubt that Bechtel would have avoided employing graft. When looking for workers in Middle East countries, it is often necessary to call upon the tribal sheiks. They organize the work distributed to the workers in the tribe.

Bechtel could have called the expenditure "Consulting Services", which is not far from the truth, and made the payments necessary to have the workers. In fact, the solution is so simple, it is difficult to imagine that it was not employed.

As for using graft to obtain contracts ... well, why? They were not seeking Iraqi contracts. They were there on DOD business.

The problem, from the start, was cultural - and particularly on the part of the Americans. Bremer came to Baghdad with a book about the post-war allied occupation and governance of Germany. He obviously felt that what worked in a war destroyed Germany would work in Iraq - not even asking the question "might one reasonably expect the Iraqis to behave as the Germans did?"

So, as happened in Germany, he disbanded the Iraqi Army. (An entire division defending Baghdad had been ready to defect to the Americans.) Blindly, stupidly, he accepted that the Army was run by Ba'athist supporters who brought Saddam to power. So, this may have been, in his mind, adequate reasoning to disband the entire Iraqi Army. This action created in one fell swoop thousands of unemployed youth. Nothing could have been more stupid in war wracked Iraq.

That very youth, now unemployed and with nothing better to do, was prey to al Qaida who was willing to pay to have them fight. The youths took up arms against the Americans to become resurgents. Had at least one division been maintained, and sent off to seal the borders two actions would have resulted. A more effective blockage of the kamikaze bombers entering over the Syrian border and at least two thousand families living off the pay of a husband or son in the Iraqi Army.

America won the war and lost the peace.

[Lafayette]

BW: "The Bush Administration and the Media frequently report on the Iraqi situation as if the issues were similar to a playground spat by teenagers with differing ethnic backgrounds."

The hatred of Sunnis for Shiites is mutual and has existed for centuries. Bremer tried to make a political balancing amongst the factions. The hatred was so very deep that this was refused by the Sunnites - who have everything to loose under a Shiite dominated government.

Three years later another solution seems probable. That of a federation of three states, where the allocation of oil resources (which has ALWAYS been at the source of the political disputes) would be apportioned fairly. The word "fairly" still needs to be defined.

For the moment, the solution of physically separating the three ethnicities, and allowing each to govern its own people, is probably the best on the books. This is "separate but equal" apartheid. It will require shifting entire populations, by means of the promise for new housing in thier own states and, more importantly, funding for creating an economic infrastructure.

Whatever it is called, or however such is accomplished, it is better than the butchery occurring daily at present.

[calmo]

I think I prefer the view that w is an agent for these companies under that umbrella in the term 'military industrial complex', than the view that w was acting in response to his father's experience (which could nonetheless be true).
The disposition to exercise the military gets no attention in the latter view which caters only to the personal psychology of the actors, ignoring the larger pieces of the drama that are already in place by the vested interests.
It is a small step to take the military sense of the term 'theatre' and apply it to the civilian stage,yes?

[Dave Iverson]

Has anybody else here heard that Cerberus Capital Management hedge fund is stepping into the vacuum left by Bechtel.I heard such on NPR's Diane Ream show today. Here's an older link about Cerberus from Truthout. http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/48/17066

[Dave Iverson]

Here's a better link, from MSNBC that hints at Cerberus fishing for such: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15519287/

[Bruce Wilder]

Partition is an absurdity, which solves nothing and is likely to make an already horrifying situation far worse.

Even if uprooting massive numbers of people does not plunge the country into total chaos, a weak, federated Iraq is even more likely to invite intervention from neighbors. The Saudis and Jordanians will try to aid the Sunnis; Turkey will aid the Turkmen and Arabs against the Kurds; Iran will support the Shiites and feel forced to act against the Kurds, if only to offset the Turks.

And, at the end of the day, nothing about federation helps Iraq restore the infrastructure necessary to healthy and functioning economy or to establish civil order.

[Dave Iverson]

Sorry, I'm running a bit fast and too loose here, trying to multi-task. That last link -- MSNBC story -- is about Cerberus fishing to fill a hole left by Halliburton. Maybe the Diane Ream show folks got it wrong too. OR Maybe not..

[fiskhus jim]

As they say, "The economic Python has finished digesting the stimulus Pig."

Couple this Bechtel news with recent statements regarding Global Warming, and it is clear: the next transnational corporatist OC-style scam to defraud the taxpayers will be in response to "climate change".

I do not mean to imply that we do not need to formulate a response to climate change - merely that it will be the next subject used to generate the fear corporate criminals will exploit to steal from the American people.

[maria]

Bechtel leaves and the coverup begins:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6114132.stm

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/middleeast/03reconstruct.html?ex=1320210000&en=925086cdb74a4064&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

November 3, 2006

Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office
By JAMES GLANZ

Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen's supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation....

[anne]

Of course, I have no objection to closing the auditors office in Iraq, if this means we are going to be gone from Iraq by October 1, 2007, though I would prefer we be gone as much before that as logistically possible. But, there is no evident intent by the President to leave Iraq so no auditors office could be a problem if there is any appropriation to audit. Who can understand such things?

[calmo]

Thanks, then, for the warning fiskhus. Do we owe you or what?
We can pay some, but not all.
Not right away.
So will that stealin be in the form of pricey solar panels that replace your front lawn and even pricier windturbines in the backyard, competing with the clothesline?

What is merely my problem with you?
It could be this: Don't tell us what to infer from what you mean or do not mean to imply. We demand to puzzle it out all by ourselves --unaided by any and all feints you devise to thwart us.
Or it could be this: it merely ignores the looming oil shortages or fresh water or flu pandemics or mad chicken diseases or...We demand more variety or we won't pay the premium for your warning. We won't.
Or it could be that not all corporations are equally nasty. [Damn I hate it when some nobody upstages my ideological bent!] Not just Americans suffer the exploitation, not just corporations do the exploiting.
Ok, that's my first payment.

[ilsm]

Of course, Bechtel and others likely paid the graft.

But, they were working under some form of cost reimbursement contract for the Army or they woud not be paid for failed performance.

It is against US code to pay graft, a promonent case a few years ago the company paid large fines, and is not an allowable charge in a cost reimbursement.

So, if they did pay the graft then they filed false claims.

Got any whistleblowers lined up?

It is treble damages and the referror gets up to 30%.

[t11]

Mr. Wilder - I would like to probe your comments about partition. Your second paragraph is pretty much bang on and desribes what is currently happening.

Do you feel that if the US left that Iraq would self partition? Where do you think Israel sits in a Sunni - Shia - Kurd free for all? My opinion is Israel will sit on the sidelines and side with whomever is losing.

If the US leaves and the Kurds form a state, what will the US reaction be? What should the US reaction be?

At this point I don't see many positive outcomes for the US leaving. Unfortunately I also don't see many positive outcomes for the US staying.

[Hasim]

fishkus -

Ignore that arrogant twerp calmo; I think you make an excellent observation, and I'd bet a lot it's already happening.

[Jim Harrison]

Among many other things, this administration and its supporters are a criminal enterprise engaged in what the Marxists used to call primary accumlation. Bush et. al. may soon be shown the door, but the wealth that got syphoned off to their supporters will stay with them long afterwards. That seems to be the rhythm of American politics over the last thirty years or so. Republican administrations loot the treasury for their friends. The Democrats patch up some of the damage caused while taking a much smaller bite for their own supporters. And then the pigs return to the trough. Really, if this sort of thing is ever going to be brought under control, some of these guys need to end up at the end of a rope.

[anne]

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/incompetence_everywhere/#comment

November 3, 2006

Incompetence Everywhere
By Matthew Yglesias

Neocon war advocates including Kenneth "Cakewalk" Adelman concede the Iraq War is a disaster, but blame Bush's incompetence. This is what it comes to. We're all supposed to believe that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Steven Hadley, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, etc., etc., etc., are just random freaks of nature. Nothing they or their other subordinates have done in office or the fact that everything they've done has worked out terribly is in any way supposed to reflect on the wider conservative movement.

Suffice it to say I find this all very unconvincing. These guys aren't repentant hawks, they're in denial.

[Precisely.]

[maria]

If there is any good thing to come out of the Iraq war, and I say this guardedly, it will be that the Neocons shot their wad and lost all credibility as a result of the disaster and fiasco there. Tragic that innocent Iraqis should have had to pay such a terrible price to bring their control over US foreign policy to an end.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612

[anne]

Thank you, Maria.

[Radman]

Why isn't this front page material on all the populist rags?

[Bruce Wilder]

t11: "At this point I don't see many positive outcomes for the US leaving. Unfortunately I also don't see many positive outcomes for the US staying."

That seems like an accurate assessment of the situation. Even an unimaginably massive intervention by the U.S. might not succeed in turning the situation around.

The best, plausible solution would be to concede defeat to the Iranians -- let the Iranians provide sufficient support to the Shiite government, to ensure that the Sunnis can't win.

The best that can be given to the Kurds is continued autonomy, without further partition and some kind of three-way truce with Turkey and Iran, which are both hostile to the Kurdish independence project, but might be persuaded to accept mutual non-intervention, each fearing the other.

My own view is that the U.S. would be best served by a radical policy of withdrawal from Empire: get out of Iraq, and by stages, get out of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia altogether. We cannot protect the Persian Gulf oil; we cannot afford to buy it; we cannot (for environmental reasons) risk burning the oil. So, the whole basis for American Empire is called into question; Iraq, and the GWOT is a wake-up call to a Giant dangerously overreaching in a great many ways, simultaneously. Our wealth, our Constitution, our self-respect and the respect of the world has all been squandered in this foolish project.

Bush is not realistic enough to seek abasement and accommodation with Iran, but the Iraqi Shiites might do it anyway, and throw the U.S. out. If Bush is a eunuch on November 8, I imagine that al-Maliki will not be taking his calls. The Brits have already made it quite clear that they plan to withdraw over the next 6 months.

My great fear is that Cheney-Rumsfeld think that they can rescue this catastrophic situation with a strike against Iran: break the Iranian's legs in a mad attempt to create the possibility of a stable balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which would leave the U.S. able to continue to dominate the Gulf.

[ken melvin]

All good things must come to an end.

[t11]

Mr. Wider

Thanks for the comments.

How do you feel Israel fits into this? One thing difficult about this situation is the number of wild cards - Israel and the Kurds, Druze and Christions.

[t11]

maria - who do you define as neocon?

How do you feel about unqualified American support for Israel and Saudi? My fear is that both parties will support Israel and Saudi to the end of the earth - meaning no real difference in American foreign policy.

You might find this hard to believe, but many people outside the US see the beginning of US insanity with Clinton's Balkan manoeuvre's. Granted the scale was different, but in principle there are the same elements - unilateral action, bad intelligence, reliance on bombing, and unwillingness to commit.

Why should anyone think the Democrats would act any different given the starting point?

[Steven]

For the Iraq War, blame the Tyranny of the current Government of the U.S.

[Lafayette]

BW: "The Bush Administration and the Media frequently report on the Iraqi situation as if the issues were similar to a playground spat by teenagers with differing ethnic backgrounds."

The hatred of Sunnis for Shiites is mutual and has existed for centuries. Bremer tried to make a political balancing amongst the factions. The hatred was so very deep that this was refused by the Sunnites - who have everything to loose under a Shiite dominated government.

Three years later another solution seems probable. That of a federation of three states, where the allocation of oil resources (which has ALWAYS been at the source of the political disputes) would be apportioned fairly. The word "fairly" still needs to be defined.

For the moment, the solution of physically separating the three ethnicities is probably the best on the books. This is "separate but equal" apartheid. Whatever it is called, it is better than the butchery occurring daily at present.

[Lafayette]

Wilder: "Partition is an absurdity, which solves nothing and is likely to make an already horrifying situation far worse."

Bona fide rebuttal, but one of desperation.

The federal alternative (that you propose) has been tried and failed. The parties, at present, are unable to agree to live in harmony with a legislature commonly elected. They continually dispute the "levers of power", particularly the one regarding the distribution of petroleum revenues. Their mistrust of one another is centuries old.

Besides, partition is happening on the ground, at this very moment, as thousands flee their "enclaves" to safer neighborhoods. Partition simply recognizes these hard facts and assures that whatever government is established within the ethnic boundaries is "of the people and for the people". (Ethnic self-governance first, and (maybe) a federal democracy later. It's up to the Iraqi people to decide thier fate and not Washington.)

Simple notion, or have you forgot it?

NB: Whatever did America do to its "ethnicities" if not put them into enclaves - its aboriginals on reservations or the blacks into city ghettos? Are these ethnic minorities "free" and do they enjoy the same privileges as the majority ethnicity (w.a.s.p.) in today's America?

[maria]

Brezinski, I think, answers your questions pretty well, t11. I saw him a few weeks ago on TV saying that if the US loses its position in the Middle East (and he thought it could become so hated that it would), Israel would not survive long afterward. And the news that Arabia and UAE are now seeking atomic capabilities should alarm Washington vastly. We can't bomb all the oil producers and survive economically.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001559.php

[Richard]

"That kid complainer" happens to be a middle-aged man. With at least a modest knowledge of families from the Middle East.

My comments are based on a simple observation: that dramatic events often drive perceptions of policy, but prosaic details often prove more worthwhile. In medical care it is the dramatic and expensive intervention that gets all the attention, but it is the modest interventions of preventative medicine that hold the key to bringing down costs; financial services companies boast of their insights and their consultants from top-tier universities but their income stream is largely the product of nickle-and-dime late fees; pharmaceuticals boast of their finesse in designing drugs but generally focus their energies in designing "me too" products. So when advocates of force start to fucus on bomb design and the ability of small movements to take over the world, I start to look at the prosaic details.

Sometimes the young are naive and idealistic. But today, many more have been naive about the current and future use of military power.

[Anthony D'Amato]

"Yet Americans are still fighting and dying in Iraq. For what?"

For Black & Decker. Because from what I read power drill sales in Iraq are blowing the roof off of quarterly sales results.

========================

Yes you are right. They are being used to drill holes in people. Power drills are the torturers' current instrument of choice.