I'm not sure how many of you have had the experience of reading Paul Kugman's column today in the New York Times. It's entitled "Who Lost Iraq?" and, like so many other columns and op-eds that have been written since the onset of the Iraqi insurgency, seeks to castigate the usual suspects for getting us into this Quagmire™ to begin with.
Must be why the new Iraqi government has no support among the common people.
In any case, my problem with Krugman on this one is not his argument per se (though, as one might imagine, I take issue with that as well) but rather the means through which to go about making it. To put it quite simply, the man crossed the line.
As most of you can probably imagine, my chief point of contention with Krugman lies in one particular issue of his column:
If the occupiers often seemed oblivious to reality, one reason was that many jobs at the C.P.A. went to people whose qualifications seemed to lie mainly in their personal and political connections — people like Simone Ledeen, whose father, Michael Ledeen, a prominent neoconservative, told a forum that "the level of casualties is secondary" because "we are a warlike people" and "we love war."
As most of regular Winds of Change readership almost certainly knows by now, I work for Michael Ledeen here at AEI and those of you who want to characterize this as some kind of a cynical attempt to curry favor with my boss can stop reading this right now. For those who want to keep reading, while I recognize that Roger Simon has already covered most of this, but I'm prepared to go a great deal further than he is.
One of the things that you learn being in Washington for any length of time is that there are a great many people to whom any number of things have been ascribed. A number of commentators, for example, have accused my boss of forging the documents that were used in all those bogus claims of Iraq seeking uranium from Niger, while others have seen fit to claim that Michael Rubin, another AEI scholar recently returned from Iraq, was the guy who told Chalabi that the US had cracked VEVAK's secret codes.
Now anyone who actually knows either of these men (and I have had the great pleasure of getting to know both of them during my brief time here at AEI) and is capable of viewing people beyond the prism of ideological differences would realize just what kind of kook assertions these kinds of statements are.
The same is true of the views to which Krugman is ascribing to Ledeen in this passage of his screed - what Ledeen is saying, as anyone who is even reasonably familiar with his views on this matter could tell you, is that the number of casualties suffered in a given conflict are not an issue for the American public if they believe that the cause for which they are fighting and the leadership behind it are just. As far as Americans being more warlike than other cultures, Ledeen was paraphrasing Alexis de Tocqueville in his observations on American culture. But far be it from Krugman to go so far as to actually look at what his ideological opponent was actually saying when a couple of "selective quotations" look so much more damning in print.
Now, as far as Simone Ledeen is concerned, I've met her and let me just say that I trust her views on the general situation in Iraq a great deal more than I do Krugman's, who is no doubt very brave as he writes about the real or imagined failures of the US occupation from within the confines of the New York Times building. Unlike Krugman, Ms. Ledeen actually spent half a year inside Iraq doing accounting for the now-defunct CPA and is quite familiar with the situation in various parts of the country as well as the Iraqi people. Far more familiar, one might conceiveably argue, than Krugman himself.
The sinister nepotism connection that Krugman tries to imply (and very skillfully, trying to avoid a libel suit there, Paul?) with regard to Ms. Ledeen shows more about just how removed Krugman is from the reality the rest of us live in than it does about how she started working for the CPA to begin with. Ignoring the obvious fact that Krugman doesn't actually go so far as to explain why Ms. Ledeen is unqualified to do accounting work for the CPA (if he did, he might have to do some research and learn that she was a fully qualified MBA), there is a logical disconnect between Michael Ledeen wanting to give his daughter a job and her ending up in the middle of war zone. Being a part of the CPA, lest Krugman forget it, meant having a giant bullseye painted on your head for every al-Qaeda, Baathist, or Mahdi Army thug in the business. Why any parent would desire such a fate for their child, let alone use their not-inconsiderable connections to obtain it, is nothing short of crazy.
If Ledeen wanted to get his daughter a cushy government job, one where she did not run the constant risk of being on the receiving end of car bombs, IEDs, mortar and rocket attacks, and suicide bombers, does Krugman seriously believe that it would have been that difficult for him to obtain some kind of job right here in DC for her? As I said, the sheer delirium that Krugman exists in if he honestly believes this to be true would tend to say far more about him than it does about Michael or Simone Ledeen.
All the same, I'll be up-front and say that I don't think that Krugman does believe all of this.
In fact, I doubt he knows all that much about Simone Ledeen or what she was actually doing in Iraq (or what her father believes about American culture, for that matter, but it's probably best to save that for another time ...). Instead, I think that Krugman simply saw her as a handy little club through which to attack neoconservatives in general and her father in specific. This "any stick to beat a dog" style of behavior is a fairly common tactic for Krugman, whom I think my blogfather John Reilly fairly well characterized as follows back in March 2003:
Regular readers of The New York Times will know that the the illegitimacy of the Bush Administration has been columnist Paul Krugman's chief preoccupation since the Administration took office. Krugman has never been very particular about the content of his polemic against Bush. He went through a long period in which he argued that the Administration was a tool of the Enron corporation, until enough people pointed out that the Clinton Administration, and Krugman himself, had as much to do with Enron as Bush & Company did. Sometimes the bee in his bonnet buzzes to him about the president's Evangelical-Christian support, sometimes about the Administration's proposed tax cuts (where Krugman actually has a case). His most recent column, George W. Queeg, gives the impression that something in his head has finally snapped.
In a classic instance of psychological projection, he begins by asking:
"Aboard the U.S.S. Caine, it was the business with the strawberries that finally convinced the doubters that something was amiss with the captain. Is foreign policy George W. Bush's quart of strawberries?"
Well, no, but it is pretty clear that George W. Bush has become Krugman's White Whale.
As are members the neoconservative movement and anyone affiliated with them, it would seem.
Now then, lest all the valued Winds of Change political contributors with left-of-center views misunderstand me on this one, I am not calling upon you all to engage in yet another round of self-flagellation and denounce Krugman (that would be kinda nice under the circumstances though, given the sleezy tactics he's opted to engage in), nor am I seeking to deliberately ignore parallel examples on the right or hold Krugman up as a way to discredit other critics of neoconservativism. But if Krugman has a problem with Michael Ledeen or his political views, he can write a column arguing against Michael Ledeen and his political views (figuring out what those exactly are outside his cartoon version of them might be a good way to start).
Impugning Ledeen's daughter, her qualifications and the valuable work she performed with the CPA at the risk of her own life because of her genetics is nothing short of a scumbag tactic, and one that Krugman has evidently shown himself all too willing to engage in without even the most rudimentary fact-checking.
Like I said, I didn't write this blog up to rail against Krugman's views on the war, the situation in Iraq, or any of the other topics he raises in his latest column, as strongly as I might disagree with them. I wrote this blog up because he chose to use his position as the editorial writer for the so-called "paper of record" to attack someone with far more courage, decency, and willingness to help others at not-inconsiderable risk to her own life and limb than anything Krugman has ever displayed to the best of my knowledge.
Krugman has a national bully pulpit and chose to use it attack a talented and brave young woman who has done nothing but assist US efforts to stabilize Iraq to the full extent of her abilities, no matter what the hell one thinks of Michael Ledeen or his views. Well Winds of Change is to a certain extent my bully pulpit, so I thought I'd use it to put right his libel as best I can.
It's funny, in a way. Not so long ago, the New York Times carried another piece of note, this one by John Tierney entitled "A Nation Divided? Who Says?" on the book Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America in which the cultural divide between left and right is described as follows:
"The bulk of the American citizenry is somewhat in the position of the unfortunate citizens of some third-world countries who try to stay out of the cross-fire while Maoist guerrillas and right-wing death squads shoot at each other," the book concludes.
In that article, Tierney never bothered to mention where Times editorialists are supposed to lie within the spectrum between the Khmer Rouge and the Colombian AUC. How nice of Paul Krugman to clarify that particular point for all of us.
Be sure and read the comments to the link to Roger's blog above. Both Michael Ledeen and Simone Ledeen put in an appearance there. Simone's comments on what she's done while in Iraq are particularly interesting.
I know that. Which is why people like Krugman have utterly no shame in taking cheap shots like that against her from the bully pulpit of a national newspaper column just to score political points against Dr. Ledeen.
Krugman always crosses the line
Excessive (Bush) hate clouds anyones judgement and common sense.
Krugman appears to be just the latest - I remembered reading an article in the Post a little while back and did a little more digging. Blogged about it here.
I don't think that there is any question that Ms. Ledeen has benefitted from the circles her family travels in, but neither do I think that is necessarily bad. Even the Post's account which is, umm, unfriendly at best says that she was a hard worker and that her bosses thought highly of her and her work.
As far as Simone Ledeen, the WaPo article was actually pretty generous in referring to the dedication of the Young Republicans sent to the CPA with little or no adequate background (like, say, Arabic). But even this article gives one some misgivings about how the CPA staff was assembled, if we really wanted to do the best job possible. Other sources were pretty caustic about the Young Republicans. (e.g. Washington Monthly)
Of course, if Simone L. had not gone to Iraq, she would be a CHICKENHAWK!
(Full disclosure: a couple of the commenters at Roger Simon's blog beat me to this one.)
I'm with Mr. Darling on this one. Simone Ledeen is an independent entity and deserves to be judged on her own.
The same sort of problem comes up with George 43 vs. George 41. I happen to think that George 41 is scum for a number of reasons -- head of CIA during Timor aggression, etc. This should not (and in fact does not) have any bearing on what I think of George 43. He's a different guy.
Referring to "the Administration" as if it was a monolithic entity is also usually a mistake (which I commit way too often.) For example, I consider Rumsfeld and Cheney to be scum for very specific reasons, but that doesn't tell me much about Rice, Powell, etc. I can think that Wolfowitz is well meaning while at the same time disliking the Prince of Darkness.
When my family was still on the farm we had what's generally referred to as a "hired man," which was someone who lived on the property and did chores on a daily basis. One of our hired men over the years had a rather large family, and the youngest daughter was a clever girl named "Charmaine." She got a scholarship to WSU and eventually she became an emportant State Department employee, and was stationed in Iraq with the CPA in a key position.
I guess the point is that people are posted to those positions for lots of reasons, and as long as they include people like Charmaine I have no problem if they also include people like Simone. That's America. "Social mobility" has always been higher here than in Europe, and one thing people might not realize about that phenomenon is that it not only means people ascending the socio-economic ladder, but also descending. Were that not the case it'd get pretty top-heavy at the top.
blaster:
I'm sure people have made claims like this before Krugman, please don't misunderstand me on that much. Krugman, like I said, took a cheap shot at Ms. Ledeen solely for the point of attacking neoconservatives in general and her father in specific. The vast majority of people who read Krugman's column simply don't know enough about her in order to refute the man's claims about her on this one. I do, which is the primary reason why I blogged this.
Andrew J. Lazarus:
As I said, Ledeen was paraphrasing Tocqueville when he said that and Krugman is more or less presenting the comic book version of his (Ledeen or Tocqueville's) views. I can rather easily create a parallel construct of Krugman's views to say something to the effect that "I am very disappointed that the United States ... removed Saddam Hussein."
There are also any number of useful jobs that can be done in Iraq without a knowledge of Arabic.
Was this is a cheap shot? Yes. I thought this column was subpar. He drank too much haterade yesterday morning, for sure.
Now, a few minor points.
One, Krugman does not work out of the Times buliding. Perhaps that was a metaphor.
Two, the Times is no longer the "paper of record," which is an obsolete term that refers to the days when it printed transcripts and other official documents.
Three, it doesn't sound like Ledeen's group was simply doing accounting. I have no doubt that she is smart, worked hard and learned a lot. And I admire her sacrifice. However, I would prefer that we utilize knowledgable Arab speakers and experienced development specialists for these types of missions. Additionally, I would prefer that we have . I don't fault Ledeen at all, but I do fault the people who planned the reconstruction process. It sounds like her group was saddled with way too much responsibility and too few resources, all in a challenging and new environment. I really dislike the Army Corps of Engineers approach (they're a disaster in the US!!!), and I really dislike the over-centralization of the process. The provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan are a far superior model, as is CERP (although we do need to look at how to better institutionalize something like CERP in the future).
Finally, I am firmly opposed to rapid economic liberalization schemes. It didn't work in Russia, and it won't work in Iraq. Yes, Iraq needs structural reform, but rapid change, in my estimation, is usually for the worse. Good change happens slowly. Trying to change so many aspects of Iraq at once, in an insecure context, seems naive to me.
Except Simone Ledeen doesn't appear to have gotten the job by any sort of civil service process. According to the press, the CPA hired sight unseen (or nearly so) applicants for jobs at the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations, including fresh college graduates, and then placed them in positions with responsibilities far above what they would have been able to find in the USA. They didn't even apply to the CPA itself. I'm sure some of them were capable and dedicated and rose to the occasion, but let's not pretend this was the most likely hiring process for the optimal workforce. (Isn't it possible that some non-conservatives were qualified for these jobs? Or older people with previous relevant experience who weren't already on the job market?) In other words, unless "Charmaine" was on the market for an internship at a conservative think tank, she didn't have equal chance with Simone Ledeen of getting the job.
As far as Michael Ledeen and the cartoon, it's not clear to me who has reduced the question to the cartoon level: Krugman or Ledeen. Well, actually, it is, given that one just quotes the other, correctly.
AJL,
Are you worried about the liberals who assumably didn't have a chance to join an effort that they didn't support anyway?
Or is it the less well connected conservatives whose careers were unfairly stifled?
Or maybe you are worried about the Iraqis being brainwashed by American conservatives?
Is it ageism? Are you worried that ‘mature’ people did get a fair shot?
What exactly are your concerns? Do you have any, or is this more general neocon bashing?
praktike:
My understanding was that Krugman did work out of the Times building, or at least out of NYC. I would venture to say in any event (and this was my point when I made the remark) that he was not probably in harm's way to the extent that Ms. Ledeen was.
Faulting the reconstruction process or the methods, scheme, or other such things that were employed to bring about that process in Iraq was not what got me sufficiently annoyed with Krugman to blog about. There are any number of competent critiques that can be written on the subject without impugning a young woman from the bully pulpit of a national newspaper.
Andrew J. Lazarus:
If you have problems with the way in which Ms. Ledeen was got to work for the CPA, take it up with the people who hired her. This is an entirely separate issue from what Krugman is specifically implying, that being that she was an unqualified political hack who got her job solely on account of who her parents were. She had the qualifications and did a great deal of outstanding work there at no small personal risk to herself, which is one of the reasons things that people like Krugman should be aware of when they decide to go after her in print like that.
As far as what Ledeen said, here's the full text of that statement in context:
QUESTION: I have a very bland question, Gentlemen, for all three of you, where do you see the level of acceptance of US society in terms of casualties, not only on the US side but as well on the Iraqi side, and in terms of duration of the operation? Thank you.
MR. LEDEEN: The question was what level of casualties will the American public digest, and George Will had a lot to say about that this morning. He said, you know, if the Civil War had been on television, we might well have two countries here today if all that bloodshed and so forth had been shown.
I think it all depends on how the war goes, and I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say. But all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. And one of my favorite comments on American character, which is Patton's speech at the beginning of the movie, where he says, "Americans love war. We love fighting. We've always fought. We enjoy it. We're good at it," and so forth.
What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we're being well led and that our people are fighting well and that we're winning, I don't think casualties are going to be the issue.
If the American public gets the idea that we're doing poorly, that we're badly led, that the war plan is inferior, that we're being outmaneuvered, outwitted, and our guys are dying on behalf of a losing cause, then they will turn against it, and that's the usual rule.
So I'm curious here, Andrew, what exactly is it about this quote that you disagree so vehemently with? All Ledeen is saying is that the American people will accept casualties if they believe it's in the service of a just cause led by just leaders. And if it's only us neocon warmongers who believe that, I'll be quite honest and say that I find that deeply troubling.
Dan, do you think you could link to the specific Tocqueville comments Ledeen is referencing?
>>All Ledeen is saying is that the American people will accept casualties if they believe it's in the service of a just cause led by just leaders.
Err, the notion that "we are a warlike people and that we love war" doesn't equate to your statement, at least not from where I sit. This could be a linguistics, definitional, or contextual problem, of course. I'd need to read more of Ledeen's stuff to know for sure.
>>All Ledeen is saying is that the American people will accept casualties if they believe it's in the service of a just cause led by just leaders.
Err, the notion that "we are a warlike people and that we love war" doesn't equate to your statement, at least not from where I sit. This could be a linguistics, definitional, or contextual problem, of course. I'd need to read more of Ledeen's stuff to know for sure.
lindenen:
My time is by no means unlimited here (which is why I stopped doing Winds of War), but if that is your e-mail address up there I'll try to find it when I have the time.
T. J. Madison:
I think it's more of a contextual problem than anything else and would very much recommend reading more of the man's work to get an idea of his views on the subject.
If you would, just take your time, there's no rush however. That's not the right address though. The one in this post is.
Dan;
Forgive those of us who cannot ignore the link between your strident defense of Simone Ledeen and your relationship with her father.
One example of your bias: You say "I trust her views on the general situation in Iraq a great deal more than I do Krugman's" because she has worked there. Well, maybe you want to apply another metric, like perhaps the actual content of her comments, before deciding that you agree with her.
Here's a quote from Simone: "Hillary Clinton is coming here [to Iraq to visit the troops] tomorrow. For her sake I hope I don't see her. I might do something crazy like spit in her direction."
Glad to know you'd trust someone so uncritically who has made such statements, Dan. Sounds to me like pure reflexive posturing. Do you really think people will take your positions seriously if your bias is so plain?
And BTW, by your standards, why should anyone place any credence in your opinions on Iraq; have you been there? Do you think you are making more of a difference sitting behind your keyboard tapping away, when you could volunteer to go to Iraq and make a real impact on the outcome of the war?
If you read through the reader comments on Roger L. Simons site, you we find a comment from Ms. Leddeen in which she expresses regret for this particular passage and explains that it was originally in a private e-mail and was never meant to be made pubic, except that it got leaked.
Is this really the best evidence that you have against Ms. Ledeen character - a priavate e-mail where a threat is made to spit in the direction of,but not on, Hillary Clinton ?
Andrew J Lazurus: On what factual evidence do you conclude that Ms. Ledeen was not simply the best qualified applicant for the job? Perhaps it was "min qillat il-xeel saddaw Eac-cilaab isruuj" Colloq. Any port in a storm.
Literal. Because of the lack of horses, they saddled the dogs.
Klaatu's very recently back from almost seven months in Iraq himself, where he met Simone on a few occasions. I suspended any commenting on blogs during my absence: it's just inappropriate to comment on policy you are given an inside track on. Now the CPA is history, though. I must say, it was quite an experience.
Simone's a nice young woman, as brave as can be, going out to the Ministry of Finance building often and moving that cash around. I was disappointed by Krugman mentioning her. She was always very helpful to me and others I know and worked hard and long hours. Typical of the best of the CPA.
That being said, there was a well-known and discussed systemic problem with the CPA side of the Ministry of Finance: the lack of forms and systems and standard procedures, until April or so. It seemed that each and every new transaction requiring Min of Finance approval and action for a payment required a visit, personal explanation and e-mail(s) to one of four or five people working in that office: Simone was one, Anita G another, and then there were the many transactions which required the personal approval of Rodney Bent or Tony McDonald, the senior advisors. Tony was well known to be brusque and a "no" man, and Rodney made himself tough to get, so the bias was to go to Simone or Anita.
Then these transactions would have to be guided through the Iraqi side of the Min of Finance, where there would usually be 3 or 4 blocks caused by lack of initiative, fear, incompetence, procedural confusion, or corruption until the money got to where it was supposed to get to. During the (weeks or months) it took to get the money moved (all cash, no banking system or EFT) Iraqis didn't get paid, projects didn't start, streets didn't get cleaned, equipment didn't get purchased.
There just weren't enough people there to guide the process, which was completely ad-hoc almost every time. Not a way to run a country, in my opinion. I think Simone would agree.
Vesicle Trafficker:
"Forgive those of us who cannot ignore the link between your strident defense of Simone Ledeen and your relationship with her father."
I addressed this in the opening segment of the blog:
"As most of regular Winds of Change readership almost certainly knows by now, I work for Michael Ledeen here at AEI and those of you who want to characterize this as some kind of a cynical attempt to curry favor with my boss can stop reading this right now."
That was intended to preemptively answer that particular charge.
Moving along to the next issue:
"Well, maybe you want to apply another metric, like perhaps the actual content of her comments, before deciding that you agree with her."
Simone herself answers that quote over at Roger Simon's. And I would venture to say that I have heard far more of Simone's comments than you yourself had and would thus be in a far better position to judge them as such.
"Glad to know you'd trust someone so uncritically who has made such statements, Dan."
Given some of the remarks that you yourself have made here on occasion, I'd say you're kind of throwing stones at a glass house on that one.
"Sounds to me like pure reflexive posturing."
I recognized that there would no doubt be some who were of that opinion, which is precisely why I made that remark up there.
"Do you really think people will take your positions seriously if your bias is so plain?"
That's the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard it. I have never made any pretense as to my objectivity and I would venture to guess that my biases, political or otherwise, are extremely apparent to those who read my work. I don't in truth have any particular problem with this, nor would I imagine do most of the people who read my work here.
"And BTW, by your standards, why should anyone place any credence in your opinions on Iraq; have you been there?"
I have not been to Iraq, though I have spoken extensively with those who have from Fort Leavenworth as well as with other international officers from across the Arab world and have studied the region extensively, which is why I can tell you a great deal about, say, the al-Dulaimi tribe in Fallujah. I would certainly, however, defer my own commentary in favor of someone who is actually there on the ground or traveling around the country to my own view of the situation, just as I would prefer to listen to an actual Iraqi rather than a journalist as to what most Iraqis think.
"Do you think you are making more of a difference sitting behind your keyboard tapping away, when you could volunteer to go to Iraq and make a real impact on the outcome of the war?"
Hehehe. Let me be one to inform you that one of the things I did before I ended up at AEI was writing up threat dossiers and providing other assistance to the Center for Tactical Counter-Terrorism, dossiers that are extremely useful to people in law enforcement and the counter-terrorism communities. In addition, I have the current work that I do for Dr. Ledeen. So I think it's entirely prudent to say that I've put in a great deal of effort on this particular issue.
Of course, I have no particular way to verify any of this (heck, I'd be hard-pressed to "prove" to you that I'm actually working for Dr. Ledeen), which is one of the reasons why getting into conversations of this nature on the internet are so idiotic. My point was more that it is generally better to learn about the situation in Iraq from who was or is actually there than it was to resurrect the "chickenhawk" argument.
Vesicle Trafficker:
Damn, I just wrote up a lengthy reply to you and it got eaten up by Internet Explorer crashing ...
Here are the key points:
1. I answered the charge concerning myself and my own relationship to Dr. Ledeen and his family at the very beginning of this blog. You are of course free to take any view you like regarding me, but I would suggest that you at least allow for the option that I am doing this not so much to curry favor with Ledeen as I am to prevent someone I know who risked a great deal to serve in Iraq from getting their name dragged through the mud.
2. While I derive a certain amount of humor from you lecturing me about bias, I would point out that I have never made any pretense of being objective in my blogging. I very much doubt that this is any great surprise to the vast majority of my readers.
3. Simone herself answered that quote in question over on Roger's blog. And if that's the worst she's ever said in private conversation, I would say that it's the pot calling the kettle black for most people to take issue with her statements.
4. My point was not so much to resurrect the "chickenhawk" debate as it was that I would generally trust someone who has actually been over in Iraq and worked there as to the situation there than someone who has not. So would you, I venture, unless you consider the uses of the various Iraq correspondents and reporters for the mainstream media to be entirely useless.
5. As far as my own contributions to the war effort are concerned, what the heck do you think I'm doing right now?
Lurker;
I don't think any further comments from Ms. Ledeen, whether public or private, are necessary to illustrate her mindset.
Hey, she's entitled to her opinions; I have no quarrels with her at all. I'm simply questioning DDs judgement in stating his unqualified support for her viewpoints over Paul Krugman's (and by logical extension of his argument, anyone who has the temerity to offer an opinion on Iraq without actually having been there).
DD;
Your IE should crash more often, I like your more succinct reply better than the original.
I have no quarrels with Ms. Ledeen; she's entitled to her opinions, however strong or biased they might be. Although perhaps it is not always clear, I do respect opposing viewpoints. However, I do not respect those who attempt to mask their opinions for political (or other) purposes, or attempt to impose their views on others.
Just as long as we're all real clear that you're representing a highly subjective viewpoint and siding with others who are of a like mindset, I'm satisfied that the purpose of my original post was served.
VT:
As soon as I figure out where your comments (and mine?) ended up and how to reach them I'll be sure to reply to your latest comments.
Testing 1,2,3.
VT:
Ah, the comments are working again. In any case, that's good enough for me.
Dan
Thanks a lot for your comments. I appreciate your support. Klaatu- sure there were many problems. The primary one being the roadblocks that were set up in the Ministry. In the old regime people had been executed for spending...that is how regime loyalists ended up with the mansions on the lake while everyone else suffered through Iraqi summers with no treated water.
Also and just to clarify- we did not volunteer for the 'gate keeper' role. Unlike Krugman I don't make it a habit to badmouth people so I won't say any more.
Yes it was a huge struggle. Yes it could have been done better, etc. But I think we managed to do some good and put some permanent systems in place that allow the MinFen to function much more smoothly, certainly more smoothly than when we arrived. Since you know me I assume I know you- there's a lot to say abt CPA both good and bad. But I think we should all be proud of the good.
AJL, sorry, that didn't exactly come out right--I meant to say that there is an element of pragmatism invovled.
VT, If Dan enlisted, he'd be doing exactly what he's doing now, only he'd be mainlining on the Sipper network (GOSSIP), and none of us could read him.
"...Krugman's, who is no doubt very brave as he writes about the real or imagined failures of the US occupation from within the confines of the New York Times building."
With apologies for making a trivial correction, Professor Krugman teaches at Princeton; I am entirely sure that he does not commute to Manhattan to write from the NY Times building.
"Like I said, I didn't write this blog up to rail against Krugman's views on the war, the situation in Iraq, or any of the other topics he raises in his latest column, as strongly as I might disagree with them. I wrote this blog up...."
In equal triviosity, might I suggest that it is clearer to use "blog entry" or "blog post" or "post" to refer to a blog entry/post, rather than conflate the word "blog" confusingly into two meanings? I realize there are a few bloggers who do this, but I prefer to urge usages that add clarity rather than detract from it.
Heh, I had to comment here, given the earlier reference to General Patton and his (in)famous speech. Here's the excerpt from the actual speech which was heavily editted in the film bearing his name:
Check here for the full monty. Makes for fun reading.