Uppity With Peoples!

Just finished reading a hand-me-down copy of Rajiv Chandra- sekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City. After reading Tom Ricks’ Fiasco, I thought I was beyond being shocked by US techno-stupidity and imperial obliviousness in Iraq.

I was wrong.

In the first crucial weeks and months of the occupation, the US unleashed as its critical post-conflict specialists not seasoned veterans from the defense and state departments but an improbable yet sadly inevitable group--an ideologically pure Uppity With Peoples! corps determined to implement the whizbangs of the 21st century democracy--plus a flat tax--despite an inconvenient lack of electricity and water and medical supplies; an overabundance of bullets, mortars, and IEDs; and centuries’ old sectarian pissed-offedness.

It’s as though the Bush Administration Hackpert Resources Department worked long and hard with the intention of screwing up. Would it have been any less tragic had James O'Beirne, the White House liaison at the Pentagon, come up with these stellar personnel selections?


Ann Coulter, Food Rationing
and Graves Registration.



Jonah Goldberg, Intellectual
Property Rights and
Cheetos Distribution.



Tracy Flick, Election Law,
Redistricting, and Recounts.



Ben Shapiro, Human
Reproductive Rights and
De-Pornification.



Dennis Miller, Second-Chance
Career Counseling.



Kathryn Jean Lopez, Winsor
Pilates Instructoress.



David Horowitz, Denouncer of
Iraq's 100 Most Dangerous
University Professors.



Mr. Bookman, Library Bureau
of Investigation.



Some day, maybe 25 or 30 years from now, Iraqi TV will no doubt feature a slapsticky sit-com, “Ali’s Heroes,” featuring bumbling and clueless American dummkopf technocrats issuing electronic voter ID cards in a land with no electricity. I wonder what canned Arabic/Persian laughter sounds like...