CONTRARIAN COMMENTARY FOR JANUARY 5, 2007
"I TOLD YOU SO," PART ONE
PAUL BREMER AND HIS BAGHDAD BUNGLERS
[Editor's note: With "I told you so," Part One, Andy initiates a beginning-of-the-year series of comments on some of his predictions and projections that have stood the test of time.]
(CHICAGO)(January 5, 2007) In June 2003, shortly after Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad, I sent him a 10-point letter outlining what needed to be done to revive Iraq. I was living in Baghdad as an independent analyst/investigator/writer and made practical suggestions based on personal observations.
Unfortunately, Bremer had already barricaded himself inside his Green Zone ("Emerald City" as I called it) and was as remote from the Iraqi people as the Viceroy of India had been from ordinary Indians.
Bremer had surrounded himself with a group of right-wing jokers whom I called the "weenies" ("Greenies" if you prefer). The weenies/Greenies were people who had gone to Iraq on a right-wing mission, to spread the Gospel of Bush to the infidel masses. Prominent among Bremer's weenies were Dan Senor, his mouthpiece, and Roman Martinez, another of Bremer's sycophants.
In my "Letter to Paul Bremer" I told Bremer that he needed to clean up the streets and put people to work. I told him he needed someone like Ed Koch, former Mayor of New York, not Bernard Kerick, Rudy Giuliani's Police Commissioner, to jump-start the economy. I even mentioned the "Doe Fund" in New York that puts people to work and pays them to stay clean.
In short, I exhorted Bremer to put money in the hands of ordinary people and let them restart their own economy and their own country. Bremer was too busy sending billions of dollars to politically favored contractors to heed my admonitions.
Thus, it was with a sense of both sadness and disgust that I read today's Wall Street Journal (January 5, 2007) and found the weenies popping up there. Yes, Senor and Martinez wrote a column with the startling disclosure that "The funds appropriated by our government barely affect the lives of average Iraqis." Why didn’t they see this 3-1/2 years ago? Why didn’t they announce it? Why didn’t they do something? Protest? Tell their boss? Anything?
Maybe no one cared. They were too busy taking care of the contractors.
Sadly, they were all ensconced in Saddam's former palaces when they should have been living in tents and meeting ordinary Iraqis every day.
The Journal says Senor and Martinez were "foreign policy advisors" to Paul Bremer. Is it any wonder the Bush administration self-destructed in Baghdad? That Bush will be entombed in the sands of history like Shelley's Ozymandias? Who hired Senor and Martinez? On what basis could give they "foreign policy advice" to anyone?
They knew nothing. They said nothing. They did nothing. No one had the basic common sense to get out on the street and help the Iraqi people rebuild their lives. It was the morons such as Bremer, Senor and Martinez that midwifed the insurgency.
The Wall Street Journal featured Senor's and Martinez' latest nonsense as "Dynamic Ideas for Iraq." Some dynamism. Too little and too late.
They may have changed the format of their paper but the WSJ's editors have not yet changed the format of their failed Middle East policy or they would not be offering a forum for S & M's puerile observations. (I will have more to say about this hilarious and pathetic column in the Journal.)
Today young Americans are paying the price for Senor's and Martinez' and Bremer's incompetence.
I told you so. Way back in June, 2003.
------------------------------------------
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2007. Martin covers national and world politics with forty years of personal experience. Columns also posted at politicalgateway.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639.
"I TOLD YOU SO," PART ONE
PAUL BREMER AND HIS BAGHDAD BUNGLERS
[Editor's note: With "I told you so," Part One, Andy initiates a beginning-of-the-year series of comments on some of his predictions and projections that have stood the test of time.]
(CHICAGO)(January 5, 2007) In June 2003, shortly after Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad, I sent him a 10-point letter outlining what needed to be done to revive Iraq. I was living in Baghdad as an independent analyst/investigator/writer and made practical suggestions based on personal observations.
Unfortunately, Bremer had already barricaded himself inside his Green Zone ("Emerald City" as I called it) and was as remote from the Iraqi people as the Viceroy of India had been from ordinary Indians.
Bremer had surrounded himself with a group of right-wing jokers whom I called the "weenies" ("Greenies" if you prefer). The weenies/Greenies were people who had gone to Iraq on a right-wing mission, to spread the Gospel of Bush to the infidel masses. Prominent among Bremer's weenies were Dan Senor, his mouthpiece, and Roman Martinez, another of Bremer's sycophants.
In my "Letter to Paul Bremer" I told Bremer that he needed to clean up the streets and put people to work. I told him he needed someone like Ed Koch, former Mayor of New York, not Bernard Kerick, Rudy Giuliani's Police Commissioner, to jump-start the economy. I even mentioned the "Doe Fund" in New York that puts people to work and pays them to stay clean.
In short, I exhorted Bremer to put money in the hands of ordinary people and let them restart their own economy and their own country. Bremer was too busy sending billions of dollars to politically favored contractors to heed my admonitions.
Thus, it was with a sense of both sadness and disgust that I read today's Wall Street Journal (January 5, 2007) and found the weenies popping up there. Yes, Senor and Martinez wrote a column with the startling disclosure that "The funds appropriated by our government barely affect the lives of average Iraqis." Why didn’t they see this 3-1/2 years ago? Why didn’t they announce it? Why didn’t they do something? Protest? Tell their boss? Anything?
Maybe no one cared. They were too busy taking care of the contractors.
Sadly, they were all ensconced in Saddam's former palaces when they should have been living in tents and meeting ordinary Iraqis every day.
The Journal says Senor and Martinez were "foreign policy advisors" to Paul Bremer. Is it any wonder the Bush administration self-destructed in Baghdad? That Bush will be entombed in the sands of history like Shelley's Ozymandias? Who hired Senor and Martinez? On what basis could give they "foreign policy advice" to anyone?
They knew nothing. They said nothing. They did nothing. No one had the basic common sense to get out on the street and help the Iraqi people rebuild their lives. It was the morons such as Bremer, Senor and Martinez that midwifed the insurgency.
The Wall Street Journal featured Senor's and Martinez' latest nonsense as "Dynamic Ideas for Iraq." Some dynamism. Too little and too late.
They may have changed the format of their paper but the WSJ's editors have not yet changed the format of their failed Middle East policy or they would not be offering a forum for S & M's puerile observations. (I will have more to say about this hilarious and pathetic column in the Journal.)
Today young Americans are paying the price for Senor's and Martinez' and Bremer's incompetence.
I told you so. Way back in June, 2003.
------------------------------------------
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2007. Martin covers national and world politics with forty years of personal experience. Columns also posted at politicalgateway.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639.
posted by Andy Martin | 6:09 PM
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