Politics As Usual

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Oh fringe, we drift further apart.....

its like this. You know how you are always holdingyou own and winning arguments on fashion? well there you're like Moroccan soldiers outside some African refugee camp- you're the law baby!!! go screw them single mommies!

Then you come here, and you're like the Brazilains or whatever that went running when you saw the al Queda connected sadr guys coming at you. You may stand up for a second, but you ain't delecting the fire that will rain down on you.

Hope this helps!

That doesn't make sense. Are you saying that Moroccans are stronger and braver than Brazilians? You racist fuck.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This story, originally from the Washington Post, is incredible. Rather than hire people with some experience, the CPA hired a bunch of young Republicans who had submitted their resumes to the Heritage Foundation's website. Six of them ended up running the country's budget. "Several had impressive credentials, but in the wrong fields. None had ever worked in the Middle East, none spoke Arabic, and few could tell a balance sheet from an accounts receivable statement."

• The group's primary responsibility was to hand out money. Each month, it authorized several hundred million dollars for government salaries, reconstruction projects and other expenses. But they were also involved in higher-level policy decisions -- revising the 2004 budget and formulating plans for replacing the food baskets Iraqi families got each month with cash payments.
  
  The staffers' goodwill, hard work and willingness to stay in Iraq did little to alter the reality that the budget office had become a bottleneck. The budget team had its hands full just keeping things running.
  
  Army Reserve Sgt. Glenn Corliss, who worked with the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, said staffers were so inexperienced and rotated out so quickly it was difficult for them to act on anything.
  
  In November, many state-owned factories had been shut down for want of electricity, a potentially explosive problem because it left thousands jobless. Corliss had found private firms willing to invest in portable generators for the most critical factories. All they wanted was a letter of credit saying that they would be paid for their services. No one in the budget office would make a decision on it for months, and Corliss finally gave up.
  
  "I wanted to pull their heads off oftentimes," Corliss said.
  
  The young budget advisers are the first to admit that they weren't the most qualified to be managing Iraq's finances.
  
  "We knew we were overwhelmed. We wanted help," Ledeen said. "We were doing maintenance, trying to make sure there were no riots, that no one went hungry."

Unbelievable, except that it's so paradigmatic for an administration that constantly elevates party loyalty over policy.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
So the poverty that these Africans are in only bothers you if there are Moroccan and Uruguayan soldiers nearby, but otherwise you're happy to ignore it?

Ty, I cannot fix the world. I merely point out that UN soldiers taking advantage of victims of this hunitarian disaster to empty their loins only compounds the problem of these poor suffering congolese. The UN, always well-intentioned can help. Why does it not? Surely, you would be horrified if the same thing were happening in Iraq. Has you partisan advocacy for the UN gone so far that you do not see it as capable of any mis-step?

N.B.,in prior wars a little chocolate bar got you a half decent piece of French tail. That's how my grandpa learned the venus butterfly move, and I'm glad. Word is it wasn't his looks or rap that caught Grandma!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This story, originally from the Washington Post, is incredible. Rather than hire people with some experience, the CPA hired a bunch of young Republicans who had submitted their resumes to the Heritage Foundation's website. Six of them ended up running the country's budget. "Several had impressive credentials, but in the wrong fields. None had ever worked in the Middle East, none spoke Arabic, and few could tell a balance sheet from an accounts receivable statement."

• The group's primary responsibility was to hand out money. Each month, it authorized several hundred million dollars for government salaries, reconstruction projects and other expenses. But they were also involved in higher-level policy decisions -- revising the 2004 budget and formulating plans for replacing the food baskets Iraqi families got each month with cash payments.
  
  The staffers' goodwill, hard work and willingness to stay in Iraq did little to alter the reality that the budget office had become a bottleneck. The budget team had its hands full just keeping things running.
  
  Army Reserve Sgt. Glenn Corliss, who worked with the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, said staffers were so inexperienced and rotated out so quickly it was difficult for them to act on anything.
  
  In November, many state-owned factories had been shut down for want of electricity, a potentially explosive problem because it left thousands jobless. Corliss had found private firms willing to invest in portable generators for the most critical factories. All they wanted was a letter of credit saying that they would be paid for their services. No one in the budget office would make a decision on it for months, and Corliss finally gave up.
  
  "I wanted to pull their heads off oftentimes," Corliss said.
  
  The young budget advisers are the first to admit that they weren't the most qualified to be managing Iraq's finances.
  
  "We knew we were overwhelmed. We wanted help," Ledeen said. "We were doing maintenance, trying to make sure there were no riots, that no one went hungry."

Unbelievable, except that it's so paradigmatic for an administration that constantly elevates party loyalty over policy.

Wow. this is really fucked up - we can't give out $$? Considering the whole point of the war was to get $$ to cHeny's buddys this was really short-sighted.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Ty, I cannot fix the world. I merely point out that UN soldiers taking advantage of victims of this hunitarian disaster to empty their loins only compounds the problem of these poor suffering congolese. The UN, always well-intentioned can help. Why does it not? Surely, you would be horrified if the same thing were happening in Iraq. Has you partisan advocacy for the UN gone so far that you do not see it as capable of any mis-step?

You cannot fix the world, but you can duck the question of whether you would pay any more in taxes to help the UN try. It's easy to bust the UN for failing to solve the problems of poverty in Africa, but hard to part with a buck.

Why does the UN not help? I'm sure it does help. Those soldiers are probably doing more harm than good there. I'll let club come back and explain why prostitution shouldn't be a crime because economic exchange benefits both parties. Ordinarily his libertarian dander would be up from someone calling prostitution "exploitation," but it's hard to resist when the target is the UN.

N.B.,in prior wars a little chocolate bar got you a half decent piece of French tail. That's how my grandpa learned the [/i]venus butterfly[/i] move, and I'm glad. Word is it wasn't his looks or rap that caught Grandma!

I cannot believe that you of all people would support sleeping with the enemy.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I cannot believe that you of all people would support sleeping with the enemy.

I'm sure there wasn't much sleeping going on (heh, heh). And that his dad only went with women who said they didn't collaborate with the Vichy gov't.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Unbelievable, except that it's so paradigmatic for an administration that constantly elevates party loyalty over policy.

It seems like the bigger problem was that we/they failed to set up an office that was sufficiently attractive that better people could be employed. Half the people left almost immediately; had the conditions been better surely some fairly capable people would have gone. I certainly don't get the sense these were partisan hacks, except by the coincidence that only hacks who happened to be in the right party were willing to go. Unless I missed the part about turning away qualified dems.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Why does the UN not help? I'm sure it does help. Those soldiers are probably doing more harm than good there. I'll let club come back and explain why prostitution shouldn't be a crime because economic exchange benefits both parties. Ordinarily his libertarian dander would be up from someone calling prostitution "exploitation," but it's hard to resist when the target is the UN.

I cannot believe that you of all people would support sleeping with the enemy.

The point I was trying to make, which obviously escaped you, was that the world somehow views soldiers or employees of UN member states who don the UN uniform as beyond reproach and, conversely, US employees and soldiers as beyond praise.

I do believe prostitution should be legal if it is a bargained for exhange, but from my reading of the article, it doesn't appear that was the case.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
It seems like the bigger problem was that we/they failed to set up an office that was sufficiently attractive that better people could be employed. Half the people left almost immediately; had the conditions been better surely some fairly capable people would have gone. I certainly don't get the sense these were partisan hacks, except by the coincidence that only hacks who happened to be in the right party were willing to go. Unless I missed the part about turning away qualified dems.

Yoswa [Pentagon spokesperson] said the recruiting office had to hire quickly for the Madrid donors conference that fall and "turned to the Heritage Foundation, an educational facility, albeit a conservative one, but primarily a place where you can get good, solid people." He said this was a one-time event and that there was no organized effort to hire Republicans.

In late October, he said, the Pentagon set up a job site on the Web. Eleven thousand people filled out an application and several hundred of them were hired. "Nowhere did we ask party affiliation," he said.


I question their decision to look only at the Heritage Foundation website for candidates, even if they later (a month and a half after contacting the Heritage Foundation resume posters) set up a job site.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
It seems like the bigger problem was that we/they failed to set up an office that was sufficiently attractive that better people could be employed. Half the people left almost immediately; had the conditions been better surely some fairly capable people would have gone. I certainly don't get the sense these were partisan hacks, except by the coincidence that only hacks who happened to be in the right party were willing to go. Unless I missed the part about turning away qualified dems.

There are a lot of NGOs out there with experience in these sorts of things. If we were going to leave the planning to the very end, we should have found a way to use their expertise.

The beauty of using the Heritage Foundation to collect resumes is that you don't have to try to figure out whether the applicant is a Democrat. Please. The pretense that this was a ideologically-neutral way to find people is absurd.*

Cf. Anatole France ("The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge.").

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The point I was trying to make, which obviously escaped you, was that the world somehow views soldiers or employees of UN member states who don the UN uniform as beyond reproach and, conversely, US employees and soldiers as beyond praise.

I do believe prostitution should be legal if it is a bargained for exhange, but from my reading of the article, it doesn't appear that was the case.

Who views the UN as beyond reproach? The article you posted proves otherwise. The premise for the article is that you have some refugees in dire straits who are engaging in prostitution with UN johns. I don't think I'm going out on a limb if I suggest that soldiers all around the world, no matter what color their helmets, find local prostitutes. Because these Moroccans and Uruguayans were wearing blue helmets, this becomes "exploitation" and a story appears about it. Find me a story about US troops and Iraqi prostitutes if you think this isn't a double-standard.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The point I was trying to make, which obviously escaped you, was that the world somehow views soldiers or employees of UN member states who don the UN uniform as beyond reproach and, conversely, US employees and soldiers as beyond praise.

I tend to think that some soldiers are always going to be sadistic exploitative bastards. The job kinda attracts that type.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Who views the UN as beyond reproach?

A majority of the US and world media, for one.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop The article you posted proves otherwise. The premise for the article is that you have some refugees in dire straits who are engaging in prostitution with UN johns. I don't think I'm going out on a limb if I suggest that soldiers all around the world, no matter what color their helmets, find local prostitutes. Because these Moroccans and Uruguayans were wearing blue helmets, this becomes "exploitation" and a story appears about it. Find me a story about US troops and Iraqi prostitutes if you think this isn't a double-standard.

Again, it comes down to bargaining power. I have zero problem with prostitution when the prostitute has a choice in her occupation. In this case, the article suggests there really is no choice - either sleep with the johns or starve to death (or permit your child to starve to death). That is the only exploitation here. If US soldiers are engaging in similar acts, I condemn them too.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The point I was trying to make, which obviously escaped you, was that the world somehow views soldiers or employees of UN member states who don the UN uniform as beyond reproach and, conversely, US employees and soldiers as beyond praise.

Is it so surprising that the world would look more favorably on an organization they have some say in governing as opposed to an organization that they have no say in? I don't think it's because everyone else in the world is evil.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
A majority of the US and world media, for one.

While you may feel that way, that article only tends to suggest otherwise.

eta: If the UN pulls out of the area because people like you beat up on it, will those prostitutes be better off?

Again, it comes down to bargaining power. I have zero problem with prostitution when the prostitute has a choice in her occupation. In this case, the article suggests there really is no choice - either sleep with the johns or starve to death (or permit your child to starve to death). That is the only exploitation here. If US soldiers are engaging in similar acts, I condemn them too.

So if your only alternative is to starve to death, you should have to starve to death? That's not very libertarian. It is kind of refreshing to hear a libertarian explain that poor people should have fewer economic opportunities than the better off.

Still waiting to hear whether you would pay higher taxes to fund aid for these prostitutes.