Could somebody explain......

Why is it, when we have very good, reasonably good, mediocre, bad, and unutterably stupid examples of how to deal with a power vacuum in a country we’re occupying, we seem to use “unutterably stupid” as our default position?

After WWII, we managed not to screw up any number of situations where we had destroyed the central political/military apparat. In a couple of cases, we did a pretty darned good job.

So when we did our invasion of Iraq, why did we not start by retaining (and paying) enough grunts and minor supervisors in the police and armed forces to maintain order? With the infrastructure in ruins, why did we not bring in Army Corps of Engineers, Air Force Red Horse teams, and Naval Construction Batallions (or whatever they're called these days) to act as working leads, hire anybody local within sight who looked to have even minimal qualifications, and get such minor details as potable water, electricity, and refuse disposal back on line.

I remember these being intact and working quite well a year before Desert Shield/Storm, and a colleague says they were working again to an acceptable level before the second U.S. visitation.

To paraphrase Ben Franklin, never was an opportunity more callously squandered. So why is it that is worked out that way? It’s not as if we didn’t know better. I never saw a single contingency plan in over a decade of dealing with such things that didn’t have a far better set of initial taskings.

Who decided to scrap all that planning work and treat the whole thing like some gigantic “let’s see just how many ways we can banjax this thing” exercise?

Barbara Ehrenreich's Blog

The links function in Blogger doesn't seem to be working, so I'll just tell you.

Go to http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/ to see some of the best writing in town. This is somebody who has been writing well about important things for quite some time. Her wit varies from obvious to "bad wine dry" -- often in the same piece. She is accessible, erudite, and usually close enough to right as makes no difference.

I have yet to get that "it's Tuesday, so I'll write something about...." feeling that one finds in a number of otherwise acceptable writers. Just look at her August, 2007 stuff. Even in the unlikely possibility that you don't like the ideas, you will like the writing.