Paul Bremer. You remember Paul Bremer? He was the Bush flunky in charge of, or at least from he US view, Iraq after we took down their government in 2003. This is the bland-faced, ho-hum nice suit and red tie, carbon copy government drone-type who was given the Herculean task of "rebuilding Iraq."
Since rebuilding a country you or anyone else on this side of the world knows little to nothing about (at least in 2003, I'm sure there are those of us who are involuntarily and intimately familiar with it now) is probably a little harder than balancing your average checkbook or making sense of your average cell phone bill, I'm willing to admit that maybe expectations were a bit too high. But, when in doubt about a thing like this, our government thinks throwing money at the problem(s) will make them go away or, even better, magically morph into some sort of cash cow it can exploit for decades into an increasingly bleak future.
How much money, you ask? Oh, only about 363 tons of $100 bills.. Loaded on pallets. With forklifts. Cash. Tons of it.
Paul Bremer doesn't really know what happened to the $12 billion in cash. Sure, he gives the typical politician's smoke and mirrors answer to a Congressional investigative committee, but, in the end, this 363 freaking tons of cash has vanished into the Iraqi desert.
John Stewart of The Daily Show puts it in perspective for you if my meager attempts weren't enough:
(a better version of this vid can be found here.)
[Anyone who's picked up the gist I've put down so far may proceed to making their comments. What follows is personal commentary on this issue that you're probably not interested in]
There are so many things wrong with this situation outside of the obvious.
1. It's okay for Presidential appointees to lose 363 tons of cash. But not you. If YOU lost $12 billion of the government's (or in this case, money we stole from Iraq back in the day) money, you'd have visits. Lots of them. Mostly by dour, plastic-looking, manufactured Agent Smith-types. Your life would be ruined. They'd take your house, your Ford Pinto, your guitar collection, your cat, your jeans and anything else of value. They'd probably draw up some sort of lien against you and your descendants for the next several centuries in order to recoup every red cent of their money. That's what the government does. If you're a taxpayer and owe them, they're going to get their money. Anyone who's ever had a brush with the IRS or served in the military and had pay problems will tell you this.
(Side story: When I was on active duty with the military a few years back I was overpaid for a period of time due to a clerical error. I thought I was being paid correctly through a misunderstanding of the requirements for said pay. The same misunderstanding the "finance professionals" of the military made. Once the error was spotted, I spent the next two years paying off this debt to the government. After all, they told me, I am responsible for knowing what I'm supposed to be paid, even if the government doesn't know and thus overpays me. I did my duty and paid them back the money with monthly deductions from my paycheck. That's what service people do. Their duty. And the government may err every once in awhile reminding you of that fact, but in the end you'll do your duty. Or else.)
2. Our all-wise Congressional investigative committee can only but ask flaccid questions, and badly at that. Many of you will think to make this into a Republican vs Democrat sort of deal. That's what people do who think their club is so much better than the other club. Lots of people on both sides of the political spectrum seem to think their party has all the answers and that the other guys are wrong, evil, malicious, etc.
My point here is that the President made this mess. He appointed douche bags to help clean it up. Douche bags lost 363 tons of cash. And no one, Red or Blue, seems to be able to do anything about it but have a bunch of fucking meetings where partisanship is alive and well and where these so-called honorable people look like a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. The point here is that it's our elected officials who are responsible for doing something about this, whatever their party. And they can't even get past the Republican/Democrat bullshit to do so. Everyone is so all-fired pleased with themselves for having elected some Democrats to Congress. Everyone knows the shit will get cleaned up now. And this is all the Democrats can come up with? This stuttering fool in a suit?
3. Something needs to be done by someone. Nothing will. Those Congressmen who held the "investigatory meeting" a few days back went home to their trophy wife and their golf clubs and had some cigars and maybe a blowjob. Jon Stewart poked some fun, made some points and went off the air. You and several million of your fellow Americans read the story, watched the show, felt a little outrage, then went back to running around your hamster cage the government has put you in. In the end, maybe someone in government will lose their job or resign to "spend more time with their family." In the end, $12 billion bucks has vanished.
Meanwhile, my Dad continues to wrangle with the Medicare bureaucracy just to get enough funds to help pay for the meds he needs, and hoping he'll have enough cash left over from his disability check to heat his home this month.
Meanwhile, my brother continues to work 65 hour weeks to sock away money for the baby his fiance is expecting in a few months. He found out the other day that neither his nor her employer-provided insurance covers the expenses associated with bringing a kid into the world. The insurance companies found they were losing money so simply deleted a few lines in their coverages. No big deal.
Meanwhile, two of my friends feed the worms inside their government issue coffins, dead because some guy in a suit said so and other guys in suits didn't have the balls to make him not start some useless war.
Meanwhile, people live in tents in New Orleans and Mississippi.
Meanwhile, elderly people in Chicago freeze to death because they can't afford to fix their heaters for the winter.
Meanwhile, public school teachers get by on paychecks too small to even mention.
Meanwhile, cops do their duty and have modest dreams of retiring with their pension one day and maybe having a lawn with a garden.
Meanwhile, firefighters run into burning buildings for pay that's only a few thousand bucks above the poverty line.
Meanwhile, higher education expenses are soaring to heights no one's ever seen.
Meanwhile, the cost of your employer provided medical insurance creeps up every year while the things you're covered for goes down.
Meanwhile, that nice Ethiopian lady at the bakery around the corner from me lives with 12 other people in an apartment outside the city. She buses part of the way into work everyday and walks the rest. She's 68.
Meanwhile, politicians talk for hours and say not a damn thing worth hearing. Then they collect their $100k/yr government pensions for life.
Meanwhile, CEOs fill their indoor heated pools with cash they received just for quitting.
Meanwhile, your government continues to fuck you, your loved ones, the people of other sovereign nations, the people who educated and protect you. They steal your money, other peoples' money, lose 363 tons of it, and can't think of anything to do about it other than point a few Blue or Red fingers.
Meanwhile, you read this article, feel a little bit of outrage, maybe a little disgust, maybe a healthy dose of indignation. You dislike me for blathering on about it. You think, vaguely, that you could solve all these problems with your vote. Think again.
-pb
Since rebuilding a country you or anyone else on this side of the world knows little to nothing about (at least in 2003, I'm sure there are those of us who are involuntarily and intimately familiar with it now) is probably a little harder than balancing your average checkbook or making sense of your average cell phone bill, I'm willing to admit that maybe expectations were a bit too high. But, when in doubt about a thing like this, our government thinks throwing money at the problem(s) will make them go away or, even better, magically morph into some sort of cash cow it can exploit for decades into an increasingly bleak future.
How much money, you ask? Oh, only about 363 tons of $100 bills.. Loaded on pallets. With forklifts. Cash. Tons of it.
Paul Bremer doesn't really know what happened to the $12 billion in cash. Sure, he gives the typical politician's smoke and mirrors answer to a Congressional investigative committee, but, in the end, this 363 freaking tons of cash has vanished into the Iraqi desert.
John Stewart of The Daily Show puts it in perspective for you if my meager attempts weren't enough:
(a better version of this vid can be found here.)
[Anyone who's picked up the gist I've put down so far may proceed to making their comments. What follows is personal commentary on this issue that you're probably not interested in]
There are so many things wrong with this situation outside of the obvious.
1. It's okay for Presidential appointees to lose 363 tons of cash. But not you. If YOU lost $12 billion of the government's (or in this case, money we stole from Iraq back in the day) money, you'd have visits. Lots of them. Mostly by dour, plastic-looking, manufactured Agent Smith-types. Your life would be ruined. They'd take your house, your Ford Pinto, your guitar collection, your cat, your jeans and anything else of value. They'd probably draw up some sort of lien against you and your descendants for the next several centuries in order to recoup every red cent of their money. That's what the government does. If you're a taxpayer and owe them, they're going to get their money. Anyone who's ever had a brush with the IRS or served in the military and had pay problems will tell you this.
(Side story: When I was on active duty with the military a few years back I was overpaid for a period of time due to a clerical error. I thought I was being paid correctly through a misunderstanding of the requirements for said pay. The same misunderstanding the "finance professionals" of the military made. Once the error was spotted, I spent the next two years paying off this debt to the government. After all, they told me, I am responsible for knowing what I'm supposed to be paid, even if the government doesn't know and thus overpays me. I did my duty and paid them back the money with monthly deductions from my paycheck. That's what service people do. Their duty. And the government may err every once in awhile reminding you of that fact, but in the end you'll do your duty. Or else.)
2. Our all-wise Congressional investigative committee can only but ask flaccid questions, and badly at that. Many of you will think to make this into a Republican vs Democrat sort of deal. That's what people do who think their club is so much better than the other club. Lots of people on both sides of the political spectrum seem to think their party has all the answers and that the other guys are wrong, evil, malicious, etc.
My point here is that the President made this mess. He appointed douche bags to help clean it up. Douche bags lost 363 tons of cash. And no one, Red or Blue, seems to be able to do anything about it but have a bunch of fucking meetings where partisanship is alive and well and where these so-called honorable people look like a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. The point here is that it's our elected officials who are responsible for doing something about this, whatever their party. And they can't even get past the Republican/Democrat bullshit to do so. Everyone is so all-fired pleased with themselves for having elected some Democrats to Congress. Everyone knows the shit will get cleaned up now. And this is all the Democrats can come up with? This stuttering fool in a suit?
3. Something needs to be done by someone. Nothing will. Those Congressmen who held the "investigatory meeting" a few days back went home to their trophy wife and their golf clubs and had some cigars and maybe a blowjob. Jon Stewart poked some fun, made some points and went off the air. You and several million of your fellow Americans read the story, watched the show, felt a little outrage, then went back to running around your hamster cage the government has put you in. In the end, maybe someone in government will lose their job or resign to "spend more time with their family." In the end, $12 billion bucks has vanished.
Meanwhile, my Dad continues to wrangle with the Medicare bureaucracy just to get enough funds to help pay for the meds he needs, and hoping he'll have enough cash left over from his disability check to heat his home this month.
Meanwhile, my brother continues to work 65 hour weeks to sock away money for the baby his fiance is expecting in a few months. He found out the other day that neither his nor her employer-provided insurance covers the expenses associated with bringing a kid into the world. The insurance companies found they were losing money so simply deleted a few lines in their coverages. No big deal.
Meanwhile, two of my friends feed the worms inside their government issue coffins, dead because some guy in a suit said so and other guys in suits didn't have the balls to make him not start some useless war.
Meanwhile, people live in tents in New Orleans and Mississippi.
Meanwhile, elderly people in Chicago freeze to death because they can't afford to fix their heaters for the winter.
Meanwhile, public school teachers get by on paychecks too small to even mention.
Meanwhile, cops do their duty and have modest dreams of retiring with their pension one day and maybe having a lawn with a garden.
Meanwhile, firefighters run into burning buildings for pay that's only a few thousand bucks above the poverty line.
Meanwhile, higher education expenses are soaring to heights no one's ever seen.
Meanwhile, the cost of your employer provided medical insurance creeps up every year while the things you're covered for goes down.
Meanwhile, that nice Ethiopian lady at the bakery around the corner from me lives with 12 other people in an apartment outside the city. She buses part of the way into work everyday and walks the rest. She's 68.
Meanwhile, politicians talk for hours and say not a damn thing worth hearing. Then they collect their $100k/yr government pensions for life.
Meanwhile, CEOs fill their indoor heated pools with cash they received just for quitting.
Meanwhile, your government continues to fuck you, your loved ones, the people of other sovereign nations, the people who educated and protect you. They steal your money, other peoples' money, lose 363 tons of it, and can't think of anything to do about it other than point a few Blue or Red fingers.
Meanwhile, you read this article, feel a little bit of outrage, maybe a little disgust, maybe a healthy dose of indignation. You dislike me for blathering on about it. You think, vaguely, that you could solve all these problems with your vote. Think again.
-pb
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
zephyra:
That kind of turns me on - you taking a such a political stance. Yummy.
zephyra:
And that my puppybreath, is the reason I don't agree with the way this country is being ran right now. Have you heard of Halliburton? Or all this crap going on with Merck Pharmaceuticals right now in Texas (the HPV vaccine they want to give to ALL 6th graders)? Crap I tell you, crap.