I remember reading in 2003 about Iraq was lucky that we decided to invade them because if its one thing we know its how to rebuild a country after we bomb the shit out of them. Bombs away (Via Atrios):
“It’s all become trash, broken windows and crumbling buildings,” complained Hussein Karim, a porter looking out from his perch atop a flap of cardboard on the statue’s granite pedestal. “Baghdad,” added his friend, Hussein Abed, “has become a shattered city.”
U.S. combat troops finished withdrawing from Baghdad and other Iraqi cities on June 30. But they leave behind a capital that is forever altered by their presence. Augustus boasted that he found Rome a city of bricks and made it a city of marble. Baghdad was another city of bricks, and a coterie of American generals turned it into a city of cement. Their concrete is everywhere — from the sprawling Green Zone to the barriers and blast walls that line almost every street — reorienting the physical, spiritual and social geography that for more than a millennium was dictated by the lazy bends in the Tigris River.
Mission accomplished, bitches.
What’s interesting is the fact that during WWII all that defense spending actually helped the country – by creating new manufacturing facilities, strengthening the middle class and boosting the overall economy. These past 8 years have done squat except for increasing earnings of oil companies, creating new defense outsourcing industry (with foreign workers) and damaging the overall economy – there’s a lesson right there about where the priorities were. But, thanks for the tax cuts for the top 1% and capital gains.
