What he meant by model Democracy
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Battlefield of Dreams
Call me slow, but it never dawned on me until I read this column that what the Neocons were up to in Iraq was not simply to produce a model democracy to be the envy of the Arab world, but to produce a model for us!
That's right - their whole idea of government, taxes, privitization, etc. would be put to the test by using Iraq as the "model democracy." (Yes, we continue to mix up economic and polical ideologies linking one system to the other as if extreme capitalism and democracy were Siamese twins. )
As to the business of privitization of prison guards, Krugman doesn't go far enough. From what I saw on CNN last night these people are out of the legal reach of everyone - they are out of the legal reach of Army courts, US courts, and Iraqi courts because the latter simply don't exist yet. So while the soldiers will be punished, some other folks there just for the big bucks will get off free. They may lose their jobs, but that's it.
Let's hear it for privitization!
And have you noticed how this guy who escaped (or walked out, or whatever) from his Iraqi captors is absolutely front page news - at the top of every newscast, etc.? I mean, I'm happy for him and his family, but I think he's dominating the news because we're desperate for a positive story out of Iraq.
Thus, for example, the New Bedford paper put his story at the top of Page 1 with a little incidental mention - difficult to find - referencing an inside story about a local soldier who was killed. And that soldier was one of 11 US soldiers killed!
So a local soldier working at low pay gets killed - put the story inside. And a mecenary working at astronomical pay that can't be taxed gets away from his captors and he's a hero.
