Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Free Ride

The lovely thing about our country is that you can love an institution and also protest it.

I would like to protest a headline today -- written, I would assume, by the NYTimes -- and a lede written by the AP:

Iraq's Financial Free Ride May End

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 15, 2008

Filed at 5:33 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraq's financial free ride may be over.

Those damned Iraqi's -- they've really been making out like bandits over there. It's so their fault I can't afford to fill up my Volvo!

I've been trying to find some numbers on the state of the personal economy in Iraq -- I can't find much that's very satisfying. According to the State Department and CIA websites, the average income is $3,000 a year.

They have power for about 3 hours a day -- and there isn't enough power to run the hospitals. In the first war we bombed the hell out of their infrastructures and have never rebuilt them.

I found an amazing photo assignment from 2003 from Time Magazine -- it's really beautiful.
http://www.time.com/time/onassignment/iraqlife/index_blank.html#

And it makes me ill to think that this is the message we are going to disseminate now that we need to withdraw. Free Ride. Yes, they didn't pay for it. Yes, they got taken somewhere.

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