That Old ‘Saigon Feeling’

My latest New Matilda column discusses Patrick Cockburn’s fine book on Iraq, The Occupation:

Cockburn’s latest book, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (Verso Books, 2006) is a startling examination of ”˜Coalition’ mismanagement, corruption, imperial arrogance and stupidity. He depicts a superpower that was simply incapable of or unwilling to understand the nation they were invading. He offers an early example:

One place where the US might have hoped for a sympathetic hearing was among the brokers on the Baghdad stock exchange. But in 2003 control of the exchange was given to a 24-year-old American whose main credential for the job was his family’s contributions to the Republican Party. He allegedly failed to renew the lease on a building housing the exchange, which consequently stayed shut for a year.

My New Matilda archive is here.

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