Reconstruction
“Iraq’s interior minister was giving awards to 75 members of the Wolf brigade anti-insurgency unit Wednesday when the lights went out, a sign of the country’s inability to restore basic services more than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Bayan Jabr’s assistants were forced to shine a flashlight at the citations so that he could read them.” — Associated Press, May 25.
Freedom, NATO-style
“NATO peacekeepers sent F-16 fighter jets to a northeastern Afghanistan province on Monday in a show of force to disperse thousands of protesters, police said.” — Reuters, May 30.
Can’t fool all the people all the time
“The rejection [by French voters of the draft European Union constitution] was blamed ... on a perception that ‘economic reform’ is a euphemism for scaling down continental Europe’s traditionally generous public welfare system and extensive job protection in favour of a more fend-for-yourself, Anglo-American model.” — Reuters, May 31.
The penny drops
“I don’t think they ever wanted us here. They always tried to get the most money, machinery and knowledge they could out of us while giving little in return.” — An unnamed “manager of a major European company” that is pulling out of socialist Cuba after operating there for 10 years, quoted by Reuters, May 31. The Reuters report noted that in recent speeches Cuban President Fidel “Castro said Cuba reluctantly opened up to foreign investment during the deep crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union”.
From Green Left Weekly, June 8, 2005.
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