Naomi Klein does seem a little confused here.
Three months after the
tsunami hit Aceh, the New York Times reported that "almost nothing
seems to have been done to begin repairs and rebuilding". The dispatch
could have come from Iraq, where, as the Los Angeles Times has
reported, all Bechtel’s allegedly rebuilt water plants have started to
break down, one more in a litany of reconstruction screw-ups. It could
have come from Afghanistan, where President Karzai blasted "corrupt,
wasteful and unaccountable" foreign contractors for "squandering the
precious resources that Afghanistan received in aid".
But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding, that may be because rebuilding is not its purpose.
Right, OK, got you. The current method of rebuilding doesn’t work very well. We need to do better.
Last summer, in the lull
of the August media doze, the Bush administration’s doctrine of
preventive war took a major leap forward. On August 5 the White House
created the office of the coordinator for reconstruction and
stabilisation, headed by Carlos Pascual, the former ambassador to
Ukraine. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict" plans for
up to 25 countries that are not, as yet, in conflict. According to
Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale
reconstruction operations in different countries "at the same time",
each lasting "five to seven years".
Fittingly, a government
devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing
office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction. Gone are the days of
waiting for wars to break out and drawing up plans to pick up the
pieces. Pascual’s office keeps "high risk" countries on a "watch list"
and assembles rapid-response teams made up of private companies, NGOs
and members of thinktanks – some, Pascual told an audience at the
Centre for Strategic and International Studies, will have
"pre-completed" contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken.
And the Bush "regime" (as dear Naomi would no doubt call it at times) has set up an office to try and plan how to do these things better. To work out where the next problem might occur, to marshal the requisite assets ahead of time, in short, to be able to leap into action, prepared, with a plan and resources, if, as, and when such action is required.
Oddly, she doesn’t seem to be in favour of it. Let’s run the logic again.
1) Current reconstruction is bad because we don’t plan enough.
2) The US is planning for future such problems.
That’s bad.
Err, folks, and this woman is considered one of the leading campaigners for all things leftish? Sheesh.
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