Conservative Peace Corp or Ali Babas?

[The Whiskey Priest]

Conservative writer Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard calls them (Those working for the Irag CPA) "a kind of conservative Peace Corps." He says these true believers work 12- to 14-hour days, sacrificing good jobs as lawyers and political wonks to face a life of hardship still punctuated by gunfire.
(http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0418-01.htm)

According to today’s breaking news (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20051117-0926-iraq-contractbribes.html )

And when you consider the low ethics of the conservatives….Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves would seem appropriate.

[YOY]

1. As a returned Peace Corps volunteer I'm insulted

I got paid $150 a month to live on (2K at the end of service) and recieve a lifetime discount at Avis car rental. I bet our noble friends at the Iraq CPA are a bit better compensated.

Betcha Fred Barnes doesn't even really know what the Peace Corps 3 Missions are...most of these neocon fucks don't. We're just a bunch of liberals to them. Ironically, a few of my group were staunch conservatives.

[JHB]

2. And on top of that...

...I'm sure YOY can speak better on this, but I think for the most part Peace Corps volunteers (and they were volunteers, not recruitees who had their resumes on file at RW "think" tanks) were give jobs they could handle. Teaching, community engineering projects, small person-to-person stuff. They weren't charged with drawing up national budgets or running whole civil departments of government. The CPA bunnies were charged with those things, far beyond their expertise, and they made exactly the kind of f***ing mess of it you'd expect.

[YOY]

4. You're pretty much on target there

Yeah they're really sacrificing shitloads...pretty safe for them too I may add.

[leveymg]

3. How many billions are unaccounted for in Iraq?

They were offloading the $100 bills from C-130s by the pallet-load at Baghdad Airport.

Wana bet a sizable portion of that ends up, after a few years, in nice vacation homes for these same true believers and Right-wing wonks? Self-sacrificing, indeed,

Is everyone in?