圖書標籤: 2007NYTimesBest10books 外國文學 state nonfiction iraq/ building
发表于2024-12-24
Imperial Life in the Emerald City pdf epub mobi txt 電子書 下載 2024
An unprecedented account of life in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas, and sparkling swimming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq.
The Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the Zone: into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America—a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theater that screened shoot-’em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service—much of it run by Halliburton. Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of twentysomethings hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country.
In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions—a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production. His almost comic initiatives anger the locals and help fuel the insurgency.
Chandrasekaran details Bernard Kerik’s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical travesties: the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad’s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons scientists from defecting to Iran; Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on Roe v. Wade; people with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer’s ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule.
This is a startling portrait of an Oz-like place where a vital aspect of our government’s folly in Iraq played out. It is a book certain to be talked about for years to come.</p>
一個駐伊拉剋記者講述美國扳倒薩達姆後對伊拉剋進行的悲催戰後重建。布什政府操著上帝的心,做著惡魔的事。所謂的把民主自由帶給中東,也不過如此。
評分一個駐伊拉剋記者講述美國扳倒薩達姆後對伊拉剋進行的悲催戰後重建。布什政府操著上帝的心,做著惡魔的事。所謂的把民主自由帶給中東,也不過如此。
評分為瞭電影而看,想不到寫的很好,但更像是浮世繪的寫法,而不像敘事,不知道電影時怎麼拍的。布什和他所謂的新保守主義的人怎麼能夠high到哪種程度,我不知曉,但我想學習學習。另外就是永遠需要記得:閉門造車是問題,一廂情願是問題,鬍B來是問題,不因地適宜是問題,政府官僚主義是問題,還有就是execution永遠是最難的一部分。
評分一個駐伊拉剋記者講述美國扳倒薩達姆後對伊拉剋進行的悲催戰後重建。布什政府操著上帝的心,做著惡魔的事。所謂的把民主自由帶給中東,也不過如此。
評分一個駐伊拉剋記者講述美國扳倒薩達姆後對伊拉剋進行的悲催戰後重建。布什政府操著上帝的心,做著惡魔的事。所謂的把民主自由帶給中東,也不過如此。
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Imperial Life in the Emerald City pdf epub mobi txt 電子書 下載 2024