That winding path of wartime corruption and shady business deals--a snake, says progressive journalist Naomi Klein, slithering from the battlefields in Baghdad through lobbyist firms in London and Washington, headquarters in Houston and San Francisco--ends, of all places, in Durham.
The Research Triangle Institute, a corporation Duke founded in 1958 in conjunction with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, has won a contract initially worth $167 million to set up regional caucuses in Iraq as part of the administration's effort to establish democracy.
"You, more than anyone else in the country or world, are involved in a crucial decision in whether Iraq has a democracy or an 'appointocracy,'" Klein said, speaking Wednesday night before an audience of about 200 in Reynolds Theater.
Klein, who has written for The Nation, Ms. and Newsweek and authored "No Logo," a leading book on corporate imperialism, lambasted President George W. Bush as a strategist, a leader and a person--yet Klein insisted, in a Machiavellian sort of way, that she remains optimistic.
"Democracy is the only excuse [for invading Iraq] that Bush has left," she said, also describing the president as "an older, male version of Paris Hilton."
"It's so... important and hopeful and exciting to that think that out of this disaster, something good could happen," Klein continued.
Anyone who thinks the war in Iraq is going badly need only consult a government contractor to find a second opinion, she said.
While attending "Rebuilding in Iraq II," a Washington conference, Klein heard one subcontractor speak with words of optimism about the continuing resistance.
"[He said,] 'Look, there's a lot of bad news,'" Klein recalled. "'But for every helicopter that goes down, another one has to be built.' That's looking death in the face and seeing an opportunity."
Klein repeatedly questioned the Bush definition of democracy, charging also that the June 30 deadline Bush has declared for the beginning of free Iraqi elections entails little more than a publicity stunt geared toward the Aug. 30 start of the Republican National Convention.
"I'm not talking about holding ritualized elections every four years where the decisions are pre-made," Klein said, alluding to the authority L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian official in Iraq, wields and may retain over the Iraqi regional caucuses. "I'm talking about the real, messy business of having people rule themselves, making decisions that sometimes you won't like and your government certainly won't like. That's democracy."
Economic policy in Iraq--which includes a flat 15 percent income tax rate and privatization of water, gas and other utilities--represents a "Republican dream" too radical for the United States, Klein said.
She also charged the Coalition Provisional Authority, Bremer's organization, with knowingly defying international law, a fact that concerns contracting corporations such as Halliburton and Bechtel only due to the consequent reluctance of insurance companies to grant them expropriation insurance.
"Iraq is a pot of honey, and it's attracting a lot of flies," Klein said, paraphrasing Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "But the honey isn't just oil--it's schools, hospitals, prisons, water.... And the flies aren't just Halliburton."
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