Gaidar Invited to Shock, Awe Iraq

politics > iraq > cruel and unusual punishment
"The architect of Russia's at times disastrous transition to a market economy, Yegor Gaidar, has been invited by the U.S.-led coalition authority in Iraq to help craft a recovery plan for that country's war-torn economy."
I've been looking for a commentary article on this astounding and farcical development, in which Gaidar, the architect of one of the past century's greatest economical disasters, is invited to advise on a recovery plan for Iraq; hell, I even started to write one myself, but became bogged down on the evil little details of the most effective mass pauperization effort ever conceived and executed... But Matt Taibbi has done an excellent and much more efficient and informed (not to mention delightfully worded) job of it, than I ever could:
Gaidar last week noted the "similarities" between the post-Soviet economy and Iraq, and the World Bank has noted that the Ba'athist party "modeled its economy on Eastern European communism," hinting that similar reforms might be needed. Anyone who's lived in those places knows what this means: privatization, mass layoffs, the gutting of healthcare and education and the creation of a super-rich class of ruthless, America-friendly dickheads.