["Persil" is a very old and very popular brand of washing powder in Germany. It long had a reputation for being THE thing to clear up even the nastiest stains. After the Second World War, certain jobs in the Brit/French/US sectors required the applicant to submit a document (a Schein) which certified that the holder had in no way participated in any sort of Nazi party business or related nastiness. Folks called these things Persil Scheine, since they washed away the past, no matter how dirty.]

The hawks have been (I thought, overly) fond of using West Germany as an example of how one can rebuild a country one has just destroyed. To compare Iraq now to Germany then requires more than a bit of imagination.

Never let it be said that the US government lacks imagination, however. Sure, things haven't gone smoothly so far, but soft! What light through yon end of the tunnel breaks? It is the (middle) east! And the evildoers who hate freedom are the sun!

Saddam's former officers to be offered jobs

And they won't even need Persil Scheine!


(The money quote in that article, by the way, is this: "We want it to be implemented in the way it was designed." Monorail, anyone?)