This reminds me of when the Coalition Provisional Authority enlisted a bunch of 20-something Americans and otherwise unqualified but politically connected people to rebuild Iraq after the 2003 US invasion washingtonpost.com/politics/kushn…
I once chatted with another 20-something American in the sauna at my gym in Cairo. He said he’d gone from selling “Yankees suck” shirts outside Fenway Park to a job promoting Iraqi civil society for the Coalition Provisional Authority. I will never forget it.
That guy from the sauna later went on to write a book about his experience going from Fenway Park t-shirt vendor to working for the American occupation authorities in Iraq. I haven’t thought about any of this in years. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/298105/b…
If anyone is interested in learning more about this sort of thing or how the Coalition Provisional Authority operated in general I’d recommend reading “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by @rajivscribe amazon.com/Imperial-Life-…
