To continue on the Michael Kinsley column I noted a few days ago, Kinsley spends much of the column griping about the fact that a few big, well-connected American companies will get contracts in Iraq. Perhaps the best rejoinder to this is from ScrappleFace. Kinsley, perhaps reverting to form, never suggests that the companies at issue are not the best-qualified to do the jobs; he’s just looking for the handiest mud.
That being said, there is a legitimate point at the end of the column, if you can last to read that far: that, because the U.S. is footing much of the bill for rebuilding Iraq, we should hire the best contractors regardless of their nationality (even if that means French companies), and that principles of free trade and international trade conventions prohibit us in any event from discriminating against foreign companies. A weighty question is implicated: should the U.S. retaliate at all against the nations that opposed the war? I hope to get into that in more detail later.