An Analytical Response to Billions Over Baghdad Essay

An Analytical Response to Billions Over Baghdad - Essay Example Everyone has waited for the smoke to clear, and viola, the rats–the Coalition Provisional Authority (C.P.A.) that is–have to do some explaining, and if possible some serious accounting. The tone varies from being argumentative and provoking. It has also galvanized someone else’s belief that indeed there is corruption and that the US government â€Å"cares only about ensuring that an accounting does not occur.† The level of discourse is already appropriate to young adults. The only problem it posed is the nature of the issue. Although â€Å"Billions over Baghdad† is good to be read, the issue does not appeal well to the majority of the adolescents except to those interested in listening intrigues. The issue never went to center stage except for some congressional hearings and immediately after the series of hearings it all gone like nothing happened. Another setback is the quantity and quality of details. The authors, however, can’t be faulted in the lack of details because a controversy like this is so secretive that people inside refused to talk. Now the hanging inquiries left by the authors dwell on the certainty of accounting the lost $9 billion out of the $12 billion shipped from Federal Reserve to Baghdad and how it vanished so quickly. It also made ourselves ask why the people in Department of Defense and C.P.A. are so unwilling to talk about the unaccounted $9 Billion. The claim of the author is that the people behind the C.P.A. and even the Department of Defense had allowed all the circumstances for the cesspool to propagate. Consequently, the Department of Defense hasn’t shown any determination to resolve the scandal. The secretary of Defense is reluctant to clear the matter and C.P.A. administrator L. Paul Bremer III has also decided to let go of the contractors who profited. All the Department of Defense has done is to shrug it off. The author is correct in pointing out that the situation is indeed odd . With the way how the administration handled the scandal and its jaded effort to put the responsible behind bars, the C.P.A. mess might not be proven under court proceedings. Another claim rightfully pointed out by the author is the existence of widespread corruption. They pointed out that opportunity of corruption exists everywhere from earning kickbacks, having ghost employees and bloating the charge even for daily meals. They also pointed out the widespread mismanagement and the failure to exercise command responsibility. It was very distressing when an army officer representing C.P.A. â€Å"had crossed out the original price and doubled it† after the hospital administrator signed the contract. Another was what Frank Willis has encountered during his stint as a senior adviser to the Iraqi transportation ministry. â€Å"The neat bundles of cash looked almost like play money and the temptation to handle them was irresistible,† Willis said when he returned to his offi ce to find â€Å"piles and piles of shrink-wrapped $100 bills stacked on a table† (vanityfair.com). Good enough that the Billions over Baghdad has included the NorthStar and the Custer Battles in the frame to magnify more the claim that there are corruption and mismanagement. It was a diligent effort by Steele to uncover the shrouded NorthStar; and his effort have made it clear to everyone that the C.P.A. was never sincere in the way it discharged its duties and

The break-up Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The break-up - Essay Example This relationship leads to development of hilarious events in the couple’s life which generates good amount of laughter from the audience. Hence, even though the movie The Break-Up discards some regular genre conventions of a romantic/screwball comedy through its romantic setting, eccentric characters and humorous situations, it still fulfills the genre requirements of romantic/screwball comedy. Genre requirement Screwball comedy movies are the movies that are based on the hilarious situations that arise from the interactions or the encounters between the people who are ‘opposite’ to each other in various ways. For a film to be categorized in the genre of screwball comedy, it requires to have the clash of the ‘opposites’, humorous situations, eccentric characters, and a storyline involving romantic and comedy themes. The movie The Break-Up has all these aspects. Clash of the ‘opposites’ The movie The Break-Up tells the story of two charac ters, Gary and Brooke, whose romantic relationship starts to fall apart due to the unfulfilled expectations from each other. The two lead characters in the movie, Gary and Brooke, are completely opposite to each other. Their personalities, their choices, their lifestyle, etc. differ drammatically. For example, Brooke is a perfectionist and conscious about cleanliness. On the other hand, Gary is least bothered about cleanliness and has the habit of leaving his clothes, accessories and video game stuff all around the house. While Brooke is perfect in her dressing, weight and appearance, Gary is careless about his appearance and is overweight and dresses casually. The ‘opposite’ patterns are visible in their behavior also. Brooke is physically active and ambitious person while Gary is extremely lazy and has a laid back attitude. Brooke cares about emotional support while Gary is zero in emotional quotient. He spends most of his time playing his video game and is irresponsi ble about his duties in house and in the relationship. These differences in their personalities give a comic feel to the movie. There are many funny situations in the movie which arise due to incompatibility between Brooke and Gary. For example, when Brooke asks Gary to help her in arranging the table and complaints about bringing just three lemons when she had asked for twelve, he alludes to her art profession and says that Michelangelo ended up doing a masterpiece as he worked alone and did not ask anyone else to help. Also, he says that when he was making the sixteenth chapel, he did not ask other guys to help him saying that he did the first fifteen chapels and now he needs their help. Gary tries to suggest to Brooke that she is a super achiever and she does things perfect when she does it alone. On this comment, Brooke reminds him that it was not the ‘sixteenth’ chapel, but ‘Sistine’ chapel that Michelangelo painted. This generates a great laughter. Th e incident where Brooke asks him to bring twelve lemons to decorate a vase and he brings only three also generates laughter. Criticizing Gary for bringing just three lemons, she says that Michelangelo was able to do a perfect job because when he asked for twelve brushes, he was given twelve brushes and not three. This conversation shows that Gary has absolutely no knowledge about art and painting world, which is passion of Brooke’s life. This shows the conflict in their likings. Also, Gary feels that