The Duck of Minerva

…didn’t see this coming….

by Jon Western

27 October 2009, 0212 EDT


The first oil contract with the Iraqi government goes to China’s CNPC and they are not hiring local labor. From the BBC: “Left Behind By Iraq’s Oil Rush on why the locals are not getting jobs:

There were hopes too, when the Chinese company first arrived, of an employment bonanza.

“We thought everyone will find a job,” said Zahi, a village elder.

So far, they have taken on just a handful of al-Mazzagh’s residents as guards.

But the CNPC says there is little more they can do for local people.

“We are sorry, but they don’t have skills and they can’t speak English,” says a site manager who agreed to come out to talk to the BBC.

English is a job requirement?

Jon Western has spent the last fifteen years teaching IR in liberal arts colleges at Mount Holyoke College and the Five Colleges in western Massachusetts. He has an eclectic range of intellectual interests but often writes on international security, U.S. foreign policy, military intervention, and human rights. He occasionally shares his thoughts about professional life in liberal arts colleges. In his spare time he coaches middle school soccer, mentors the local high school robotics team, skis, and sails.

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