Liberal Talk Radio

During the 2004 Election campaign, I mentioned on the show a two-birds solution that seemed logical at the time: Jobs were being outsourced overseas, and unemployment in Iraq was fueling terrorism. So why not, I argued, build call centers in Iraq? Let’s make Citibank and Visa put some skin in the game by hiring Iraqis to handle customer support for American consumers. It would go perfectly with Bush’s post-9/11 “shut up and spend” strategy for keeping the economy humming!

Of course, there were practical considerations: it’s hard to run a call center when you only have 4 hours of electricity per day, for example.

Nevertheless, Intel seems to be pushing ahead with a similar version of the idea:

The Intel Information Technology Center of Excellence is intended to provide IT training to Palestinians and stimulate development of high-tech industry in an area where half the labor force is unemployed. The center is being developed in conjunction with Washington, D.C.-based American Near East Refugee Aid and the Islamic University of Gaza.

“We don’t want to discount the tension in the area … but from our perspective, we view it (the center) as something that can have a positive impact,” said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy. “If you talk to the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, this is exactly the kind of thing they want. They want education, they want paths to improve the economic well-being of their citizens.”

Brilliant! Over to you, Tom Freidman!

Seriously though, here’s the clincher:

The cost to build and equip the center will only be about $1 million, Gubser said, because a dollar goes a lot farther in the Middle East

So, for the cost of the Iraq war to date, we could have built 250,000 of these tech centers around the Middle East. One in every city, town, and oasis from Cairo to Islamabad. Which do you think would have done more to foster a stable, democratic Middle East? Sounds like a no-brainer to me.