US-backed plan sees shiny future for embattled Green Zone (delusional)

[UpInArms]

Source: Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad.

That's all part of a five-year development "dream list" — or what some dub an improbable fantasy — to transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone from a walled fortress into a centerpiece for Baghdad's future.

But the $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, the lead military liaison for the project told The Associated Press.

<snip>

Last week, a Los Angeles-based holding company for equity firms, C3, confirmed it was starting a $500 million project to build an amusement park on the outskirts of the Green Zone in an area encompassing the Baghdad Zoo. The first phase, a skateboard park, is scheduled to open this summer.

<snip>

"There is no sewer system, no working power system. Everything here is done on generators. No road system repair work. There are no city services other than the minimal amount we provide to get by," Karnowski said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080504/ap_on_bi_ge/iraq_growing_the_green_zone

---

I surely wish I had some of what these nuts are smokin'!

[Dr.Phool]

1. An amusement park?

I thought they had some scary rides at Busch Gardens.

[Raine1967]

6. But THIS park

will have an IED bumper car ride.

These people are disgusting.

[ladywnch]

2. when I see the Carlyle Group investing ITS money in developement

in Bagdad THEN I'll believe it's working.

[jtrockville]

15. ^ BINGO (nt)

[NashVegas]

3. We'll Entertain Them To Oblivion

Isn't it funny how the entertainment industry is such a great tool that takes artists and all manner of creative people, who would normally be agitators for change, and puts them to use distracting people?

[Bush_MUST_Go]

4. Backing of the Pentagon. That means OUR military dies so others get rich.

[Marie26]

19. It's not for the Iraqis

This amusement park will be smack-dab in the middle of Baghdad, in the US-controlled Green Zone. It'll be for the US military & contractors & their allies; so that the top 1/10% can amuse themselves while the city outside the Green Zone falls into violence & anarchy. I don't think this is a delusion at all, IMO they're actually going to build the thing. It's a perfect example of Klein's description of the Baghdad Green Zone - "A Carnival cruise ship parked in a sea of despair."

[Raine1967]

5. I See chocolate and Candy

and Marshmallow dreams...

WTF?!?!? They are totally delusional!

How about seeing a place where people aren't being murdered on a daily basis?

[UpInArms]

7. it was "sweets and flowers"

The book is framed by the story of Kanan Makiya, an idealistic Iraqi exile whose writings had exposed the evil of Saddam Hussein's republic of fear and who had come to see American power as Iraq's only hope for a better future. Desperate to do "the right thing being done by the wrong people," Makiya threw in his lot with some slippery fellow exiles and various American factions all pursuing their own agendas. He was ultimately ushered into the Oval Office to tell President Bush that a grateful Iraqi public "will greet the troops with sweets and flowers.">

[saigon68]

8. "will greet the troops with sweets and flowers.">

Yes a Few IED's and a Parade in Fallujah for a few mercenaries.

The Mercenaries loved the Barbecue that was thrown for them

They were the guests of "Honor"

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. I want what they are smoking

PICTURE YOURSELF IN A BOAT ON A RIVER
WITH TANGERINE TREES AND MARMALADE SKIES.

WHERE ROCKING HORSE PEOPLE EAT MARSHMALLOW PIES.
EV´RYONE SMILES AS YOU DRIFT PAST THE FLOWERS
THAT GROW SO INCREDIBLY HIGH.

NEWSPAPER TAXIS APPEAR ON THE SHORE
WAITING TO TAKE YOU AWAY.
CLIMB IN THE BACK WITH YOUR HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
AND YOU'RE GONE.


KABOOOOOM !!!!!


Yep...that's gonna be quite a theme park...

[jwirr]

10. A gated community! What a unique idea. To hell with the riffraff out

side the gate.:sarcasm:

[MilesColtrane]

11. Amusement park?

So George Bush, you just stole the highest office in the United States, ripped up the Constitution, promoted new family values like torture, bankrupted the futures of over 300 million Americans, instituted policies that have earned the country the acrimony of the entire world, and guaranteed a hundred years of blowback. What's next for you?

"Ahm goin' to IEDland!"

[Downtown Hound]

12. An amusement park? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I swear to God, try and imagine a movie about this presidency back in oh, 1995 say. Even a movie about a potentially disastrous American president like this one could never have imagined these kinds of surreal, imbecilic, utterly stupid and laughable ideas. Could you have ever imagined a government that would think of building an amusement park in the middle of a combat zone? This group makes the humor in Dr Strangelove not only relevant, but seriously tame by comparison.

[bluesmail]

13. Disaster capitalism hard at work.

shock and then awe them, usurp their land and then rebuild for the filthy rich, aka top 1/10th of 1%.

[Marie26]

20. They're privatizing Iraqi land for the park.

"Everything Here is for Profit"

The site is a functioning national park, which is slated for privatization. It is prime real estate for the US investors. The California holding company C3 plans to use the land for lucrative investments in hotels and upscale housing. No doubt, for the project to be profitable and financially viable, it will also require direct financing by the Pentagon.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t making money”:

Mr Werner will retain exclusive rights to housing and hotel developments, which he says will be both culturally sensitive and enormously profitable... "I also have this wonderful sense that we’re doing the right thing – we’re going to employ thousands of Iraqis. But mostly everything here is for profit.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20080428&articleId=8837

The park is going to be designed by Disney "imagineers":

"The park will be designed by Ride and Show Engineering (RSE) RSE founders Eduard Feuer and William Watkins pioneered Walt Disney's "Imagineering", the design and engineering division of the Walt Disney Company, before setting up RSE as a separate corporate entity. ... Through the use of motion based simulations and sophisticated entertainment equipment, the harsh daily realities of poverty and military occupation are replaced by a World of fiction and fantasy.

The concept underlying Disney's Imagineering (developed by RSE) is to "overcome the barriers between reality and dreams".

The objective is to replace reality by a dream world. Iraq's daily realities of death, destruction and torture are replaced by a "Dream World Made in America".



Can you imagine Disney-style animatronic rides in the middle of Iraq? Robots singing "It's a Small World After All?" They're also donating 200,000 American skateboards as part of the "reconstruction effort." Because more than schools, food or safety, Iraqi kids really just need a skateboard park. It's just so bizarre.

[Eugene]

14. Then there is the question of whether the Iraqi government even wants U.S. involvement ...

in developing the center of their capital.

If this had any realistic chance of working, it might
look like colonization.

This plan can only succeed at lining the pockets of
properly connected contractors.

[LynnTheDem]

16. While the people of Iraq starve to death or are shot as "terrorists"

or are locked up without charges and tortured.

Disgusting and disgraceful.

[Festivito]

17. Shhhh! There are CONs being fooled! Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!

See, they have a plan.

Well, there are critics, but, I(THE CONNED) always think the truthiness is somewhere in the middle.

Now watch while I take a hard stand on some topic that doesn't affect me.

[onager]

18. We are here to stay!

Why, Bank Of America is building branches all over the country, and we built the biggest deep-water port in the world at Cam Ranh Bay...

Er, sorry. Wrong war.

Just a sneaky reminder that...

If you haven't done so already, check out some of the Vietnam-era documentaries like Emile de Antonio's In The Year of the Pig and Peter Davis' Hearts and Minds.

You'll see fat-cat Vietnamese "patriots" sitting around their country clubs saying exactly the same sort of BS that's in this article. "The Americans will never leave Vietnam!" "American companies are investing in Vietnam!"

Over at IMDB, one irate reviewer said Hearts and Minds was sickening Commie propaganda. He suggested that, for the REAL truth about the war, we read the autobiograhy of that fine patriot Vice-President Nguyen Cao Ky. Who was running a liquor store in Orange County, CA, the last I heard.

[proust78]

21. The 100 years in Iraq will go by in a breeze

Nice suite at the Mariott, a rollercoaster ride... you call this occupation? It's bliss for BushCo.