About the Author
The Author
Andrew Heyman lives and works in Seattle Washington USA. His true vocation is political writing and agitating for the radical idea that a society that is governed by, and serves the needs of the people is best.
Andrew is also the member of a wonderful family with his loving wife, Pam, and the proud father of 2 wonderful children, Josie and Adam. They all keep him from becoming immersed in blogging to an unhealthy degree, and remind him of why he cares about what is going on in this world in the first place.
You can email him at kiacyclic-AT-gmail.com.
Its a Small Occupation Afterall--Baghdad Amusement Park?
The "Age of Reason" is over.
According to The Progress Report, the Pentagon has big plans for the Green Zone in American occupied Iraq:
With the help of the Defense Department, the Los Angeles-based company C3 is "developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum" and "is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland." More than that though, the Pentagon is also backing a $5 billion plan to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. embassy that will include luxury hotels, a shopping center, and condos in an effort to "transform" the Green Zone into a "centerpiece for Baghdad's future."
Washington has officially lost its collective mind. Everything in Iraq will be fine once we build a big shopping mall and some rides for the kids. Right. The fact that this passes for serious policy puts our government on the same ground as the one found in the movie Brazil.
And to all the folks out there that look to Barack Obama (whose performance in the presidential primaries yesterday put him on the road to sealing the Democratic nomination) need to think again:
Obama, who, on his past record, is believed to have the best policy on military withdrawal from Iraq, does not seem to intend to end the occupation. Susan Rice, a senior foreign affairs adviser to the Obama campaign, reiterated what we have heard from Bush administration officials over the past five years: that the number of US troops Obama would keep in Iraq "depends on the circumstances on the ground".
While Sen. Obama does call for an effective end to a large portion of the occupation, the massive embassy/amusement park/shopping mall is another matter:
Today he not only refrains from calling for total withdrawal - he does not address the removal of the "enduring" US military bases in Iraq and the embassy scheduled to open there this month.
Make no mistake, we are going to have to end this ourselves, and that will only come through popular and organized dissent. Once it is too politically costly, the troops will come home.
Nice, reminds me of the album/cd cover for The Dickies 'Stukas Over
Disneyland' and has me thinking, put Disney over there, and they'd have the
whole country taken care of, turning the average Iraqi into a mindless
corporate drone, and, would that be a bad thing? Yeah, I'm guessing it
would be.