Our Reviled White Elephant
Welcome to the new US embassy
"Baghdad is a city of ruins - of burnt-out homes, of shops wrecked by suicide bombs, of the crumbling shells of Saddam-era palaces and ministries destroyed by smart bombs in the US invasion of 2003.
There is one notable exception. It is probably the only big new building project in the capital in the past four years. It is the new US Embassy on the west bank of the Tigris which the contractors will transfer to the US Government officially today."
The empire spared no cost with this monstrosity, but we poor slobs who paid for it won't get to see the inside of it until the pentagon releases photos. They aren't giving media tours.
"This is the largest US Embassy built – roughly the size of Vatican City – and at $600 million (£300 million) the most expensive. At a time when millions of Baghdadis outside the green zone receive only a couple of hours of water and electricity daily, Iraqis observe that this project has been completed on time, on budget, and is entirely self-sufficient with its own fresh water supply, electricity plant, sewage treatment facility, maintenance shops and warehouses.
“People are very angry,” said one young Iraqi. “It’s for the Americans, not for the Iraqis.”
I take exception to one sentence in this article though - "Critics also portray the new compound as a symbol of American isolation and occupation, and a sign of how little confidence the US has in Iraq’s future."
Au contraire. The US has plenty of misplaced confidence in Iraq's future, hence the grandiose architectural presence. The empire is confident that it and it's expeditionary legions will be in Iraq for a long, long time. And they're confident the Iraqis won't burn it to the ground as soon as they can, or that it won't become a pile of expensive rubble once the first cruise missiles slam into Tehran.
Compare that pompous castle with the construction of the Baghdad Police College in this video, built by a California company again with our tax dollars:
"Baghdad is a city of ruins - of burnt-out homes, of shops wrecked by suicide bombs, of the crumbling shells of Saddam-era palaces and ministries destroyed by smart bombs in the US invasion of 2003.
There is one notable exception. It is probably the only big new building project in the capital in the past four years. It is the new US Embassy on the west bank of the Tigris which the contractors will transfer to the US Government officially today."
The empire spared no cost with this monstrosity, but we poor slobs who paid for it won't get to see the inside of it until the pentagon releases photos. They aren't giving media tours.
"This is the largest US Embassy built – roughly the size of Vatican City – and at $600 million (£300 million) the most expensive. At a time when millions of Baghdadis outside the green zone receive only a couple of hours of water and electricity daily, Iraqis observe that this project has been completed on time, on budget, and is entirely self-sufficient with its own fresh water supply, electricity plant, sewage treatment facility, maintenance shops and warehouses.
“People are very angry,” said one young Iraqi. “It’s for the Americans, not for the Iraqis.”
I take exception to one sentence in this article though - "Critics also portray the new compound as a symbol of American isolation and occupation, and a sign of how little confidence the US has in Iraq’s future."
Au contraire. The US has plenty of misplaced confidence in Iraq's future, hence the grandiose architectural presence. The empire is confident that it and it's expeditionary legions will be in Iraq for a long, long time. And they're confident the Iraqis won't burn it to the ground as soon as they can, or that it won't become a pile of expensive rubble once the first cruise missiles slam into Tehran.
Compare that pompous castle with the construction of the Baghdad Police College in this video, built by a California company again with our tax dollars:
posted by nolocontendere at 5:49 AM
2 Comments:
i wish they'd call these "smart" bombs what they really are, which is anything but "smart". the first rounds that were set off had a 0% success rate. the first infrastructures to go belonged to private citizens.
You're right, it's only labeling for the rubes, when Iran is pummeled all we'll hear is how smashing our wonderful shock and fucking awe is doing to bend those ragheads to their knees.
Post a Comment
<< Home