Pretending It's Hunky Dory

First there was the insane notion of building a theme park in the middle of Baghdad and now there's talk of Afghanistan naming it's first national park.

It's all propaganda, of course. The empire desperately needs to establish it's legitimacy in these far flung conquests and show that good old USof A values triumph even in the midst of ongoing warcrimes. There are just a few problems that need to be ironed out as the conquerors try to remake their rubble into little americas.

The Disney style amusement area planned for Baghdad is destined to be built on 50 acres of land next to the "green zone" and is supposed to have a skateboard park. It's being designed by the people who brought into the world Disneyland and “The people need this kind of positive influence. It’s going to have a huge psychological impact,” says Llewellyn Werner, developer. But the concept isn't entirely altruistic as another quote suggests:

"After explaining skate…boarding, Werner tells the assembled Iraqi business and government men, “I’m a businessman. I’m not here because I think you’re nice people. I think there’s money to be made here.”

Baghdad's Disneyworld is supported by the pentagon and Fox news who thinks it's a "market signal that the arrow is pointing up", whatever the hell that means. But you bet they would, because this psyop is intended to destroy what's left of Iraqi cultural identity and replace it with american shlock values. The intention of the invasion and occupation was to do just that, with Mesopotamia history being one of the first things destroyed after the shock and awe when the Baghdad Museum was systematically looted. This parcel of land that's about to be bulldozed is called al Zawra park and has been a serene and cool retreat for Iraqis for generations, but they now need a loud and garish amusement center to forget the death and destruction wrought by the occupiers, so goodbye palm trees and pools.

The national park scheme in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains might at first seem a fine idea to us americans, but again it's all just lipstick on a pig. It's designation will be in name only because it will be years before the area will ever see any visitors.

It takes a gruelling off-road drive of at least 10 hours on a shitty road just to get there and then there's the little problem of terrorism, kidnapping and landmines left over from the war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in 2000. Just like in Iraq, the plan to designate this huge area - 220 square miles - ignores the fact that many people who have lived here since forever won't appreciate the land being off limits to traditional usage. They farm and graze the land and fish the lakes. They won't accept government theft of their livelihoods and are unsure of any compensation, especially from a corrupt and thoroughly impotent puppet regime where the president is derisively called the "mayor of Kabul" Profits fom this proposed scheme will be syphoned away and the locals will never benefit.

No, there might be a few good intentions here, but it smells to me like another ploy dreamt up by the propagandists to bamboozle stupid americans into thinking their warfare is noble and well intentioned, especially during an election cycle. Blasting into these countries and destroying their infrastructures and traditional societies can't be covered up with happy face ideas, and donating thousands of skateboards to Iraqi kids won't cure cluster bomb amputations.