Luxury Hotels and Golf: Welcome To The Green Zone
Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad’s International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers. Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage in a luxury hotel, which would not look out of place in Sydney harbour. Then, as twilight falls, a pre-prandial stroll, perhaps, amid the cool of the Tigris Riverfront Park, where the peace is broken only by the soulful cries of egrets fishing.
Improbable though it all may seem, this is how some imaginative types in the US military are envisaging the future of Baghdad’s Green Zone, the much-pummelled redoubt of the Iraqi capital where a bunker shot has until now had very different connotations.
A $5bn (£2.5bn) tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a “dream” makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors. About half of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the US state department or private foreign companies.
The US military released the first tentative artists’ impression yesterday. An army source said the barbed wire, concrete blast barriers and checkpoints that currently disfigure the 5 sq mile area would be replaced by shopping malls, hotels, elegant apartment blocks and leisure parks. “This is at the end of the day an Iraqi-owned area and we will give it back to them with added value,” said the source, who requested anonymity.
Potential investors are being encouraged to take a punt that years ahead, Baghdad’s fortunes may mirror former war-torn cities such as Sarajevo and Beirut that have risen from the ashes.
Marriott International has already signed a deal to build a hotel in the Green Zone, according to Navy Captain Thomas Karnowski, the chief US liaison. Also in the pipeline is a possible $1bn investment from MBI International, a hotel and resorts specialist led by Saudi sheikh, Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber.
One Los Angeles-based firm, C3, has said it wants to build an amusement park on the Green Zone’s outskirts. As part of the first phase, a skateboard park is due to open this summer.
American officials stress that final decisions about reconstruction and development rest with the Iraqi government. Karnowski added that as well as the benefits of renovating and demilitarising an important area of Baghdad, the blueprint would help to create a “zone of influence” around the massive new US Embassy compound being built on the eastern tip of the Green Zone. The $1bn project to move the embassy from Saddam’s old presidential palace is planned for completion later this year.
“When you have $1bn hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbours are. You want to influence what happens in your neighbourhood over time,” Karnowski told Associated Press.
He acknowledged that any project would face formidable difficulties: “There is no sewer system, no working power system. Everything here is done on generators. No road repair work. There are no city services other than the minimal amount we provide to get by.”
There is also the not insignificant matter of the dire security situation. Shia militants under attack from US and Iraqi forces elsewhere in the capital have been launching volleys of rockets on the Green Zone for much of the last month.
Despite the apparent Pentagon enthusiasm, other US officials in Baghdad seemed more sceptical. “We approach this with perhaps a dose of realism,” offered one. “These are issues for the Iraqis to discuss. We do not own the International Zone, and its future is really up to the Iraqis.”
For many Baghdad residents, the Green Zone has been a no-go area for years, first under Saddam and now under the occupation. “What do I care?” shrugged one, Ahmed Hussein. “I don’t have electricity, I don’t have fresh water and I don’t have a job.”
© 2008 The Guardian
An all exclusive club, in a gated community! Shows what the elite of this administration for what they truly are. Monarchists, elites. Let the multitude rot.
And the mindless march of folly moves on and on!
At least President McCain will be able to spend an few days at a time there, relaxing and enjoying the 5 Star treatment in a luxurious outpost of the American Empire. It must be such an inconvenience for President Bush and his evil vice-president to have to sneak in and out in the middle of the night. I know Vice-president Joe Lieberman will appreciate the opportunity to stroll with his wife in the Bagdad moonlight. If we are going to occupy Iraq for 100 more years, it is important that the outpost be a “slice” of America and not suffer with the living conditions of the natives.
Maybe then the diplomatic corps will be will willing to serve extended terms there, and not make the Secretary of State ashamed of them.
I guess the shell holes can double as sand traps on the golf course, and the gentle golfer’s call of “Fore” will be replaced by the shrill yell of “Incoming!”.
Does anyone really think that the Iraqi people will tolerate this? What a great target for would-be terrorists. The empire is going downhill quickly.
Hoa binh
How odd and small minded… They (the Bush regime and its enablers) labor all these years, feed thousands of people (U.S. service men and women as well as Iraqi citizens) into the maw of this neverending occupation, and this is their solution for revitalizing what they’ve destroyed: turning it into a U.S. suburban subdivision.
I do wonder how many Iraqis would actually benefit from such a scheme, should it ever come to fruition. Not too many, I imagine. The work would go to entities like Halliburton and KBR who would, in turn, hire non-Iraqis to do all the heavy lifting. It’s what they’ve done all along.
I imagine the whole of Iraq will be dotted with big churches and christian schools as well in order to “teach the savages” the “christian way” as we did with the Indians here.
Wow, I can just picture this story in the Arab press. Another amazing move to make sure we lose all the hearts and all the minds.
When they are lying, its always interesting how it sneaks out sometimes. For instance, consider all you’ve heard from the Pentagon about not building permanent bases when reading this from the Navy Captain Karnowski.
“When you have $1bn hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbours are. You want to influence what happens in your neighbourhood over time,”
——
I do suspect the term ‘lying around’ for the State Dept employees was an unfortunate slip.
Anybody care to contribute themes for the theme park?
A skatepark? Maybe some future Francis Ford Coppola can have one of his characters say “Ahmed don’t skate!” when he makes the inevitable “Heart of Darkness”-style movie about our occupation of Iraq.
The horror. . . the horror. . .
sick…………..
The citizens of Iraq can’t seem to get adequate water to drink, but the U.S. taxpayers build a golf course? We really have our priorities mixed up!!
Wow, this is what we’re thinking about for the future of Baghdad? A golf course… a place for the upper upper class to hang out on the weekends? Every American and Iraqi is being taken advantage of by the administration, and if you don’t see it you’re blind.
Moreover, Edward…
the Pentagon has an unending (hoping NOT!!) supply of money to solicit such architectural sketches
Let’s see - some of the games in the park could be
waterbo.. er skateboarding,
Dodge Cars - new twist - whoever can drive a course without exploding an IED.
etcetera, etcetera
Now you really know just how Lunatic these people are !
Ever wonder why declining states feel it necessary to spread their degenerative social and cultures cancers to the rest of the world? They must either project outward, or seriously reconstruct themselves internally. The latter never happens because it disrupts the power base.
The U.S. is well past the point where objective, well-intentioned persons could reconstruct the system to actually serve the interests of its citizens. Thus, we contaminate the rest of the world with the very moral and cultural poisons that domestically destroyed us.
Let’s see. We destroyed a country. We destroyed a culture. We destroyed the infrastructure. We destroyed all public utilities, i.e. water, electricity, etc. We destroyed schools, universities, museums with priceless antiquities, hospitals, public parks, zoos, homes, businesses. In the process we displaced about 2-3 million people.
And what our government has in mind, in the way of reparations, for ravaging a country, is skateboards, Disneyland, shopping malls, and golfcourses?
Only in Bushworld.
It’s hot over there. I wonder on what hole they will wash their balls?
I always had a huge problem hitting a golf ball straight when dressed in slacks and shirt. Can’t imagine how it would be while wearing a flak jacket and helmet.
Wonder if we will rebuild the Iraqi hospitals, schools, and ifastructures before construction starts on the theme park and intertainment center? Gonna need a lot of hospitals and morgues there too as more and more people become seriously ill and die from radiation poisoning. Radiation readings in Baghdad are still 2,000 times the safe maximun limit.
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_blowinginthewind.htm
I think you nailed it COCO.
When you start getting mortal fire on the back 9, it is time to call it a day.
Nice to see COMMONDREAMS is running a bit of humor to break up the awful news about our dismal future ……… thanks.
In 2 years, the USA will be struggling to fill a pothole, much less building this monstrosity!
Shopping malls and gold course resorts, sounds to me like a wonderland for the thousand employees occupying the US embassy compound. Shame on us!
Make it six months ~Quousque~
Y’all seem to forget the US’ “Ballistic Missile Shield” project. It won’t work in the US (or Europe, etc), but maybe it will find a new life protecting the Green Zone from incoming home-made rockets and mortars.
Tigris Woods? How about calling it the YouFraidies?
Why is the Pentagon running this show?
Any more evidence needed to prove that Bush NEVER had an ‘exit strategy’?
The idiocy of the great government of the U S OF A!!! Geez!! Disgusting! I think I’m going to vomit.
In Vietnam, the Vietcong easily made inexpensive, twentyone foot long, one foot in diameter poles, that were easily transported by hand in seven, three foot long sections. We called them “telephone poles”.
The problem was, the first eight feet of the poles were stuffed with high explosives, like a thousand pound bomb. The rear section of the pole was stuffed with solid rocket fuel. They had a range of about ten miles and were easily set up and fired. They were only accurate to winthin about a quarter mile, but when they hit they could obliterate a large two story building and when incoming, no one knew where they were gonna hit. ___ Scary.
The only halfway safe place from one of the incoming poles, were arched aircraft shelters that were constructed with foot thick reinforced concrete and don’t be caught standing or huddling in the wide open front and rear doorways.
I like that “obliterate” word, just learned it last week. It sounds more meaningful and omnious, than just saying destroy, wipe out or demolish.
Anyway, imagine if and when some Iraqis who are protesting our militay presence in THEIR country, decide to use telephone poles to exhibit their distaste and hard feelings. Six to eight of those babies dropping in every night or so will screw up one’s much needed rest and relaxation, after a hard day of 18 holes, or perhaps cleaning one of the Olympic sized pools.
Bombs bursting in air and the neverending sandstorms - who needs gitmo anymore? Greed has gone insane!
We’ve seen what IED’s can do to a Humvee, I can’t imagine what it would do to a golf cart.
This is the beginning of the future Naomi Klein described in Shock Doctrine. The world is going to become red zones and green zones.
What a gyp! No casino?
“Hit go to prove our Gawd is bigger than they Gawd.” A very decent, honest, sincere person I know actually said words to that effect not long ago. Hard worker, good husband and father, etc. How to understand?
Who got the contract for porta toilets, KBR maybe?
I hear they are planning a nice big zoo too, so the Iraqi children can learn more about the real world. ___ Real world??? I think they already know about the REAL world.
I see they put up rest rooms on the city streets in Atlanta Georgia that cost over a million bucks each. The high tech push button flush, stainless steel shitters cost $300,000 each alone. Meanwhile they are laying off hundreds of city employees there due to a serious budget crunch. So stupidity and corruption are not just a way of life in our foreign occupied Green Zone.
Our Gawd is gonna getus ~Bubba~.
Blackwater shooting gallery
“The Surge” endless roller coaster
Oh, the possibilities!
KEM PATRICK -
Your 50 year old friend who got called back into service.
Enlisted or officer? A friend wants to know.
I’d like to hear from anyone.
He’s an enlisted “swine” LOCUST. He’s only 46 years old. Officers and Warrant Officers get re-called from ‘inactive’ duty also, up to the age of 55, if their job qualification is termed to be ‘critical’, ___helicopter pilots, artillary, crypto analyists, etc. Many of the junior military officers have quit in disgust and many also have been hired by KBRs Blackwater, where they would likely be safe from a recall.
How does the “Green Zone” plan to protect its occupants from nuclear radiation? Do they plan to live in a huge clean-air bubble under a bright blue sky?
Military imagination creates unimaginable diseases, far worse than that of our most brilliant astronomers, all consequent on the worship of the “great” god Money.
Theme: Murder for Oil
Conclusion: End of Empire
Morale: Karma Never Forgets
I am apalled but not too surprised at the ugliness of the building in the artists rendering. Where do they go to find people to design such garbage? Then again what would you expect from adminstration whose “way of life is non-negotiable”?
Have you seen the photos of the embassy POET?
It is a horrible looking mess on 104 acres of Iraqi soil ___ and we paid for it, $78 million bucks and it’s already falling apart.
Can you imagine the Masters being played at the Tigris Woods Golf and County Club?
My last coment is ‘awating moderation’. Which means it’s visible only on my computer screen.
Imagine how much fun the Blackwater boys are having. Shoot a few Iraqis in the morning so they can make their tee time in the afternoon. Crack open a few cold ones while they play, and then take their wives shopping in the evening. Hell, maybe they might even have enough time to catch a show. Why are we in Iraq?
OUTF***INGRAGEOUS!!!!!!!
An army source said, “. . . we will give it back to them with added value.”
When?
So the MilitaryIndustrialComplex is evolving. I feel like we’re reading about FutureWorld. And what it looks like there can look the same here. An entire world of have too muches and have nothings.
kathyodat
John F. Butterfield: When? Yeah, right. When did the rich give anything away?
kathyodat
It’s hard to give something back to dead people.
Must have to pretty tough=skinned to live the luxurious life over the blood of millions of Iraqis and coalition forces. Have these arrogant Pentagon leaders no shame?
People are displaced, maimed, living as third worlders, children are dying, and they are worried about how much money they can make after decimating a sovereign country which had nothing to do with 9/ll.
Every day this scenario gets more and more disgusting.
P.S. Plus, that terrible building looks like an origami.
Instead of having weather delays at golf tournaments, they can have mortar round delays.
I can’t imagine Tiger Woods letting them get away with that name.
If he doesn’t at least protest the similarity of the name he is off my list of sporting icons.
My awaiting moderation comment has been ‘obliterated’.
I try again, see if I can sneak it in under the radar, used to know how to do that.
I don’t know if they used steel beams made in China for the embassy Green Zone buildings but they well may have. If so, consider that recently it was discovered, 50 school buildings constructed here were found to be falling apart and the steel beams were made in China. We also are using like imported steel beams for new highway bridges. Please drive safely and fasten your seat belts.
That hotel in the picture kinda reminds me of the pumping oil rigs.
If this is real, this may be one of the ‘top ten’ sickest things about this whole invasion occupation war. What park, street, free speech zone, church front yard will this draw us out into? My God fellow citizens what are we allowing here? How many more must die before this insanity ends? Are these people in charge even Humans?
This is bringing Freedom and Democracy to the world? AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!
Kem Patrick - that’s really scary! They own the country already, maybe they’ve figured out a way to clean it up so they can move their millions of citizens in?
I check everything I buy to see where it comes from, and everything that says China I put back.
“AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!” I agree with your personal sentiments, Paine, but as MoJo said, “No one gets out alive”. To me death isn’t the issue, but torturous death, and the lost opportunity costs of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
You must be saving a lot of money ~Wilmoor~. The three garlic cloves I bought last week came in a package. On the bottom it read, “Produce grown in China”.
Meanwhile on the other side:
Come one, come all ye insurgents. This is the perfect opportunity to hone your skills at improvised roadside bombs, rocket launching (with supervised instruction from Hezbollah), the grenade lob, sniper practice and the ever popular suicide bomber. There is no need to get on a plane and fly thousands of miles to terrorize the west when you can do it here in Iraq. Soon, everything you hate about the west will be brought to you here in the middle east for your
enjoymentdeployment, just think of it as Disneyland for insurgents.Yeah, the whole Israel in Palestine thing worked out real fine…
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid Americans.
Hey, navigated through that time.
Yep ~Wilmoor~ it is scary. As far as I know, we have only one maqjor steel mill still in operation now. There may be more but most are closed now, as are most of our ship building docks, etc. Most of the American brand name stuff we now have in our stores is made in China. Craftsman tools, Sunbeam, Hotpoint, Chicago Cutlery, even the Japanese “Sony” brand, etc. We have screwed ourselves and didn’t even get a kiss.
Its really the height of American arrogance to try and turn the cradle of civilization into…Kansas City! One Air force general actually said Kansas City was the model. Kinda Euro Disney at gunpoint.
(Kansas City is a great place. No slam intended.)
As Kem pointed out about the steel beams likely being sourced from China, I wonder how much of that steel will be from recycled structural beams from the World Trade Towers?
I understand that none of the World Trade Center steel was sent to China. But who knows anything of correctness here anymore. We are constantly lied to by our free press and media. We have Olberman and Helen Thomas, who else?
who exactly is this benefiting? I don’t even need to ask that. It’s certainly not the Iraqi people. It’s corporations. I like how the U.S. officials call it a “sphere of influence.” There’s no doubt about that. They’re trying to turn Iraq into the materialistic superficial fashion/celebrity/brand name obsessed society America is. Way to brand capitalism on Iraq’s ass.
And after a relaxing weekend in Baghdad the high risk golfing fraternity can fly to Kashmir, they have just finished a big new golf course there. Dodging snipers, the next x-streme sport.
This is obscene!
Of course the imperialists would hatch such a plan. It accomplishes many things for them: 1.) more dollar-churning parks must be constructed to milk more cream from people/planet, 2.) the imperial apprentice corps need plenty of eye/ear/tongue candy before signing on for life, 3.) any opportunity to suck more blood from the US taxslaves must be taken, 4.) a monument to the greatest delusion on earth must be built to make it appear more real.
Kem- It is documented that much of the WTC structural steel (aka ‘evidence’) was sold to China as scrap. Within days of it being pulled out of the rubble.
China Site and Company 2002
Whats all the fuss about? It’s just another Fort Laramie where the calvary can rest up after all that tedious work of pacifying the wild heathens and confiscating the land that rightfully belongs to God fearing civilized Christians.
My cousin was killed in that Green Zone. He died for that?
You all know why Shrub and his gang are so cool and laid back right now?? When they spring the Oct surprise and bomb, bomb, bomb Iran declaring martial law here and postponing the election you’ll see why. They cannot give up power for fear that someone somewhere will snatch them and charge them with the thousands of war and other crimes they have committed. You don’t think it can happen here?? Just look at what has happened and say that. We only escape these bastards thru armed revolution I’d love to see them all, I mean ALL hanging from the power poles on Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact I’d want to help.
iammyself,
Sorry for the loss of your cousin, everybody else’s cousin, and all of the Iraqi’s we killed and maimed.
That super fortress embassy and the Green Zone may just be our Dien Ben Phu, in 1954.
I must be doing something wrong, my last post was obliterated, where I thanked ~NMBill~ for the link he posted for us about the Twin Towers steel WAS sold to China.
Building an upperclass tourist area in Bagdad using 2.5 illion (at least) American tax dollars.
This could be interesting.
We’re living in a plastic land,
everyone is sneaking sand,
even the politicians,
someone give me a hand…
SNAFU & FUBAR INC.
This is arrogance at the most unbelievable level, and an obscenity. It just serves to show the World what we are really like.
Why have I seen nothing of this in the mainstream media? We are sending young (and not so young) men and women, to fight an illegal war, without adequate equipment, and without any idea of what they are trying to achieve. When they are crippled in their thousands, we do not help them.
The Iraqi people, far from being freed, are living in hell, and all we can do is to build modern day “Towers of Babel”, to show off to the rest of the World.
We are a sick society, but unfortunately the majority of the people, do not realise or care!
You go it ~ANDY UK~. Right on.
So so so insane. The only decent thing we could possibly do in Iraq is to help restore water, electricity, transportation health care and local commerce for the local population. Instead we build playgrounds for adults.
It is clear that one purpose of this occupation is to give endless no-bid contracts for shoddy and useless, ugly stuff to the friends of Cheney. The embassy complex mentioned above is another such Alice in Wonderland project. If they are forced to exit, they will take all they can on the way out.
These elite guys love their effin golf.
Here is a poem from a century ago.
“The golf links lie so near the mill,
That almost every day,
The laboring children can look out,
And watch the men at play”
Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn (1915)
It takes just a few changes to update it to today.
“The golf links lie so near the war,
That almost every day,
The injured children can look in,
And watch the men at play”
Is this poem old left and bitter? Damn straight.
I very sadly had to quit playing golf after 48 years of thouroughly enjoying the game and I had a (2) handicap. I was the golf pro for several years at a country club in Colorado.
One time there I was standng close behind a pretty young lass, helping her with her swing and noticed my fly was unzipped. I hurridly zipped up, but caught a piece of her shorts in the zipper. ___ We were stuck.___ In embarrassment we began to quicky and in perfect unison, short step our way to the nearby clubhouse, when suddenly a dog raced out and threw a bucket of water on us.
Every time I hear about our enclave in the center of Baghdad I think about another land-locked enclave of imperialism in a foreign land, Dien Bien Phu.
Just like the French in 1954, the supporters of our occupation of Iraq are deluding themselves that things are rosey and we can maintain our superiority over the “deadender’ insurgents. But they’re already lobbing mortar rounds into the Green Zone and when the new J W Marriot tower pokes it’s head up above the surrounding walls, how is it going to be immune from RPG’s and Stinger missles?
And after Ho Chi Minh, General Giap and the Viet Minh defeated the French, their attempt to reinstate their colonial hold over SE Asia after WWII ended. At least the French had an airfield within their perimeter.
I don’t believe the part about the dog, Kem.
It was a St. Bernard Bill.
And last week I lost my ball in a darn water trap and so finally had to give it up. That old ball was made in America too.