Pentagon Planning Luxury Hotels and Resorts in Baghdad’s Green Zone
Postcard from the Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq
The best thing about blogging is it takes no imagination, which is good because I would never be able to make this stuff up myself. Via Think Progress:
The AP reports that the Pentagon is backing a $5 billion dollar plan to “transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone†into a “centerpiece for Baghdad’s future,” resulting in “big paydays for early investors.”
An incentive for the five-year construction project, which would include hotels, resorts, a shopping mall and commercial development, appears to be lining the pockets of investors and allies rather than re-building Iraq’s economy. This comes on the heels of an already-ridiculed plan to build a Disneyland-style theme park next to the Green Zone.
While eight U.S. Army battalions are fighting in the streets of nearby Sadr City in a doomed effort to build a wall they hope will stop mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, apparently planners are busy thinking up ways to further alienate the people of Iraq.
The sheer cluelessness of this plan is off the charts. It’s self-satirizing. As Spencer Ackerman points out, a luxury development in the Green Zone “would drain resources from a desperate population.” It’s as if the Bush administration officials living in Saddam’s old palaces “have begun to ape the habits of the old regime.”
More here:
Want to vacation in the Green Zone?
Planners Dream of Five Star Hotel for Green Zone
Pentagon Backs Plan To Build U.S. ‘Zone Of Influence’ Of Hotels And Resorts In Baghdad
Pentagon Now Implementing McCain “Hundred Years” Plan
And Then You Wonder Why They Burn Your Buildings Down
UPDATE: The “Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience” $500 million theme park is being fast-tracked by the Pentagon. In pitching his Disneyland idea to a deputy Baghdad mayor, financier Llewellyn Werner – displaying little sense for Iraqi culture – said the waterpark is “integral to the sex appeal” of the new amusement center. “I’m a businessman,” he continued. “I’m not here because I think you’re nice people. I think there’s money to be made here.”
May 5th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I hope Brother Marriott isn’t planning a property. I would like to use my Marriott Points elsewhere, indeed, almost anywhere else.
May 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
A distinction in the way the hawk / dove realities have strayed from each other is that these dopes go on with thier business as if everything we’ve been doing for the past five years has been ‘WORKING’, while people like myself, who think the war is a destructive pathological enterprise meant to enrich only a few while killing and enslaving the many suggest the only thing working is Malice and Evil. It cannot be both ways. I’ll admit that I’ve persued information threads that are not sanctioned by the Administration. That has been my right and duty as a citizen, especially since the lies at the beginning of this war were so transparent.
I just do not see how war can be good and bad at the same time.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
It’ll be like the water show in Vegas at the Bellagio, mortar shelling shows every two hours, on the half hour…. ooooo, ahhhh. Cocktails anyone in alcohol free Islam?
May 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The Disneyland thing was REAL. You really CAN believe everything you hear these days.
Why not construct a park called Raptureland. Everybody who wants to can go there can get in free, and not come out. Everybody wins!
May 5th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Since it’s the anniversary of “Mission Accomplished”, I’ve been hearing all of the inane, sickening comments all of the pundits (learned persons) made that day. They were saying that all of the people, who we now know were right, should just shut up and bow to the grand and glorious leadership of George W. Bush. Every one of these assholes still has their job and they are STILL ignoring Scott Ritter. It’s unbelievable!
May 5th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I confess I doubted Scott Ritter in 2003. I mean, Saddam was no threat to us but that guy must have had some leftover chemical weapons someplace. Even some Iraqi generals thought so. But Ritter had access to the intel, and correctly said no WMD whatsoever.
Now Ritter says there is a “virtual guarantee” the USA will strike Iran in the near future. OMG.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Larry, and you have faith in the “loyal opposition” to reign this in?
They have been sitting on the sidelines, ineffectually, and in support of this nightmare, for.. 8 YEARS!!
Scott Ritter gets kudos for bravery, and being right. He risked a great deal, and has stayed the course like no other. He openly said what we all believed from the beginning, or at least I speak for myself when I say I did.
Of course Iran is a guarantee! Does anyone imagine by now, after all we have seen that we have ANY control over the people responsible for this?
This has to get fixed by the citizenry, and it will never happen through the ballot box.
Sorry excuse me, the diebold box.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Back then Ritter was saying that even if Saddam had the chemical weapons, they would have been too old to use. I really had no way of knowing for sure if he was right, but it’s another one of those times when I had to think to myself…
What in the world could this guy be gaining by lying about something like that. He didn’t seem like somebody who would sell his country out for money from Saddam or somewhere else.
glenn:
I’m mad at the Democrats too, but the fact is, about two thirds of the house Democrats voted against giving Bush this power and about a third of the senate Democrats did. That counts for something considering only about six Republicans joined them.
Of course, they have been very ineffective since then at stopping the administration from doing anything, but I still have to believe there’s a way out of this, and it’s not going to be Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich. We have to be realistic.
The only people who want a rigged election are the people who hate what we hoped America stood for. The information is out there to scare them out of trying to steal it again. I’m talking about Republicans. There is a reason Democrats were able to take over the house and senate. The lawsuits against Diebold and the convictions of a handful of unlucky election workers in Ohio may have had an effect.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Larry, the push to invade Iraq was near unanimous despite all evidence. Anything after that is closing the barn door after the stock has vacated.
Even if it is 1/3, it is clear no one is leading democrats, no one is pressing solidarity within the party. That much is obvious from the ridiculous campaign that is currently going on. They are losers, too narcissistic to understand how to win. A herd of cats, and about as useful. Even if they do win the presidency, I expect whoever that may be, to be shredded within 2 years.
As for election rigging, it is as ubiquitous as democracy itself. Tyrants love democracy, as under its veil, the appearance of legitimacy is awarded the tyrant.
Some things don’t fix Larry, they fall down, and must be rebuilt. Sort of a natural law.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
glenn:
The “near unanimous” push to invade Iraq was on the Republican side only and you know that. Neither 1/3 or 2/3 can be considered as a complete agreement among Democrats to let president urban cowboy invade Iraq.
I’m sorry, but you just can’t win the “they all the same, we might as well give up” diatribe you’re always pimping.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
You are right they are not all the same, their is a decided weakness in the majority of democrats that is surely laughable. To be the majority now, and be so completely played by bush until the bitter end of his terms, is something to behold. If I was our enemy, I would surely be hoping the dems take over all three branches, then the debacle can unfold in full.
After this vote was made we continually have a democrat party agreeing to fund this abomination in lock step with republicans. The result is all the same.
I never say to give up Larry, but quit thinking a dead donkey is going to carry you anywhere.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Will you two ‘get a room’? May I suggest the Bagdad Hilton?
No, no. Forget I said anything.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Just pushing Larrys’ buttons. Remember it’s all entertainment.
Our parents would be proud, beats watching TV or some silly hollywood movie.
I might get a room, they might make Larry man the wall.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:15 am
If that comment stuck, be it known, Cav says…
May 7th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I guess it didn’t…Nutshell…Thanks Glenn, Thanks Larry.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
The donkey isn’t dead, it’s elections are being stolen.
I’m not entertained.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:09 am
According to the Washington Post, Marriott is, in fact, considering a Baghdad property. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050703819_pf.html
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
[...] plan to build a Disneyland-style theme park next to the Green Zone?? (huh?) http://oneutah.org/2008/05/05/pentagon-planning-luxury-hotels-and-resorts-in-baghdads-green-zone/ __________________ There are only two things wrong with this great nation of ours, democrats and [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
[...] plan to build a Disneyland-style theme park next to the Green Zone?? (huh?) http://oneutah.org/2008/05/05/pentagon-planning-luxury-hotels-and-resorts-in-baghdads-green-zone/ They can plan all they want, but it will not come to fruition until the violence stops. Why [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 8:59 am
[...] would be an understatement to say that Iraqis and the U.S. government have different plans for the Green Zone, where we just built a $730 million embassy complex the size of The [...]