The Twin Towers fell, but they rose AGAIN as the Baghdad Embassy!

[Philosoraptor]

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/14632582.htm

The massive, monstrous, gargantuan, (insert adjectives here) U.S. embassy being built outside Baghdad has all the luxuries American overlords are used to, swimming pools, tennis courts, electricity, water, all the things the Iraqi people would just love to have.

Isn't it just SLIGHTLY obscene that this grotesque and loathsome complex is being built in the middle of all this poverty and slaughter?

And isn't it also OBSCENE that it will be finished and open for business before they've even laid one brick on the new world trade center building in New York City?

But then, America after 2000 is just jam packed with obscenities.

-----------------------------


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Don't ask about the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. It's a secret - security reasons.

But it's hard keeping a 104-acre complex rising on the banks of the Tigris River hidden. Anyone who cares to know can easily see four giant construction cranes towering over the river at the largest such project ever undertaken by the United States - a symbol of American presence that will last well into the future.

When the complex is completed by June 2007 - this one apparently is on schedule, unlike most construction projects here - it will be an American oasis in the heavily fortified Green Zone, away from the fear and lack of services that permeate the rest of Baghdad.

Among the 21 buildings will be a recreation center to rival any in the United States with, among other amenities, a pool, gym, food court, beauty salon and, of course, a recreational area that will be called the American Club.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

1. Yep. We're never getting out of there. Never.

14 bases and a disgustingly big and lavish US embassy. Overpaid neo-cons gotta have their little slice of home, ya know. :eyes:

[Philosoraptor]

2. Yep, looks like a forever type of an embassy, but they'll burn it someday.

Our arrogance is very Roman.

[Kailassa]

5. Mortar lasts so much longer, and looks prettier too, ...

when it's mixed with plenty of blood.

[Faryn Balyncd]

25. Iraqis this reality see every day....

Simultaneous with the administration charade that we aren't going to permanently occupy Iraq, this construction proceeded, in plain view of Iraqis, but not to Americans.

104 acres. $1 billion. Bigger than Vatican City. Over 10 times larger than any previous embassy. Over 5500 employees. Including U.S. departments of commerce and agriculture. (If you thought embassies were for the state department, you haven't been doing your reading from PNAC).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/zeese.php?articleid=8885

How is it that the press managed to let construction get this far along without showing the American public this photographic rebuttal?

Do a Google image search.

Try to find any images of this project at any earlier stage.

Were "security" concerns used as a rationale for censoring images such as the above?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

27. Depts. of COMMERCE and AGRICULTURE ?!?!? WTF???

What, there aren't farmers and business people among the Iraqis? Not gonna let them run anything, are they? Sick, greedy bastards. :grr:

[KeepItReal]

3. They are gonna have to rename it Mortar-bait City

These people don't seem to have any grasp of the fact that there are lots of regular Iraqi folks don't want *any* American presence in their country.

I guess Bush & Co. figure the U.S. is just gonna outlast the Iraqi's (and the odd foreign fighter's) supply of ammo. This has got to be their idea of staying the course: If you fly in a straight line long enough, you fly out of the turbulence.

Meanwhile for every piece of glass broken in this "104-acre complex", Halliburton probably gets paid in full to replace it.

Nice racket.

:sarcasm:

[liberal N proud]

4. Maybe bu$h and co are planning on escaping to Baghdad

when they are run out of town for the crimes they have committed here.
Maybe they will be the new Iraqi regime and leave our country the hell alone.



No, I am sure that is only wishful thinking. It is just the establishment of an American-Mid East Capitol for our expansion of control in the region.

[Philosoraptor]

6. At least Saddam isn't sitting in a palace anymore huh?

The Americans are.

[RC]

It was more peaceful with Saddam.

Baghdad was much safer to get about in. You could walk the streets at night. Day time too.

[charlie]

7. That ain't no embassy

That's a Kremlin on the Tigris. The Eye-rackies can have their puppet shows in the potemkin parliament, but their strings will be jerked from that building. Or so the neocons hope.

[wakeme2008]

8. pic

see it http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22708

[Canuckistanian]

30. Good article under the pic.

By Leigh Saavedra

Sample:

The massive compound will include two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, apartment buildings for staff, and a recreational facility that will provide a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American Club.

In this case, the devil is less in the details than in the monumental size and cost of the endeavor. The likeness to a small fortified city is frightening to those who object to a permanent presence of the U.S. in Iraq, already destroyed by American bombs and depleted uranium, and the core of such fear lies in the question of WHY the U.S., already dangerously in debt back home and dangerously despised in Iraq and most of the mideast, is pounding its chest with such a noisy bravado. Is this the finale of "Shock and Awe"?

Those working in the embassy-city are protected by extraordinary security, overseen by U.S. Marines. Structures will be reinforced to 2.5 times the standard. There will be five high-security entrances as well as an emergency entrance/exit, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report.

[Philosoraptor]

9. Don't even ask about the embassy, or it's 600 million $ cost.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/world/14612627.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_world

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

10. Does not matter. It will not last too long

Events will overtake it.

[Ian David]

11. Isn't there something in The Book of Revelations about this? n/t

[life_long_dem]

16. Yes. A passage for you:

And the foreign invaders from the west will build a great complex. It will be called the
Ministry of "Oil Control and Global Interference". The people will be made slaves to the rulers
from the west that will inhabit this complex. No one shall gain access, because of the missile batteries stationed around the great fence. But, the people shall rise up and defeat the rulers
and return the land back unto its rightful owners.

Sorry, couldn't resist....

[mtnsnake]

12. "the size of the Vatican City"....."cloaked in secrecy"

"We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.

“Embassy Baghdad” will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy’s 104 acres is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/

This is disgusting. Everyone in our country needs to be made aware of this.

[Philosoraptor]

13. Disgusting yes, & arrogant, & obscene too.

Not to mention wasteful, and now it's just a gigantic symbol of oppression and occupation.

[JHB]

14. But it's NOT a waste!

All the right people are being paid to build it. Once the money changes hands, who cares what happens to it. (/neocon thinking)

[northamericancitizen]

15. Go read NancGreggs journal: re The US ambassy

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/29

[BlackVelvet04]

17. Of all the things this administration

has done, this is the thing that pushed my republican voting parents over the edge. I've never seen my mom so angry.

You just never know what's going to be the straw that broke the camel's back for some people.

[OnionPatch]

18. So if we ever

get these bastards out of power, what are we going to do with that thing?

[Philosoraptor]

20. It'll make an excellent prison for whoever finally grabs power.

And a damn fine torture facility.

[Hubert Flottz]

19. They rose again in the value of EXXON's stock too...

[katinmn]

21. They brought in low-paid Asian workers to build it. Not even

hiring local Iraqi workers. Nothing like adding insult to injury:

"First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting, a subcontractor of Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root, was granted the $592 million construction contract. By December it had already been paid about $483 million.

The company is a relative novice when it comes to embassy building and has been criticized for its treatment of Asian workers, who critics claim are imported for their low wages and work under hard conditions. About 900 laborers live on site as they build the complex, according to a report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has congressional oversight responsibility for the project."

So the great white imperialists are building a magnificent shrine to themselves on the bloodstained land of Babylon. Words cannot describe the loathing I have for Bush's "Holy" Empire.

[Philosoraptor]

22. I'm surprised they aren't using the Mexican migrant slaves.

The Asians must have been the low bidders.

[niallmac]

23. Lets see; a room for processing visas, a room for the CIA folks...

one room for holding those diplomatic functions and a kitchen to prepare the canapes.
Yup, about one gazillion sq feet ought to do it.

[izzie]

24. Nice waste of tax payers money. Maybe a home for Bush?

What screw ball thought up that place any how? As long as it stands some one will be trying to blow it up. Sometimes I think they do not have one brain to share in DC. Even a nut like me can see this is one big error.

[bleedingheart]

26. How very Colonial of them...calling the rec area the "American Club"

gag...

[Jara sang]

28. I hope they built a chopper pad on the roof.

They are going to need it.

[Philosoraptor]

29. It's a 600 million dollar target.

What insurgent WOULDN'T want to attack it?