U.S. troops to plant symbol of peace in Iraq

[nam78_two]

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/16227796.htm


U.S. troops to plant symbol of peace in Iraq
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By Cynthia Neff
[e-mail]

Army troops at Camp Anaconda in northern Iraq will extend an olive branch this weekend to the citizens of that country — or rather, several hundred branches.

The soldiers will plant 200 olive tree saplings — courtesy of several donors and coordinated by a retired Cal Poly agriculture professor — Saturday around the 15-square-mile camp near Balad.

"It’s a gift that is super- symbolic," said Joe Sabol, the retired professor who helped to send the trees to Iraq. "I think it’s a super- positive story that will help our troops feel better about what they’re doing over there."

Sabol punctuated his story in exclamation points as he recounted the tale of how the planting came to be.

In October, an unusual request dropped into the e-mail account of the president of the California Rare Fruit Growers, written by an Army reserve soldier stationed at Camp Anaconda.

One of her unit’s goals is to improve their location, Master Sgt. Patricia Marsano wrote. Her team had researched trees and concluded that the olive tree would be the best to plant and could withstand the area’s hot, windy, dry environment.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. When I first started reading I thought maybe they were planting

the trees to make up for this:

"US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops."

http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/003797.html

[I_Will]

2. Here's how screwn we are over there...

The locals spent thousands of years developing agriculture in the region. We feel all so "super" gooey and "super" smart that we figured this out after having a team research it "super" quick:

"Her team had researched trees and concluded that the olive tree would be the best to plant and could withstand the area’s hot, windy, dry environment."

I think the word in Arabic is, "Duh!"

Ah, the white man's burden to correct the natives' backward ways continues...

:sarcasm:

Also, I hope the "15 square mile camp" is a typo for "1.5 square mile camp", or those 200 trees are going to be pretty few and far between (grin)

[bananas]

6. And they couldn't find a closer source than California?

The trees are being shipped by Fed-Ex from California.

[Squatch]

3. Instead of olive trees...how about planting high-voltage towers?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. U.S. to carve symbol of peace into Abu Ghraib prisoner's flesh.

It's super symbolic!

[nam78_two]

5. I think thats been done (or something very much like that).nt