US ARMY CREATES DISNEY-ESQUE MOCK IRAQ IN MOJAVE DESERT TO PREPARE TROOPS

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Ft. Irwin stands in for Iraq



At the Army base in the Mojave Desert, emigre actors and Hollywood sets help prepare U.S. soldiers for the life and warfare they are about to encounter.

Looking every inch a governor, the thickset Iraqi, in a pinstripe jacket, sits behind an imposing desk and glares at his American guest. When he drove to work that morning, Bassam Kalasho informed the newly arrived Army colonel, he found the road full of American checkpoints and his office surrounded by American soldiers. "It looks like you took over," he said, his voice growing louder with every word.

Sometimes he gets so worked up, he said later, he forgets that his "office" is on an Army base in California and that he is only pretending to be an Iraqi provincial governor.

At the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, in the vastness of the Mojave Desert, fiction has a way of blurring into reality. When the Muslim call to prayer sounds across the sandy wilderness, villages fill with sights and sounds of distant lands. Robed men congregate in coffee shops. Vendors weave through narrow alleys, hawking fruit, flowers and cups of sugary tea. And helicopters streak across a pale pink sky.

This is one of the last stops for U.S. military brigades headed to Iraq. During two weeks of intensive role-playing, they practice dealing with bomb blasts, gunfights, angry demonstrations, corrupt officials and sectarian rifts. All of them fake.

...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-little-iraq31-2009aug31,0,6532954.story

See photos from story here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-actors-pg,0,3530894.photogallery


Injured civilians
(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Actors playing injured civilians are treated by Army corpsman in a training exercise at Medina Wasl at Ft. Irwin.

[Dr Fate]

1. But we "cant afford" Healthcare reform. n/t

n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Would they be doing this if we were actually planning to leave anytime soon?

Hmmmm?

[Auggie]

5. My thought too. But as much as I despise the idea,

if it saves a soldiers life, it's worth it.

[BeHereNow]

9. I know a better way to save lives...

BRING THEM HOME NOW.

BHN

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. +1000 nt

[Auggie]

11. Yes

:thumbsup:

[FiveGoodMen]

15. You'll save that soldier's life and a whole lot more if you bring them home

And you missed my point.

Even if you think this is worth it...would they be setting this up if they had any intention of getting out?

[customerserviceguy]

6. Would it be that much of a stretch

to say that it would resemble (or could easily be reconfigured to resemble) Afghanistan? I know that the President is still committed to that for the long haul.

[Captain Hilts]

3. They've got mock ups for tents, etc. at Ft. Eustis, VA. nt

[chaplainM]

4. That's actually the set for Disney's "Aladdin!"

[MrScorpio]

7. Preparing our troops to be the best at what they do...

Killing people and destroying things in our names.

As long as we're willing to spend more than anyone else to prop up our Military Industrial Congressional Complex, things like this will persist.

War is a racket.

[BeHereNow]

8. WHEN are the taxpayers going to say BASTA!?????

Incredible and DISGUSTING.

BHN

[SammyWinstonJack]

14. Doesn't matter what we say. We don't control anything, least of all, how our tax dollars are spent.

x(

[ddeclue]

12. No biggie.. the army has been doing this sort of thing at least since WWII

and they've been simulating convoy missions in Iraq for a while now as well using computer systems and CG.

[jmowreader]

13. I was bidding to do this job

I've seen the plans. Very, very impressive site, and not as expensive as you'd think--because the Army started with some of the mounds of cast-off shipping containers that clog our nation's ports. They attached sheets of textured high-density urethane signboard to them--in the texture of stucco, rock, what have you--and finally wrapped the HDU with printed vinyl. Every military base has one or more of these sites, or they're getting them, but Fort Irwin's site is the king of them all.

[FiveGoodMen]

16. If we wrapped our bombs in Christmas paper and bows they'd be really pretty

But that's not the important thing.

[Quasimodem]

17. And a Christmas Present Bomb would only add insult to injury. n/t

[jmowreader]

18. This project is designed to save American soldiers' lives

It is designed to replicate a Middle Eastern village. It's got lots of cubbyholes for snipers to hide in, it's got places to set up fake boobytraps, it's got lots of landmine simulators on the ground...I think the project is very good.

I think we need to pull our troops out of Iraq within six months--we can't just pull them out right now, we need to taper off our presence or Iraq will become the next Iranian province. I think also we need to get our guys out of Afghanistan as quickly as we safely can. But until that time, we also need to be sure our soldiers are trained well for their mission because I do NOT want the Iraq Wall to have any more names on it than it already does. This center will go a long way toward that goal.

[FiveGoodMen]

19. I hope you're right.