Amusement parks in Sadr City?

[interesteddad]

<p>I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. During a week when we get a series of “oh, by the way’s” from American generals in Iraq – oh, by the way, we need even more than the 21,000 surge troops and oh, by the way, the surge will probably last 18 months – we get this little gem from tomorrow’s NY Times:</p>

<p>

We should have an amusement park, said Mr. Daraji, one of two elected mayors in Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad where American and Iraqi troops have been peacefully clearing homes since Sunday. We want to rehabilitate the area so that families can have fun.</p>

<p>In an interview at his office, Mr. Daraji said the amusement park was one of several projects that community leaders were pushing American officials to finance in negotiations about how to handle the Shiite Mahdi Army, a militia that has controlled the neighborhood for years.

</p>

<p>How many dead? How many disabled veterans? How many billions and billions of US dollars. And, they want us to pay for effin’ amusement parks in Sadr City?</p>

<p>Stop the madness. Seriously. </p>

<p>I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we bring everyone home from Iraq and put 'em to work rebuilding the Lower Ninth Ward and the Mississippi Gulf Coast? Heck, build amusement parks in Biloxi.</p>

[mommusic]

<p>What I heard on NPR this morning was that the “roundup” of weapons & search for insurgents in Sadr City was announced previously, so they AREN’T FINDING ANYTHING in their careful, house to house search. Well, a pellet gun.</p>

[mini]

<p>It is now 18 months since Murtha suggested the U.S. redeploy, and I don’t think there is anyone who would argue that Iraq is in better shape than it was 18 months ago. The presence of aggressive, hostile occupiers has bred the civil war, and another million pro-western, secular refugees who will never go back. This year there will be a million more.</p>

<p>All so a pro-Iranian Shia regime can exert increased power beyond the land of the pork munchers.</p>

<p>To be fair, not all is going badly:</p>

<p><a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1:symbol=hal;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined[/url]”>http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1:symbol=hal;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[gh05t]

<p>You break it you buy it.</p>

<p>The US has been bombing Iraq since 1991, and in the process it has destroyed of lot of civilian infrastructure. In addition the economic sanctions made rebuilding certain types of facilities extremly difficult.</p>

<p>If the US wants to stabilize Iraq it is going to have to help rebuild it. You can just destroy their country and expect them to fix it themselves. Iraq has a huge unemployment problem and funding new constructions (such as this) will help. When people are able to make a living and provide for their families (and have fun with them), they will not be sitting around in poverty, unemployed, and angry at their government and the US for the situation they are in.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>Fine. Pull all of our troops out and pay for Hallburton and Bechtel to build amusement parks in Sadr City.</p>

[mini]

<p>“If the US wants to stabilize Iraq it is going to have to help rebuild it.”</p>

<p>If my kid breaks a vase in an antique store, I don’t send him back in with Elmer’s. I take him outside, give him a good talking to (or send him to bed without any dinner), deduct the cost of the vase out of his allowance for as long as it takes, apologize to the owners of the store, give them the money, and let them contract for the vase repairs or replacement as they see fit. (as in the French.) And I’d kick out every American contractor by next Friday - they had their chance, and billions and muffed it (though not for their shareholders ;)).</p>