Your Biblical Hubris of the Day
Back in the day, Saddam Hussein decided that he would rebuild the ancient city of Babylon. It's a nice idea, from a man who didn't have that many, and profoundly unrealistic. Realism was one of the many virtues Hussein lacked.
It never happened, of course. While I'm a huge fan of archaeology, actually reconstructing the city would have been a fantastically expensive boondoggle, in a country without the resources to spare, and Iraq had plenty of other problems to deal with.
But Hussein, whose refusal to cope with reality seems to have increased the longer he was in power, kept soldiering along with various grandiose plans. American journalists would sometimes use this as a symbol for Hussein's delusional pigheadedness: throwing money into an ancient hole in the ground. What kind of fool would do that?
Now, of course, everything is different, and Iraq no longer has any pressing difficulties or strains upon its resources. So the Rebuild Babylon initiative is back, with a new backer: us. The New York Times's Dave Itzkoff reports that the State Department has put up $700,000 for the project.
That's just for a study, mind you. This is only the preliminary stage.
Sure to be cheaper: Let's just rename "Babylon" our sparklin' new $700 million embassy in Iraq - built like a fortress and the biggest embassy complex in the world! And, next door, we could move in... >"The Girls Next Door"
January 7, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
...And call it "Babe-Alon"!!! Hef and the girls discover danger and excuses to get NEKKID in that wild, wacky city by the Tigris! Glue me in!!!
January 7, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
THIS IS GREAT NEWS. Pretty soon they will all be speaking different languages. Under these circumstance the Shiites and the Shiites and the Sunis and the Sunis and the Kurds will all be unable to communicate to each other or anybody else. They will not be able to buy arms.
Wait a minute. Does not our economy depend on arms?
Oh forget it.
January 7, 2009 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are a twisted and funny soul Dick.
January 8, 2009 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's funny. In other news, after five years, Bush doesn't have any translators who can tell him what "Mene mene tekel upharshin" means.
January 8, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am going to go out on a limb here but is the translation an allusion to some orifice and one's head?
January 8, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
To be honest, $700,000 doesn't sound like nearly what we owe for the damage we did when we erected a military base amongst the ruins. Ostensibly, it was important that we locate our base right there in order to prevent looting, which sounds good till you read that we prevented the looting by smoothing out and graveling over 300,000 sq meters of the site for a parking lot and helicopter launch pad.
Did I mention that it was Haliburton that was in charge of the construction for the U.S.?
Is cultural vandalism a war crime? $700,000 is an insult and yet we wonder why they hate us. Let me count the helicopters.
January 8, 2009 2:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, we've done untold damage (and of course, allowed rampant looting anyway).
And of course $700,000 won't begin to make up for the damage we've caused.
It's that special combination of over-promising and underperforming that draws my eye. We won't do enough for decency, but we will cause more harm trying to over-reach. Of course.
January 8, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
DC, I know and I was with you in what you were saying till I clicked the linked in the Times article and got incensed all over again. So I had to rant for 1 minute. Feel better now. Sigh. It's been a long 8 years. Thanks!
January 8, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink