Wednesday, July 6, 2011

P.S. TO BAGHDAD: A THOUSAND AND ONE FAIRY TALES

When someone does a better job than you, give them credit where credit is justly due.
Four hours after posting my latest blog I came across a Salon article that predated my thoughts by a full month. I strongly suggest that you read the clearly better written and more thoroughly researched article:
"WHAT WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ?"
  

BAGHDAD: A THOUSAND AND ONE FAIRY TALES

          Fairy tales are stories with no foundation in fact designed to entertain and educate gullible children. A Thousand and One Arabian Nights is the adult version. It’s a series of adult tales set in the Middle East full of murder, magic, love, lust, erotic couplings as told by Scheherazade, the beautiful daughter of a Sultan’s vizier. These tall tails kept that sucker of a Sultan enthralled and Scheherazade alive, alive to live another day and spin another tale.

          Speaking of fairy tales I am enthralled by the one now being peddled by our very own State Department from the banks of the Tigris River deep in Baghdad’s “Green Zone”. Our modern day Scheherazade is none other than our Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who wants us to abandon reason and buy her version of reality.

          It should not come as a surprise that after having invaded Iraq we have an Embassy in Baghdad. What does surprise is that this “embassy” is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world. It is built on 0.44 square kilometers, that’s 104 acres to you and me, with 21 buildings including six huge apartment house complexes. The total construction costs have not been disclosed but we do not know that the President made two “emergency supplemental funding requests” of Congress, one for $1.3 billion and one for $592 million both in 2005. Now that’s spending with class.

          We now veer from the sublime to the ridiculous. Our Ambassador James Jeffrey announced on Saturday July 2 that, on the very eve of Independence Day, and at the very beginning of the month that the debt ceiling will be debated and decided, he has requested $6.2 billion for the Embassy’s 2012 budget. That’s $6.2 billion. That comes on the heels of the April 27 confirmation that “the number of employees in the US Embassy in Baghdad will be reduced to less that 20 thousand after US Forces withdrawal from Iraq.” That’s 20,000 employees, including 16,000 Americans.

          The State Department [http:careers.state.gov/general/about-us.html] claims that it employs 11,500 Foreign Service employees; 7,400 Civil Service employees; and 31,000 Foreign Service National employees, for a total of 53,000. If you believe the published and announced figures almost 40% of the State Department’s work force will be employed and deployed in Baghdad.
         
          You got to be either kidding me or lying. I for one do not believe in fairy tales especially ones that are being spun by Hilary. Perhaps marijuana has been legalized in Foggy Bottom and Hilary is smoking pot or the United States, having invaded and conquered Iraq plans to run that country as a colony for the foreseeable future. 

           What is your take on this seven billion dollar, and counting, embassy?