Shit Bird
--Under Construction, Emad Hajjaj
Yeah, down by the river
Down by the banks of the river Charles
That's where you'll find me
Along with lovers, fuggers, and thieves
--Dirty Water, The Standells
Water, water everywhere
nor any drop to drink
--The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
_____________
The AP reports, "Iraq Suffers from Dirty Waters, Fear About Cholera," but this is not a new story:
Just months after Americans repaired a sewage treatment plant in southern Baghdad, insurgents attacked the facility and killed the manager. Looters took care of the rest. Nearly three years later, the plant remains an abandoned shell. Raw sewage is still flowing freely through giant pipes into the Tigris River, ending up in some of the capital's drinking water. And those pipes are hardly the only source of contamination.
Two-thirds of Baghdad's raw sewage still flows untreated into waterways, wrote Stuart Bowen, inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, in his quarterly report released last week.
1st question: Who broke the sewage plant? 2nd: If the Iraqis can't repair a sewage treatment facility, how are they going to run a country? Sewage treatment is a pretty basic governmental function. More important than symbolic elections placing puppets on the throne.
The report blames the looting on "extremists" who early on wanted to foment anger against the U.S. forces.
"Law and order broke down, with looters stealing pipes, power lines and other equipment."
Ranger wonders how many purple thumbs were complicit in stealing those materials? All power devolves from the electorate and so does all looting, whether from the top or the bottom of the totem pole.
Iraq's water treatment is an Iraq problem. Haven't these people heard of outhouses or septic tanks? How did any of this become a U.S. problem? It is three years on and still no sewage treatment in southern Baghdad. At some point we will have to flush the problem from our slate.
Labels: baghdad dirty water, baghdad sewage treatment, iraq sewage problem, phony war on terror, PWOT
posted by rangeragainstwar at 6:14 PM
11 Comments:
biggest killer in the civil war?
dysentery.
biggest killer in the spanish american war?
malaria.
biggest killer in ww1?
influenza.
biggest killer in ww2?
peritonitis, followed closely by typhoid, cholera, and our old favorite, influenza.
biggest killer in korea?
hypothermia.
biggest killer in vietnam?
dupont.
sounds like cholera is looking to its laurels and making a comeback.
of the four horsemen, pestilence is almost always the betting favorite.
for, as we know, the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
that is always how the smart money bets.
(Hell On Earth) - In a surprise move, ExxonMobile has decided to sell all of their 2,220 gas stations in order to focus full time on war profiteering. Company spokesman Beezle A. Bub announced the move today in a hastily arranged press conference at the corporate headquarters in Perdition.
"ExxonMobile, for all our record profits in a time of great crisis for the country, is so very, very, very jealous of the great green gobs of greasy grimy money that Halliburton has been raking in the past five years. The Board of Demons has therefore decided to abandon the business of selling gasoline at the pump in order to focus on the infinitely more profitable business of sucking on the public teat."
"After all," the spokesman concluded, "with the nation at war, why should Dick Cheney get to have all the fun?"
When asked if ExxonMobile was making this move as a precursor to abandoning the oil and gas refining business entirely, Mr. Bub chuckled and shook his head.
"Are you out of your fricking mind, dude?" asked Mr. Bub. "Raping the public through energy costs is the bread and butter of ExxonMobile. They will pry that part of the business out of our cold, dead hands."
When it was pointed out that a significant portion of the ExxonMobile upper management structure was in fact comprised primarily of vampires, Mr. Bub amended his remarks.
"They will pry that part of the business out of our cold, undead hands."
The story above is a satire or parody.
The above parody courtesy of:
TheSpoof.com
Wouldn't doubt if the sewage plant repair was given out to an American contractor who was paid handsomely for not doing it!
You have to remember that the Iraqis rebuilt Iraq themselves after the first gulf war. Of course the security situation was better then.
The sewage situation in Gaza is no better.
tw, the sewage problem is no better in the great lakes or the coast of florida. all these waters are fecally contaminated. jim
What's especially striking about this sad but oh so unsurprising story is that the Iraqi Government is sitting on mega-billions of oil revenues—much of it invested with the Fed, which is paying big bucks in interest—and spending virtually nothing on infrastructure repair. What is being repaired in Iraq is courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer, a state of affairs that some U.S. Government officials are getting a little nervous about.
Nothing like an allied nation whose priorities WRT to taking care of its citizens are aligned closely with those of the U.S., eh? As Ranger notes, the Great Lakes and the Florida coast are contaminated. So is much of the rest of the U.S. And then there are the decaying roads and bridges.
Good thing we've got enough money to pursue this all-important war on terror, or "long war," as I guess the military now prefers to term it. One would hate to think that money spent on fixing our own fouled nest might detract from these fun foreign adventures.
Publius, your cmts lead me to ask- how does the American people accept this charade? we're sucking the big one and somehow everybody is smiling a big s--t eating grin. (i hope u liked my tie in there)
I'm not an isolationist or classic America First type BUT this shit has got to stop sometime very soon. jim
I've stopped trying to figure the American people out, Ranger. They break my heart, operating on emotions and feel-good shit that in their hearts of hearts they know is wrong, instead of actually using their brains. How any blue collar worker—and I've never been one, unless you count enlisted time, so I can't pretend to understand them—can fall for the shit peddled by a silver spoon boy who never did an honest day's work in his life (Bush) is beyond me.
And you know McCain is another one of the privileged dudes. He's an affirmative action military officer. A legacy boy. Anyone seriously think he'd have even made it through the Naval Academy if his daddy and granddaddy weren't admirals? Despite the hardships he underwent as a POW—something I'd never, ever want to be—the fact is, he's just another silver spoon boy.
It's easy to see why a lot rich folk will vote for McCain. They've done very well with Bush and will anticipate business as usual with McCain. What's not easy to see is why a ton of blue-collar folks will also vote for him. Frankly, the only thing I see that a lot of working class people have in common with McCain is that they're white and so is he.
When you get to the nut-cutting, Ranger, it's all about race. The only reason McCain and the Republican Party are not nearing extinction is because they've adroitly played on the emotions of white Americans and inculcated fear of those who don't look like them deep within their souls. This is the McCain strategy. And he could very well win, given the fact that Americans tend to vote with their hearts rather than with their heads.
And back to the topic of the post, if McCain wins, we'll see constant pressure from the executive branch to continue chasing chimeras overseas while ignoring urgent domestic needs. And inasmuch as it looks as if Congress will be solidly in the opposition party, then we will likely see gridlock. And meanwhile, the clock will keep ticking on the time bombs we have here at home.
Exsqueeze me? How did this become a US problem? Well, I expect that would've been around the time of that shock-and-awe blow-everything-to-shit period, closely followed by debaathification and the consequent gutting of civil institutions responsible for things like sewage treatment. There are consequences to destroying a country's infrastructure and disembowelling its bureaucracy. Did you think there wouldn't be?
kootenay,
"that blow-everything-to-shit period"
Your adjectival use is appreciated.
No doubt as Colin Powell said, you break it, you bought it. That said, how many times do you buy it?
The U.S. has built and rebuilt time and again. Until the Iraqis see it as "their" sewage treatment plant, or whatever, destruction continues both as a protest vs. U.S. and as internecine mayhem.
We can solve the former, not the latter. At some point, the answer is, "leave". Their coffers are filling nicely with oil revenue profits. Fixing sewage treatment facilities shouldn't be a problem, as long as they cease destroying them.
I suspect their marauding will stop once they've had their civil war, which we have unleashed by removing Saddam.
Publius, the race card has been expertly used by the Republican fuhrers since Nixon adroitly turned it into a law and order issue.You know-black and white. It really bit Dukakis on the ass.
My area is filled with Republican national level voters and they can NEVER ADEQUATELY EXPLAIN HOW THE REPUBS SERVE THEIR BLUE COLLAR INTERESTS. iT GOES BEYOND LOGIC. I have more to say but i can't remember what it is :-) jim
Kootenay, i really hope you are not saying that we used shock and awe to destroy waste treatment facilities.:-)
My point is the same as that of Publius-let the Iraqis pay for it - shit treatment facilities are the price of freedom. I hope CSN& young will excuse me stealing one of their lines . jim
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