OT: Our New Embassy in Baghdad


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And then, as the Iraqi capital's landscape became ever more dangerous,
as an insurgency gained traction while the administration's dreams of a
redesigned American Middle East remained as strong as ever, its
officials evidently concluded that even one of Saddam's palaces, roomy
enough for a dictator interested in the control of a single country (or
the odd neighboring state), wasn't faintly big enough, or safe enough,
or modern enough for the representatives of the planet's New Rome.

Hence, Missouri's BDY. That midwestern firm's designers can now be
classified as architects to the wildest imperial dreamers and schemers
of our time. And the company seems proud of it. You can go to its
website and take a little tour in sketch form, a blast-resistant spin,
through its Bush-inspired wonder, its particular colossus of the modern
world. Imagine this: At $592 million, its proudest boast is that, unlike
almost any other American construction project in that country, it is
coming in on budget and on time. Of course, with a 30% increase in
staffing size since Congress approved the project two years ago, it is
now estimated that being "represented" in Baghdad will cost a staggering
$1.2 billion per year. No wonder, with a crew of perhaps 1,000 officials
assigned to it and a supporting staff (from food service workers to
Marine guards and private security contractors) of several thousand
more.

When the BDY-designed embassy opens in September (undoubtedly to the
sound of mortar fire), its facilities will lack the gold-plated faucets
installed in some of Saddam's palaces and villas (and those of his
sons), but they won't lack for the amenities that Americans consider
part and parcel of the good life, even in a "hardship" post. Take a
look, for instance, at the embassy's "pool house," as imagined by BDY.
(There's a lovely sketch of it at their site.) Note the palm trees
dotted around it, the expansive lawns, and those tennis courts
discretely in the background. For an American official not likely to
leave the constricted, heavily fortified, four-mile square Green Zone
during a year's tour of duty, practicing his or her serve (on the
taxpayer's dollar) is undoubtedly no small thing.

Admittedly, it may be hard to take that refreshing dip or catch a few
sets of tennis in Baghdad's heat if the present order for all U.S.
personnel in the Green Zone to wear flak jackets and helmets at all
times remains in effect -- or if, as in the present palace/embassy, the
pool (and ping-pong tables) are declared, thanks to increasing mortar
and missile attacks, temporarily "off limits." In that case, more time
will probably be spent in the massive, largely windowless-looking
Recreation Center, one of over 20 blast-resistant buildings BDY has
planned. Perhaps this will house the promised embassy cinema. (Pirates
of the Middle East, anyone?) Perhaps hours will be wiled away in the no
less massive-looking, low-slung Post Exchange/Community Center, or in
the promised commissary, the "retail and shopping areas," the
restaurants, or even, so the BDY website assures us, the "schools"
(though it's a difficult to imagine the State Department allowing
children at this particular post).

And don't forget the "fire station" (mentioned but not shown by BDY),
surely so handy once the first rockets hit. Small warning: If you are
among the officials about to staff this post, keep in mind that the PX
and commissary might be slightly understocked. The Washington Post
recently reported that "virtually every bite and sip consumed [in the
embassy] is imported from the United States, entering Iraq via Kuwait in
huge truck convoys that bring fresh and processed food, including a full
range of Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavors, every seven to 10 days."
Recently, there has been a "Theater-Wide Delay in Food Deliveries," due
to unexplained convoy problems. Even the yogurt supplies have been
running low.

But those of you visiting our new embassy via BDY's website have no such
worries. So get that container of Baskin-Robbins from the freezer and
take another moment to consider this new wonder of our world with its
own self-contained electricity-generation, water-purification, and
sewage systems in a city lacking most of the above. When you look at the
plans for it, you have to wonder: Can it, in any meaningful sense, be
considered an embassy? And if so, an embassy to whom?

The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland in the most recent issue of the New
York Review of Books terms it a "base" like our other vast, multibillion
dollar permanent bases in Iraq. It is also a headquarters. But what a
head! What quarters! It is neither town, nor quite city-state, but it
could be considered a citadel, with its own anti-missile defenses,
inside the increasingly breachable citadel of the Green Zone. It may
already be the last piece of ground (excepting those other bases) that
the United States, surge or no, can actually claim to fully occupy and
control in Iraq -- and yet it already has something of the look of the
Alamo (with amenities). Someday, perhaps, it will turn out to be
the "White House" (though, in BDY's sketches, its buildings look more
like those prison-style schools being built in embattled American urban
neighborhoods) for Moqtada al-Sadr, or some future Shiite Party, or a
Sunni strongman, or a home for squatters. Who knows?

What we know is that such an embassy is remarkably outsized for Iraq.
Even as a headquarters for a vast, secret set of operations in that
chaotic land, it doesn't quite add up. After all, our military
headquarters in Iraq is already at Camp Victory on the outskirts of
Baghdad. We can certainly assume -- though no one in our mainstream
media world would think to say such a thing -- that this new embassy
will house a rousing set of CIA (and probably Pentagon) intelligence
operations for the country and region, and will be a massive hive for
American spooks of all sorts. But whatever its specific functions, it
might best be described as the imperial Mother Ship dropping into
Baghdad.

Amazingly, despite complaints from Congress, the present U.S. ambassador
is stumped when it comes to cutting down on that planned staff of his --
every one more essential than the last -- and the State Department is
actually lobbying Congress for an extra $50 million to construct yet
more "blast-resistant housing" on the vast site. Maybe this is what
the "build and hold" strategy, pushed by many counterinsurgency types,
really means. We'll simply plan in Washington, design in Kansas City,
build through a Kuwaiti construction firm using cheap imported labor,
and try to keep building out forever from our "embassy" in Baghad.

As an outpost, this vast compound reeks of one thing: imperial impunity.
It was never meant to be an embassy from a democracy that had liberated
an oppressed land. From the first thought, the first sketch, it was to
be the sort of imperial control center suitable for the planet's
sole "hyperpower," dropped into the middle of the oil heartlands of the
globe. It was to be Washington's dream and Kansas City's idea of a
palace fit for an embattled American proconsul -- or a khan.

When completed, it will indeed be the perfect folly, as well as the
perfect embassy, for a country that finds it absolutely normal to build
vast base-worlds across the planet; that considers it just a regular
day's work to send its aircraft carrier "strike forces" and various
battleships through the Straits of Hormuz in daylight as a visible
warning to a "neighboring" regional power; whose Central Intelligence
Agency operatives feel free to organize and launch Baluchi tribal
warriors from Pakistan into the Baluchi areas of Iran to commit acts of
terror and mayhem; whose commander-in-chief President can sign
a "nonlethal presidential finding" that commits our nation to a "soft
power" version of the economic destabilization of Iran, involving,
according to ABC News, "a coordinated campaign of propaganda,
disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international
financial transactions"; whose Vice President can appear on the deck of
the USS John C. Stennis to address a "rally for the troops," while that
aircraft carrier is on station in the Persian Gulf, readying itself to
pass through those Straits and can insist to the world: "With two
carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to
friends and adversaries alike. We'll keep the sea lanes open. We'll
stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats.
We'll disrupt attacks on our own forces.... And we'll stand with others
to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this
region"; whose military men can refer to Iraqi insurgents as "anti-Iraqi
forces"; members of whose Congressional opposition can offer plans for
the dismemberment of Iraq into three or more parts; and all of whose
movers and shakers, participating in the Washington Consensus, can agree
that one "benchmark" the Iraqi government, also locked inside the Green
Zone, must fulfill is signing off on an oil law designed in Washington
and meant to turn the energy clock in the Middle East back several
decades; but why go on.

To recognize such imperial impunity and its symbols for what they are,
all you really need to do is try to reverse any of these examples. In
most cases, that's essentially inconceivable. Imagine any country
building the equivalent Mother Ship "embassy" on the equivalent of two-
thirds of the Washington Mall; or sailing its warships into the Gulf of
Mexico and putting its second-in-command aboard the flagship of the
fleet to insist on keeping the sea lanes "open"; or sending Caribbean
terrorists into Florida to blow up local buses and police stations; or
signing a "finding" to economically destabilize the American government;
or planning the future shape of our country from a foreign capital. But
you get the idea. Most of these actions, if aimed against the United
States, would be treated as tantamount to acts of war and dealt with
accordingly in this country, with unbelievable hue and cry.

When it's a matter of other countries halfway across the planet,
however, Americans largely consider such things, even if revealed in the
news, at worst tactical errors or miscalculations. The imperial mindset
goes deep. It also thinks unbearably well of itself and so, naturally,
wants to memorialize itself, to give itself the surroundings that only
the great, the super, the hyper deserves

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excerpted from http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=199798


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