I feel like such a sucker for reporting this, as though it must the excellent work of The Onion’s jokers, but here it is anyway, from the Guardian’s Baghdad reporter:

Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad’s International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers. Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage in a luxury hotel, which would not look out of place in Sydney harbour. Then, as twilight falls, a pre-prandial stroll, perhaps, amid the cool of the Tigris Riverfront Park, where the peace is broken only by the soulful cries of egrets fishing.

Improbable though it all may seem, this is how some imaginative types in the US military are envisaging the future of Baghdad’s Green Zone, the much-pummelled redoubt of the Iraqi capital where a bunker shot has until now had very different connotations.

A $5bn (£2.5bn) tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a “dream” makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors. About half of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the US state department or private foreign companies.

The article ends with a statement by a native:

For many Baghdad residents, the Green Zone has been a no-go area for years, first under Saddam and now under the occupation. “What do I care?” shrugged one, Ahmed Hussein. “I don’t have electricity, I don’t have fresh water and I don’t have a job.”

More disturbing news about those who claim to “support our troops:

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.

This reliance on troops found medically “non-deployable” is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say.

“Tell me how this ends.”

That’s a line Gen. Patraeus gave to Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson in 2003, when the general was directing the 101st Airborne during the U.S. invasion.

The no-bid contracts with KBR have led to several problems for troops in the Mideast, such as electocution:

In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.

The bulletin, with the headline “The Unexpected Killer,” was issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in water — one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool — that was suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.

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On Tuesday, Pres. Bush was asked if he thinks we’re winning in Afghanistan. He Rose Garden response was: “I do, I think we’re making good progress. I do, yes.”

On Wednesday, a State Department report said: “Despite the efforts of both Afghan and Pakistani security forces, instability, coupled with the Islamabad brokered cease-fire agreement in effect for the first half of 2007 along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, appeared to have provided AQ [Al-Qa’ida] leadership greater mobility and ability to conduct training and operational planning, particularly that targeting Western Europe and the United States. … AQ leaders continued to plot attacks and to cultivate stronger operational connections that radiated outward from Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.”

The U.N. reported last year:

Afghanistan is currently suffering its most violent year since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, according to an internal United Nations report that sharply contrasts with recent upbeat appraisals by President Bush and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai.

The AP reports that US troop deaths in Iraq have reached a seven-month high:

The killings of three U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in Baghdad pushed the American death toll for April up to 47, making it the deadliest month since September.

Surely another sign of the success of the surge and how the dead-enders are on the run and desperate to survive, etc. Oh, and don’t forget Iran.

Do you believe everything you hear from the White House? For example, we aren’t planning an attack against Iran. Dan Hamburg of the Santa Monica Mirror offers some reasons why an attack is imminent.

Watch your language talking about terrorists. Some words legitimize, some offend, some inflate.

Federal agencies, including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, are telling their employees not to describe Islamic extremists as “jihadists” or “mujahideen,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like “Islamo-fascism” is out, too.

The reason: Such words may boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by offending moderates.

There’s a list here of words not to use.

The Times of London reports on plans for a massive amusement park in Baghdad:

Mr Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is pouring millions of dollars into developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland. “The people need this kind of positive influence. It’s going to have a huge psychological impact,” Mr Werner said.

Yes, this should make life in a war zone much more appealing. Now if they can only find the electricity to power the rides.

And if it doesn’t fly in Iraq, there’s always the United Arab Emirates:

Politically sensitive characters such as Captain America could be left at home. Prayer rooms will join the list of accommodations, and menus will likely feature falafel and humus alongside pizza and hot dogs.

The People’s Voice presents “The Quotes that Sent Us to War.”

An example:

WHAT ABOUT CASUALTIES?

“Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”
- President George W. Bush, response attributed to him by the Reverend Pat Robertson, when Robertson warned the president to prepare the nation for “heavy casualties” in the event of an Iraq war, 3/2003

“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”
- Barbara Bush, former First Lady (and the current president’s mother), on Good Morning America, 3/18/03

“I think the level of casualties is secondary… [A]ll the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war… What we hate is not casualties but losing.”
- Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute, 3/25/03

Unfortunately, there are a lot more than these.

The Guardian reports on a new book that tells how Gen. Myers was hoodwinked by the Bush administration over torture at Guantanamo:

America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.

That’s the chief way to describe how well we’re doing in Iraq. It has been from nearly the start, over and over. Here’s a sampling:

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on October 27, 2003: “In the north and south [of Iraq], we have made significant progress.”

President Bush on November 13, 2004: “Fighting together, our forces have made significant progress in the last several days.”

President Bush on June 28, 2005: “In the past year, we have made significant progress.”

Vice President Cheney on October 19, 2006: “We’ve made significant progress.”

President Bush on February 23, 2007: ” I think we have made significant progress in Iraq.”

Of course it was used again last week in the report to Congress. That was the week 19 U.S. soldiers died, the deadliest progessive week of the year.

Gary Kamiya offers his 10 Commandments for Iraq:

Etc. Details here.

Is the Iraq war good for the economy? Where does that $10+billion a month go? A few million goes for fuel, of course:

Military units pay an average of $3.23 a gallon for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, some $88 a day per service member in Iraq, according to an Associated Press review and interviews with defense officials. A penny or two increase in the price of fuel can add millions of dollars to U.S. costs.

Critics in Congress are fuming. The U.S., they say, is getting suckered as the cost of the war exceeds half a trillion dollars - $10.3 billion a month, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Some lawmakers say oil-rich allies in the Middle East should be doing more to subsidize fuel costs because of the stake they have in a secure Iraq. Others point to Iraq’s own burgeoning surplus as crude oil prices top $100 a barrel. Baghdad subsidies let Iraqis pay only about $1.36 a gallon.

Someone is profiting from the sale of oil during a war for oil fought above one of the biggest oil reserves in the world. This is a war that was supposed to pay for itself through Iraqi oil.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism reports on the decline of war reporting in recent months. The change is really quite profound. You should visit this site even if you’re not interested in the topic. You need to see this example of interactive chart building.

Design Your Own Chart
1. Select the rows and columns in the dataset below that you would like to see displayed in your chart.
2. Select a chart type from the options below to make your chart.

If you are actually interested in the war, McClatchy newspapers offers a daily roundup of what their reporters have uncovered. Here’s the report from Monday after things grew calm.