Camp Ramadi Renamed Club G’itmo East
July 11, 2005
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Got a great e-mail here to share with you, folks. “Dear Rush: Greetings from Camp Ramadi in Iraq again.” This is the guy who sent us a picture, sent a great e-mail in; we sent him some Club G’itmo gear. We sent him a whole bunch of Club G’itmo gear. He says: “Greetings from Camp Ramadi here in Iraq again. We received your generous shipment of Club G’itmo apparel and Jihad Java coffee mugs in fine order here today. Suffice to say these items were used to officially inaugurate the grand opening of Club G’itmo East here in Iraq. I’ve enclosed with my e-mail a picture of our opening ceremony complete with soldiers, both on duty and off, enjoying some of the finer elements of life that many Americans partake in back home: Organized softball — although we play in a real sandlot — one-hole golf course complete with all the punkers you can play courtesy of the incoming mortars that make the most wonderful craters to play out of. What a great joint venture the insurgents have done for us by creating such a marvel with their measly bombs. It’s a win-win situation.
(August 31, 2004)The Marines used over 200 panels of recycled wood to construct the outer fence of the field that reaches 290 feet to center field. They used old light poles as foul line poles and over 120 gallons of green paint. The left field has an unmistakable feature like Fenway: the “Green Monster,” a 64-foot long and 18-foot high wall.
“It was a two-week project,” said Cpl. Jason M. Samuels, 22, and an artillery mechanic with the unit. “Putting up the Green Monster was the hardest part. We built it on the ground and stood it up. We had 30 guys lifting it up and it was shifting and wobbling.”
Corn fails to take root in Iraq
(Camp Ramadi, Iraq) First off, none of those smart-aleck jokes about the desert being dry. For about a month after the April planting, Bayliss and his crew – a few officers and fellow NCOs – pumped 2,800 gallons of water onto their quarter-acre plot per week.
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When rain, that rarest of blessings, actually does fall, the ground takes on a sickly, “white crystal appearance,” the sergeant major said.
And then there is the ultimate enemy, heat. Temperatures are hitting 115 to 120 degrees every day, and could push higher in August.
The cousin, his wife S. and their two daughters have been houseguests these last three days. They drove up to the house a couple of days ago with several bags of laundry. “There hasn’t been water in our area for three days…” The cousins wife huffed as she dragged along a black plastic bag of dirty clothes. “The water came late last night and disappeared three hours later… what about you?” Our water had not been cut off completely, but it came and went during the day.
Water has been a big problem in many areas all over Baghdad. Houses without electric water pumps don’t always have access to water. Today it was the same situation in most of the areas. They say the water came for a couple of hours and then disappeared again. We’re filling up plastic containers and pots just to be on the safe side. It is not a good idea to be caught without water in the June heat in Iraq.
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What people find particularly frustrating is the fact that while Baghdad seems to be falling apart in so many ways with roads broken and pitted, buildings blasted and burnt out and residential areas often swimming in sewage, the Green Zone is flourishing. The walls surrounding restricted areas housing Americans and Puppets have gotten higher- as if vying with the tallest of date palms for height. The concrete reinforcements and road blocks designed to slow and impede traffic are now a part of everyday scenery- the road, the trees, the shops, the earth, the sky… and the ugly concrete slabs sometimes wound insidiously with barbed wire.
The price of building materials has gone up unbelievably, in spite of the fact that major reconstruction has not yet begun. I assumed it was because so much of the concrete and other building materials was going to reinforce the restricted areas. A friend who recently got involved working with an Iraqi subcontractor who takes projects inside of the Green Zone explained that it was more than that. The Green Zone, he told us, is a city in itself. He came back awed, and more than a little bit upset. He talked of designs and plans being made for everything from the future US Embassy and the housing complex that will surround it, to restaurants, shops, fitness centers, gasoline stations, constant electricity and water- a virtual country inside of a country with its own rules, regulations and government. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Republic of the Green Zone, also known as the Green Republic.
“We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and rebuilding while a country is at war is even harder.”
Three decades of tyranny isn’t what bombed and burned buildings to the ground. It isn’t three decades of tyranny that destroyed the infrastructure with such things as “Shock and Awe” and various other tactics. Though he fails to mention it, prior to the war, we didn’t have sewage overflowing in the streets like we do now, and water cut off for days and days at a time. We certainly had more than the 8 hours of electricity daily. In several areas they aren’t even getting that much.
Raed Jarrar’s brother has been taken into custody. His mother has deleted all of her blog’s Arabic entries, fearing the gov’t will keep her son in custody due anti-occupation messages.