What on earth could wetland policy (my job) have to do with the war in Iraq? Well, change a few words around...
I saw this AP article today, and I just had to improve it with a few [annotations]... call it Mad Libs by a mad lib. Surprisingly little had to change to make it a perfect replica of an Administration press release.
Wetlands, democracy, it's all one. Both require our heavily financed, technologized and long-term interventions to secure freedom from tyranny.
Quick, what's a metaphor for "quagmire?"
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Iraqi Marshlands [Democracy] Rebounding Quickly
by Hans Greimel, Associated Press writer
The marshlands [people] of southern Iraq, reputed inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden [Bush Doctrine], have recovered rapidly since the fall of Saddam Hussein, whose regime turned much of the lush waterscape [vibrant civil society] into arid salt flats [a Stalinist dictatorship], the United Nations said Wednesday.
New satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in water [literacy] and vegetation cover [women's rights] in just the past three years, with the marshes [blessings of democracy] rebounding to about 37 percent of the area they covered in 1970, up from about 10 percent in 2002, the United Nations Environmental [Enlightenment] Program said.
"The evidence of their rapid revival is a positive signal," UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer said in a report on a multimillion dollar restoration project.
Saddam drained much of the Mesopotamian waters [will of the Iraqi people] between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by building dams [statues of himself], dikes [mobile chemical weapons labs] and canals [torture chambers] to punish the Marsh Arab inhabitants for supporting a Shiite Muslim rebellion following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also ordered thousands killed.
The marshes [nation] had been the source for fishing, boating and small agriculture [oil, oil and oil] that once sustained a population of up to 500,000 people [SUVs].
Of almost 3,600 square miles of marshes [oil fields] in 1970, the area shrank by 90 percent to 304 square miles by 2002. As recently as 2001, some experts forecast the marshlands [productive capacity] would disappear by 2008.
But restoration efforts since the fall of Saddam reversed much of the damage, bringing the current area [oil export] to 1,400 square miles [million barrels]. The expanse swelled to 50 percent of the 1970 range in the spring but then dwindled due to summer evaporation [Cindy Sheehan].
Iraqi engineers [expatriots] and tribes began re-flooding [balkanizing] parts of the wetlands [nation] by cutting gashes [deals] in dikes [Washington DC] in the euphoria of Saddam's ouster in 2003.
Last year, the United Nations [States] announced an $11 million [gazillion] project funded by Japan [you and me] to help restore the marshes [democracy] and provide clean drinking water and sanitation for 100,000 people living there. The program is providing settlements with water treatment systems and restoring reed beds [civil rights] that act as natural water filters [beacons of democracy]. It is also training 250 Iraqis in wetland management and restoration ["fear-and-anxiety" interrogation].
Still, re-flooding [restoring] the marshes [democracy] requires a delicate balance of salt [Sunni] and plant life [Shia]. The UNEP warns that more detailed field analysis of soil and water quality [US public opinion polls] is need to gauge the exact state of rehabilitation.
"While the re-flooding [constitution] bodes well for the Iraqi marshes [people], their recovery will take many years," Toepfer said. "We must continue to monitor the situation carefully and make the necessary long-term investment in marshlands management [permanent military bases]."