Baghdad Disneyland

Baghdad is, to put it politely, a mess. Electricity is spotty at best, clean water is largely nonexistent, hospitals are understaffed and undersupplied - you know, the usual stuff you find in a war zone. It's a real downer.

But take heart, for help is on the way thanks to Llewellyn Werner.

Yes, Werner is working on a theme park for Baghdad. The same company that developed Disneyland is hard at work creating the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience. The $500 million, 50-acre complex will be located right next to the Green Zone and will contain such diversions as a skateboard park, a concert theater, a museum and kiddie rides, not to mention a hotel and housing.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said, "There is a shortage of entertainment in the city. Cinemas can't open. Playgrounds can't open. The fun park is badly needed for Baghdad. Children don't have any opportunities to enjoy their childhood."

Yeah, they keep getting killed.

Al-Dabbagh also said that entry to the park would be strictly controlled, which will theoretically keep out the suicide bombers. He said nothing about how mortar shells will be prevented from flying into the park.

Let's ponder for a moment the insanity of placing a fun park right in the middle of a war zone, not to mention right next to the single biggest target of the Iraqi insurgency. What developer in his right mind would even consider such a thing? And what families in their right minds would send their kids to such a place?

But since it will be built by the same people who gave us Disneyland, allow me to make a few modest suggestions as to which rides should be installed:

• Honey, I Blew Up the Audience
• It's a Violent World
• Mr. Toad's Wild Insurgency
• Pirates of the Tigris
• Ahmed in Wonderland

And so on.

Werner is optimistic that the same people who take such gruesome pleasure in blowing up shops, funerals, etc, will refrain from giving the park the same treatment. "I think people will embrace it," he said, evidently smoking the same dope that led Dick Cheney to proclaim that American troops invading Iraq would be "greeted as liberators."

"They'll see it as an opportunity for their children regardless if they're Shia or Sunni," Werner went on. "They'll say their kids deserve a place to play and they'll leave it alone."

Yes, that approach has worked so well in protecting soccer games.

And just to make sure everyone knows what his real motive is, he added, "I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't making money. I also have this wonderful sense that we're doing the right thing - we're going to employ thousands of Iraqis. But mostly everything here is for profit."

Considering the cash cow Iraq has been for Halliburton, KBR and other war profiteers, it sounds like he's going right along with everyone else.