For Iraqis, a Symbol of Unkept Promises

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-school1jun01,1,5887168,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Past the charred remains of a U.S. military truck, down a pitted road lined with rubble sits Shura Primary School.

Outside, the squat schoolhouse glistens with fresh lime-green paint, courtesy of the renovation spree launched by the U.S.-led coalition. Inside, the floors are buckled, the blackboards are scarred, and the bathrooms are little more than open-air sewage pits. There is one working water fountain for 1,125 students, who must pick their way through a parking lot strewn with mounds of trash to get to the school's front doors.

"They promised to make it a paradise," said Hana Abbood, an Arabic-language teacher at Shura. "But all they've changed is the paint."

To many Iraqis in the area, the sorry state of the school is a symbol of how the coalition has failed them.

[pfitz59]

1. Potemkin Country

http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0597811.html
"Potem'kin vil'lage: a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition. Also,Potem'kin Vil'lage."
http://www.mtech.edu/wimmonen/Departments/Pre-Professional%20Health/Vocabulary/Word-a-Day%202003/potemkin_village.htm
"An impressive showy facade designed to mask undesirable facts."
"Imagine a Hollywood set and you'd have a good idea of the original Potemkin village. In 1787, when Catherine the Great visited the Ukraine and the Crimea, Prince Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin (1739-1791), a Russian army officer, statesman, and her lover, decided to put up elaborate cardboard houses apparently full of splendor in the villages Catherine was shown. While this setup depicted an illusion of prosperity, the real condition of the village was hidden behind this facade. A Potemkin village is, in other words, whitewash taken to the Nth degree."

Pretty much sums up the entire BFEE* admin.....

[Democat]

2. They didn't paint it for the Iraqi's, they painted it for the U.S. media!

Paint the outside and make the inside off limits to reporters, that will take care of the problem!