Here's yet another story we don't see covered by our media as it doesn't support the Kerry campaign's "Bush as unilateral cowboy" meme.
Iraq: UN announces multi-million dollar plan to restore 'Garden of Eden' marshes
The United Nations today announced an $11 million project to help restore the marshlands of southern Iraq, considered by some to be the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden, after they were massively damaged by dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a vast drainage operation carried out by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.
The project, funded by the Government of Japan, will support sustainable development through environmentally sound technologies, providing drinking water, sanitation and pilot wetland restoration for the Marsh Arabs, heirs to the 5,000-year-old civilization of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said.
Of course the most obvious question that leaps to mind is why the UN asshats did nothing for over a decade as Saddam Hussein destroyed the marshes, committing genocide on the Ma'dan.
The UN says that over 15 years, the government drained 90% of them, resulting in one of the world's worst environmental disasters. It was also a humanitarian disaster. In 1991, a quarter of a million marsh Arabs lived in the region. The number today? Just 20,000. But with the fall of Saddam Hussein, the floodgates have reopened literally, and, with the return of the marshes, a last gasp at an ancient way of life.
Oh, right. Nevermind.
(Recognize the post title? Thought you would.)
