Dancing in the Green Zone

In the week that Kabul's first gastropub opened for business, Phil Carter's Intel Dump has a great post on the bar scene that has developed inside the walls of the Baghdad Green Zone. Apparently, the Zone's hottest ticket is the CIA disco. Complete with mirrorball and (sprung I hope) dance floor.

"The plushest tavern is the CIA's rattan furnished watering hole, known as the ''OGA bar.'' OGA stands for ''Other Government Agency,'' the CIA's low-key moniker. The OGA bar has a dance floor with a revolving mirrored disco ball and a game room. It is open to outsiders by invitation only. Disgruntled CPA employees who haven't wangled invites complain that the CIA favors women guests."

I suppose the company from The Company must be amusing as well. "So, how do you get into the interrogation contracting business then?" Those mysterious prisoners who were kept off the Abu Ghraibh roll call were officially the responsibility of "OGAs". It reminds me of the Manic Street Preachers' song "Tsunami". ("Disco dancing with the rapists/Your only crime was silence..") Of course, the character in the song was in a high-security psychiatric hospital. Only pure coincidence can possibly have led me to associate six thousand deluded and potentially violent individuals isolated from the outside world by massive security barriers with an asylum. Or did I mean the other way round?