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BABYLON IS BEING REBUILT, JUST AS PROPHESIED
By Joel C. Rosenberg
Washington, D.C., June 29, 2009) -- Keep your eye on Iraq. As the
country once wracked with unimaginable violence becomes increasingly
stable and secure, direct foreign investment is going to flood in, and
the region once known as "Babylon" and "Babylonia" will become the
wealthiest country on the planet.
Exxon Mobil, the world's largest company, for example, is positioning
itself to become a major investor in the Iraqi energy sector. Other
major oil companies are doing the same. The Iraqi government in recent
months has been developing investment incentive packages to draw in such
companies. This week, in fact, such energy companies will actually begin
bidding for licenses to develop Iraq's immense but badly atrophied oil
exploration, drilling, and refining industry. Consider this morning's
headline from the Associated Press: "World's big oil companies prepare
for return to Iraq."
And this is just the beginning.
Regular readers of this weblog and my books know that Bible prophecy
says ancient Babylon, Iraq will be rebuilt and become the greatest
center of wealth, commerce and power in the "last days" of history. The
books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Revelation are explicit on this
subject. Skeptics and cynics abound, to be sure, but the fact is the
actual ancient city Babylon is being rebuilt right now, in part with
U.S. taxpayer funds. Iraqi leaders hope that eventually millions of
tourists will come to visit, and real progress is being made.
Yesterday's edition of Stars & Stripes, a U.S. military publication, had
a fascinating story headlined: "U.S., Iraqi experts developing plan to
preserve Babylon, build local tourism industry."
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63495
HILLAH, Iraq - The remains of what was once the greatest city in the
world
occupy a vast site on the bank of the Euphrates River.
Their roots go back 3,800 years to when the city of Babylon was the
heart of a Mesopotamian empire, and the remnants include great slabs of
stone that are said to be the remains of King Nebuchadnezzar's castle. A
giant stone lion guards one end of the fortifications, but the most
stunning remnants were removed by European archaeologists in the early
20th century.
Now soldiers with the 172nd Infantry Brigade are exploring the ruins as
part of a U.S.-Iraqi effort to preserve the ancient city and plan for
the return of Western tourists.
Members of the brigade's 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment escorted
a group of U.S. heritage tourism experts to the ruins last week for the
first of several visits to develop a preservation and tourism plan for
the area.
U.S. and coalition troops have been criticized in the past for damaging
and contaminating artifacts. In a 2006 report, the head of the British
Museum's Near East department said that, among other things, military
vehicles crushed a 2,600-year-old brick pavement, and sand and
archeological fragments were used to fill military sandbags.
Now the rapidly improving security situation in surrounding Babil
province has persuaded the U.S. State Department and the Iraqi State
Board of Antiquities and Heritage to embark on the preservation project,
dubbed the Future of Babylon Project.
The State Department and the World Monuments Fund have committed
$700,000 to the project, which will see U.S. and Iraqi experts develop a
plan to preserve the site and develop a local tourism industry, said
Diane Siebrandt, the U.S. embassy's cultural heritage officer.
The Babylon project is one of several that the State Department is
involved in to conserve ancient sites in partnership with the Iraqi
government, she said.
Two people with expertise developing tourism plans for historic sites in
third-world nations, Gina Haney and Jeff Allen, have been employed by
the State Department to run the U.S. side of the project. They visited
the ruins for the first time last weekend.
Haney said the pair will involve the local community in the plan's
development, as they did with a similar project encouraging Western
tourists to visit Ghana's Gold Coast.
"You could throw money at it and do all this work, but unless you can
create a sustainable situation, your opportunities for tourism will run
out," Allen said. "The idea is to develop something that is going to be
here 30 to 40 years from now and has benefits for the local people. We
don't want something that will only benefit outsiders."
The Iraqi government will be involved in the planning as well.
"If you have 200,000 people a year coming to this site, you will have
people staying at hotels, visiting restaurants, buying souvenirs," Allen
said. "The site is in some ways a revenue generator for the local
community."
Babylon could be comparable to the Egyptian pyramids, which draw
millions of tourists each year. But the area lacks the tourist
infrastructure that has been built at sites such as the pyramids, he
said.
"There is nothing for tourists here, but if you interpret and present it
in the right way, you can spark interest," he said.
Allen, who has experience designing walkways and signs for other
heritage sites, said detailed planning won't happen until authorities
have worked out how best to preserve the ruins. The crumbling rocks of
the original city are surrounded by more elaborate and modern
fortifications, including a maze-like collection of interior walls built
on top of genuine ruins during Saddam Hussein's time.
"Some of the past restoration work hasn't been very good," he said.
"Saddam was trying to inherit the power of the ancients and continue
that legacy. His restoration methods helped reinforce that vision of
himself, and he created a pattern of restoration and repair work that
benefited a certain agenda."
One of the 172nd soldiers who visited the ruins, 1st Lt. Bryan Kelso,
24, of Jacksonville, Fla., walked in wonder near the ancient stones.
"It's amazing to be surrounded by this history. To think that we are
standing where Alexander the Great has been," he said, referring to the
great Macedonian conqueror who died in Babylon. "Babylon is one of the
oldest and first civilizations known to man. They created the wheel and
the first calendars. Everybody coming here gets a sense of what this
place really is and how it all traces back."
