‘Legoland’ braces for invasion as part of troops’ urban war games
By Sean Parnell and Mark Dodd.
A GLEAMING, high-walled building in the middle of a muddy marketplace will be the focal point for tens of thousands of US and Australian troops as they improve their preparedness for war.
To a growing number of protest groups, the newly constructed building – part of the Urban Operations Training Facility at Shoalwater Bay in central Queensland – is a mosque, demonstrating the West’s deep-seated suspicion of Islam.
But to Lieutenant Colonel Peter White, overseeing construction of a fictional town at Raspberry Creek, due to be occupied for the first time in Exercise Talisman Sabre, which is getting under way, the building is simply a generic cultural centre.
Although the building could be used to depict a mosque in exercises – some of the US marines who have arrived at Shoalwater Bay see it that way – it could also be a church or museum.
In a place known to contractors as “Legoland”, the cultural centre is the only building with glass windows instead of kickable perspex, and is built of brick instead of reconfigured shipping containers.
“The purpose is for troops in exercises to treat this building differently, with the appropriate respect and sensitivity,” Lieutenant Colonel White told The Australian.