Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
The Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad went back to Baghdad to see the effects of last year's troop escalation ("surge"). He argues that the US military's blast walls and forcible division of the city into isolated micro-neighborhoods are the cause of the reduction in deaths, not extra troops.
The Real News provides a transcript.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/06/2008 12:36:00 AM
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4 Comments:
So? So is Gaza
It’s strange that the Repubs keep repeating the Ruski solution to violence that of building walls, e.g. in Baghdad, Israel/Palestine and between the US and Mexico. Wasn't it their leader Ronnie Raygun who said, Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall.
I don't think you're being fair here. While i disagree with the administration on almost everything, it is clear that part of a counter-insurgency strategy is to establish control over the population. Additionally, when you have as much civil & ethnic strife as there was in Baghdad there was really little choice but to separate Sunnis and Shiites from each other.
This is temporary measure that has yielded the Iraqi government and us some breathing room to move forward. The Bush administration is crafting its own strategy, but given that they have so little time in office, it means that this strategy will also benefit the incoming president to the extent that it will leave him a relatively violence free Iraq. That is a great advantage from where we were before, since an incoming President would not only have had to deal with the violence, but also with trying to contain it while also moving to withdraw a large contingent of troops.
As time goes by and Iraq moves to a political solution, the walls will start coming down. It's gonna be a hard road though, but luckily we'll have a new president by then.
White Americans use property boundaries as walls to isolate themselves. They have built themselves school for whites only in these isolated communties. In these schools students are subject to mistreatment and violence. The citizens of Baghdad behind those wall will be subject to mistreatment and/or atrocities like the citizens of East German.
Walls will not provide citizens with peace, hope, or progress.
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