  |
|
| |
|
|
|
 Mr. Bush, Tear Down That WallPosted on Apr 24, 2007WASHINGTON—Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, we’re building a wall. Actually, quite a few walls. While we were absorbed with the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech—and before that the Don Imus affair and the Alberto Gonzales tragicomedy—the war in Iraq was pushed below the fold. While we weren’t looking, the U.S. military started building high walls in parts of the Iraqi capital to separate Sunnis from Shiites. Basically, we’re turning Baghdad into Belfast. This is supposed to be a temporary expedient, a way to tamp down Iraq’s sectarian civil war—in the capital, at least, which is the ostensible goal of George W. Bush’s fraudulent “surge” policy—by making it harder for the antagonists to get at each other’s throats. The so-called “peace lines” in Belfast, separating Protestants from Catholics, were supposed to be temporary, too. That network of walls was begun in the 1970s. The construction of barriers and checkpoints that turn Baghdad neighborhoods into what U.S. officers sardonically call “gated communities” is another sign—as if more evidence were needed—that Bush’s “surge” is nothing more than a maneuver intended to buy time. His open-ended commitment for U.S. forces to patrol those barriers and guard those checkpoints will become the next president’s problem. The walls that have been built so far didn’t prevent the car bombs in Baghdad last week, including at the Sadriya market, that killed nearly 200 people. Even the heavy fortifications surrounding the Green Zone, where the American presence and the Iraqi “unity” government are headquartered, couldn’t keep a suicide bomber from detonating his explosives in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament. But let’s assume that if U.S. forces build enough walls and make it hard enough for Iraqis to move around their own capital, the violence in Baghdad may decline somewhat. In that event, the Shiite death squads and Sunni suicide bombers will simply do their killing elsewhere in Iraq. There’s considerable evidence that this already is happening. Both the president and his many critics say that the real problem in Iraq is political—that there will be no genuine prospects for peace until Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government reach a negotiated accommodation with the Sunni insurgency. The barriers going up right now—The Washington Post reported that at least 10 Baghdad neighborhoods will be isolated behind walls—likely will make Sunni-Shiite reconciliation a more distant goal. If anything, walls will accelerate the sectarian cleansing that has been purifying formerly mixed neighborhoods. Walls divide; they do not unite. Walls give concrete expression to hatreds and prejudices, establishing them as artifacts not of the mind but of the landscape. When I was the Post’s London correspondent in the early 1990s, I covered the Northern Ireland conflict. The first thing I went to see in Belfast was the notorious “peace line” between the Falls Road, a Catholic stronghold, and Shankill Road, a Protestant redoubt. Everything looked the same on both sides—the houses, the shops, the people—yet it was as if they were two different countries. Animosities had been passed down through generations. Even now, 15 years later, a civil exchange between two of the leading antagonists—Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams—is big news. How many years will it take to get to that point in Baghdad? Bush has enmeshed the United States in a civil conflict that will take years, probably decades, to resolve. The building of walls mocks the administration’s happy-talk rhetoric about how much political progress the Iraqis are making. If the Iraqi government really is the exercise in inclusive democracy that Bush claims, walls would be coming down. Putting up new walls only makes sense if the White House foresees a substantial U.S. military presence in Iraq for many years to come. Clearly, the Iraqi government is not ready to do the job of policing the enclaves that are being created. The government doesn’t even want to do the job. Maliki complained Sunday about a new wall in Adhamiyah, a Sunni neighborhood, saying it “reminds us of other walls that we reject.” Maybe he was thinking of Belfast, or maybe of Berlin, or maybe of the wall that the Israelis have built between themselves and the Palestinians. Or maybe he is beginning to realize how easy it is to build walls and how hard to tear them down. Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at symbol)washpost.com. (c) 2007, Washington Post Writers Group Previous item: 'American Idol' Tackles Poverty Next item: Closing the Box on Pandora? Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment |
|
Snapshots of Life and Death in Baghdad
Email
Print
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Ma.gnolia
Newsvine
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo
Jump to Comments
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
By tmulvey, April 25, 2007 at 10:39 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The walls are a natural consequence of GW’s foreign policy gone mad, as he’s become so good at dividing the American people. Maybe he got the idea listening to Pink Floyd! “We don’t need no thought control”,we being the Shiites and Sunnis.
Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, April 24, 2007 at 4:17 pm #
2,000 years ago, the Roman’s built Hadrian’s wall between Scotland and England (anyone got any relatives from there?). Will this now be Halliburton’s wall???
Report thisBy dale Headley, April 24, 2007 at 2:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
My only question is whether or not this wall will interfere with John McCain’s leisurely strolls in the peaceful streets of Baghdad.
Report thisBy Patrick Story, April 24, 2007 at 1:22 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Remember “Strategic Hamlets” in Vietnam?
The walls being built by US forces in Iraq are a retread of the failed “strategic hamlet” policy in Vietnam. The attempt back then was to segregate civilians from the Viet Kong. The “hamlets” turned out to be deathtraps. And these segregated areas in Baghdad Bush absurdly calls “gated communities"--he must think they’re like the secure suburban enclaves where his big supporters live.
Report thisBy QuyTran, April 24, 2007 at 10:58 am #
Stop building the wall in Iraq ! We need the new wall between Bush and Cheney to separate these devils
Report thisand if they are together we’re still miserable.
By Fadel Abdallah, April 24, 2007 at 9:03 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Bush can hardly tear down the wall of ignorance, fanaticism and crude evil surrounding him. Haven’t we heard it loud enough and long enough that he is in a state of denial?!
Only angry people, in a state of revolution, can tear dowm evil walls.
So the battle cry should be:
Free and decent people! Tear down all apartheid walls in the world through white revolutions! And tear down with them all the evil, arrogant and misguided rulers who erect them!
Report thisBy writeon, April 24, 2007 at 8:42 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
One is left with a feeling close to incredulity at the crass stupidity of building yet another wall in Baghdad. For people in the Middle East this wall reminds them of one thing - the hated wall Israel has built on the West Bank. That the United States should blithely choose to follow the counter-insurgency tactics of Israel, underlining, yet again, the true nature of the occupation of Iraq, handing the iraqi resistance propaganda on a silver platter, is incredibly shortsighted and stupid.
Not only is the wall bad for winning hearst and minds, it’s also a concrete symbol of how US tactics in Iraq are failing. Bush, the great uniter, is deviding Iraq along sectarian lines, breaking the country into ethnic regions and dividing, dividing, dividing. One can only assume that there is som kind of method in this madness, and that is simply divide and rule, divide and rule; giving us the opportunity to rob the country blind in the meantime.
And the vast ammounts of oil, as yet untapped, that the Whitehouse dreams of, may not evern be there under the desert sands of western Iraq. To spend so much blood and treasure for a mirage, would be a terrible and tragic irony of historic proportions. And the tidal wave of hatred and revenge directed at the US for our crimes, what about that?
Report thisBy M Currey, April 24, 2007 at 7:53 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Of course Bush will leave it to the next president, then when they make a surge for power again, they can use it against the Democrats even though this was a war that was started so that the president could grab a lot of war powers.
This Gonzales is in his “I do not recall” mode because this administration is always looking at ways to gain political points be it trying to supress the votes in certain districts by some strong tactics or other means, like Ohio saying that forms have to be on a certain thickness of paper, or the writing has to be so far in the margins, things that some would consider nitpicking, which it is this administration would use tactics that Natzi Germany used, soon they will (if they could) be burning certain books.
I just think like some people that Democracy is a sham, the congress is controlled by the lobby industry and until the people get their say in their government there will be discontent.
M Currey
Report thisBy John Lowell, April 24, 2007 at 7:26 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
This whole question highlights the utter hypocracy of the undertaking in Iraq. Whenever he has been questioned about a plan for Iraq that involves partitioning Bush has pooh-poohed it. Yet here we partition off Baghdad while Andreaus, supposedly in the midst of tamping down violence, advises Iraqis to get used to it! This man is every bit the phoney that is Bush. Birds of a feather, I suppose.
John Lowell
Report thisBy Homer Hewitt, April 24, 2007 at 6:28 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Don’t build that divisive wall in Baghdad. Build one in
NYC - between The Donald and Rosie.
Homer http://www.altara.blogspot.com
Report thisBy Matt, April 24, 2007 at 5:46 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
According to the New York Times reporter Alissa Rubin, it was “surprising” to see such intense Iraqi anger at the US attempt to turn Baghdad into a West Bank, strangled in concrete walls and endless waits at checkpoints.
In fact, nowhere in her story this morning does Ms Rubin even mention the obvious comparison to the Israeli occupation and annexation wall that must instantly have come to Iraqi minds.
Well gee, Ms Rubin, I guess you thought it was “surprising” when the Iraqi people rejected the new Iraqi flag, created by the neocon occupiers, which was blue and white and was transparently modeled on the Israeli flag?
Furthermore, Ms Rubin, if the Iraqis ever do regain control of their country, I suppose you will also report it “surprising” if the Iraqis passionately reject serving as host to a huge US military base presence, to be used to launch more wars of aggression for Israel’s benefit?
Report thisBy rowdy, April 24, 2007 at 4:33 am #
it is clear that bush has made sure that the next pres.and congress will be unable to get us out of iraq. that was the plan all along,which is why he refuses to remove the troops. how many times has he said, it will be up to the next pres to get us out?
Report this