West Baghdad Walls Cause Murders To Plunge

Barriers Dividing Warring Neighborhoods Cause Homicides To Drop From 275 Per Week To 10

(CBS)  Six months ago, it was an al Qaeda paradise of murder and misery — Wild West Baghdad.

Col. J.B. Burton has the job of protecting 1 million people there.

His soldiers put down miles of concrete barriers along highways and community entrances to block carloads of al Qaeda thugs from attacking neighborhoods here called "mulhallas."

"Well they were just getting off the highway, and then exiting the highway back into these mulhallas, where they can prosecute their campaign of terror," Col. Burton said.

If good fences can make good neighbors, then in Baghdad, good walls can help make safer neighborhoods. Across West Baghdad, since these walls were put in place last November, the homicide rate has dropped from 275 a week to just ten a week.

It sounds like progress. Good news. Something everyone could agree on.

But not in Baghdad, which is more and more becoming walled off like a medieval city.

In an area called Adamiyah, a new wall will separate warring neighborhoods, one Sunni Muslim, the other Shia. The area is so dangerous that U.S. troops can build the wall only at night. The wall is 12 feet high, three miles long.

Not all residents are pleased with the addition.

“It never will keep us safe,” says Quammer Al-Jabbi, an Adamiyah resident.

Al-Jabbi worries she'll be trapped in her Adamiyah neighborhood — with all the terrorists already dug in there.

"When I go inside my home, I never think that I will go out."

In West Baghdad, where the walls are lower, and people feel safer, most accept the disruption.

One resident says through a translator, “Thank you. Thank you for God.”

"All of this stuff is meant to be temporary in nature, until the security situation is to a level that is acceptable to the people of Iraq," says Col. Burton.

But security is nowhere near acceptable. So walls here are everywhere and the city is more divided than ever.

[toldyouso21]

I thought Al Maliki stopped the walls--but they are continuing. Walls to protect can also become walls that imprison. Initially, the Warsaw ghetto was used to herd Jews--it was said they were being rounded up for their own protection--but really, it was a way to isolate then target them behind closed doors so to speak. By the time the Jews realized the ghetto was a prison, they were already being liquidated. Walls do not just segregate...should they ever be breached by militias or others, they would become a veritable prison for all trapped inside. Let the people who live there decide if they want to risk being trapped or not--not the American forces--we have caused these people enough harm by invading them already.

[toldyouso21]

We don't need propaganda for the wall campaigns--they are death traps waiting to happen. We are left to wonder just what our forces are really up to with these--"building projects" Instead of building walls and other new ventures--how about demolishing abandoned buildings and picking up all debris to decrease the hiding places of IEDs? Then, if our soldiers are still inclined to build instead of fight--let them rebuild parts of Bagdhad destroyed by ours and the insurgencies bombings.

[andrew_693]

Yeah, and if we actually kill every iraqui in site the murders will go down to 0. If we put every iraqui in an individual cage then the Bush strategy will succeed beyond belief!!!.What a great strategy!!! Why don't the reporters ask the intelligent question.....what is going to happen when we are not around to guard the wall, how fast do they think is going to come down and the killing start again?

[philipmontag]

If democracy were alive and well in Iraq and the will of the people prevailed we would do an about-face and march right the heck out of there. We are not welcome, we are an illegal occupying force. The one common bond the Sunnis and Shiites have is their disgust for us. Our presence is an irritant to the peace process.

[kstrisha]

Quote:

West Baghdad Walls Cause Murders To Plunge

======

Well of course. If I had the mighty United States of America soldiers pointng their guns at me; I would think twice also...

GO AMERICA KICK A**!!!

[kstrisha]

pROPagaNDA

[jebby_one]

But not everyone welcomes the change ..

----------------------

Democrats probably don't like the change. They are so heavily invested in a failure in Iraq that they are helping terrorist

[feelfree1]

Re: "Six months ago, it was an al Qaeda paradise of murder and misery"

More unsupported hype from CBS in this crappy article. Notice, once again, that no author takes credit for this yellow jounalism piece.

Re: "But not in Baghdad, which is more and more becoming walled off like a medieval city."

The Bush regime has agian stooped to using fascistic methods like retinal scans to control access.

The Iraqi "Prime Minister" al-Mailiki has demanded that the Baghdad collective prison wall be removed, as have local residents, but the Bush regime has refused to comply with this demand.

This is further evidence that the current Iraqi 'officials' are mere figureheads with no real authority, and no real legitimacy.

At any rate, while the death rate MAY have decreased in Baghda, it has increased in several other areas, so who cares?

What we do know about the Bush Bulge, is that 100 or so more U.S. soldiers, and who knows how man Iraqis, died for nothing in Iraq this month. Dead only for ignorance, lies, and greed.

And CBS continues to grease the skids of this hell-bound sleigh with these empty, anonymouse, fluff pieces.

[xfredmenzies]

So the Pentagon is writing articles for CBS now? It is pretty obvious that this piece is nothing more than a public relations attempt to spin spin spin the Iraq War into something we already know it is not: successful. Put it in the "opinions" section where it belongs, Ms Couric.

[kstrisha]

Quote:

Democrat
s probably don't like the change. They are so heavily invested in a failure in Iraq that they are helping terrorist
Posted by Jebby_One at 12:28 AM : Apr 29, 2007

-----

lol

Wow, that is so comforting to them that you KNOW WHAT THEY WANT because they DON'T LIKE THE CHANGE...

[kstrisha]

Quote:

They are so heavily invested in a failure in Iraq that they are helping terrorist
Posted by Jebby_One at 12:28 AM : Apr 29, 2007


---

You are so heavily invested in a failured American Policy, you are helping the enemy.

OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!!!!!

[fullpower200]

Check out my blog....note, you may have to remove the spaces and manually type in your browser URL

10 years of inconvenient walls VERSUS another 1,000 years of violence


http://fullpowertotheshields.blogspot.com/



Thanks.

[feelfree1]

To the spook that cobbled together this fluff piece:

Re: "So walls here are everywhere and the city is more divided than ever."

No sh#t, Sherlock! Walls have a way of doing that- dividing, that is, usually followed by 'conquer'.

How many more Iraqi and American lives will CBS sacrifice with their propaganda efforts, in order to prop-up the Bush puppet and the Corporate State?

[feelfree1]

Check out the inane blather of the 'FullPower200's anonymous blog site.

Could this be the craven brainwashed dupe who composed this disinformation article?

[shingles1]

"Across West Baghdad, since these walls were put in place last November, the homicide rate has dropped from 275 a week to just ten a week."

That would be great - but I'd like to know where CBS's getting these numbers from, particularly since we know that the Iraqi government has been withholding casualty figures. Col. J.B. Burton?

One of the first rules of good journalism is to get independent confirmation on stats.

[feelfree1]

Related:

"April 28, 2007

"Saturday: 9 GIs, 163 Iraqis Killed; 222 Iraqis Wounded"

www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=10891

[alphaa10-2009]

Now that walled medieval cities give Bush proof Iraq is filled with warring factions, perhaps he will admit there is a civil war underway. But admitting civil war, will Bush persist in the very thing he once condemned as "nation building"?

Or is it that nation building is not really OK, but when your prestige is involved (and a lot of oil and superbases), then.... of course it is!

Is this a new contract for Halliburton, to erect an Israeli-style Final Solution in glorious concrete? Imagine its size, to rival the Great Wall of China. Perhaps, in return for access to Iraqi oil, China might like to build the wall?

Even so, walls do not make a nation. "Iraq", itself, is only a fiction created for post-WW1 European powers-- not for peoples of this region.

Partition of the territory of Iraq is the only practical and lasting multipower solution for the people of Iraq. Halliburton may have the cement contracts in hand, but the time is well-past for Mickey Mousing with the natives-- or the American people.

[feelfree1]

FullPower200,

Re: "10 years of inconvenient walls VERSUS another 1,000 years of violence"

This is not for you to decide though, now is it? Especially based only on your nice rond-numbered delusions.

Want to do something useful? Build a wall around Cheney and the Bush-puppet, and cap it. Please let us know when this project is complete, and give us an accounting of the resulting murder-rate trend inside the wall.

Have the courage to use a byline, CBS! We all want to know who your "Judith Miller" really is!

[feelfree1]

'Riverbend' on the new Baghdad prison wall:

"The wall, of course, will protect no one. I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe. The Nazi government probably said, "Oh look- we're just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here- it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!" And yet, it will also be difficult to get out."

"The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently"

"I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia?"

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com

Godfux the Bush puppet-Fuhrer (heil).

[feelfree1]

philipmontag,

Re: "If democracy were alive and well in Iraq and the will of the people prevailed we would do an about-face and march right the heck out of there. We are not welcome, we are an illegal occupying force. The one common bond the Sunnis and Shiites have is their disgust for us. Our presence is an irritant to the peace process."

Bulls-eye! CBS owes you a cigar!

[randalds]

The goal here is no different then the goal the Nazi's had in WWII. Build a wall that is supposedly to protect those within, such as in the Warsaw Jewish ghetto, but in reality is just a way to isolate the undesirables, in this case the Sunni, into one area where they are easier to exterminate. Yes our government really has become evil enough to do it. First will come claims of a concentration of insurgents in a house and then we'll send in jets to blow up the whole block, including women and children. That's because to this administration the Iraqi civilians are sub-human, just like the Nazi's said about the Jews 70 years ago. This is what our leadership has become. they have become that sick in their lust for power.

[sevenveils]

The only difference was the Jews weren't bombing and assassinating the Nazis.

[bvckvs-2009]

I don't believe that turning every neighborhood into a prison is the best way to "liberate the Iraqis".

The high murder rate is not because of a lack of walls. It's because the US has spent a lot of money to have those poor people killed.

[randalds]

The only difference was the Jews weren't bombing and assassinating the Nazis.
Posted by Sevenveils at 02:49 AM : Apr 29, 2007

Yes actually they were. many off them were fighting in the resistance movement and many died valiantly doing so. Also many more died fighting the Nazi's in the uprsising that took place in the Warsaw ghetto itself. So yes, they were indeed bombing and assassinating the Germans.

[rhs648]

The idea of walls for protection is nothin new. Ancient cities used them to keep out enemies. You don't have to gar far to see them in some communities in America. The Miami area has gated communities and secured buildings. These are not just for the rich. My son bought a condiminium eleven years ago for $48,000. The building has security guards and cameras. You can not enter or leave the building without being on camera. One block away, is a high crime neighborhood. My son told me not to walk through that neighborhood because of the crime. Many people in Florida choose to live in gated communities and they work.

[rhs648]

Corrected

The idea of walls for protection is nothing new. Ancient cities used them to keep out enemies. You don't have to go far to see them in some communities in America. The Miami area has gated communities and secured buildings. These are not just for the rich. My son bought a condiminium eleven years ago for $48,000. The building has security guards and cameras. You can not enter or leave the building without being on camera. One block away, is a high crime neighborhood. My son told me not to walk through that neighborhood because of the crime. Many people in Florida live in gated communities and they work.

[incog-nito]

Sounds like a great way to foster peaceful coexistence between various ethnic groups. Wonder what will happen when the U.S. leaves? Both sides of the walls will walk over to shake each other hands? Hmmm...

Have the courage to use a byline, CBS! We all want to know who your "Judith Miller" really is!

[rhs648]

Sounds like a great way to foster peaceful coexistence between various ethnic groups. Wonder what will happen when the U.S. leaves? Both sides of the walls will walk over to shake each other hands? Hmmm...

Posted by incog-nito

For many people, safety and security is the greatest priority. Peaceful coexistance will only succeed after safety and security becomes a reality. As with anything else in life, not one size fits all. Sometimes it is necessary to try different things to reach a goal. If it takes walls to establish peace and security, so be it.

[rhs648]

As a business owner, I had to try many different things over the years to be successful. Some things worked and other things did not work. Until I tried something, I had no way of knowing whether it would work. Sometimes, the outcome is not predictable. The walls may or may not work. Short of building the walls, everything else is conjecture. To fault people for trying different approaches serves no useful purpose. My success is the result of a willingness to take risks and try different approaches.

[feelfree1]

rhs648,

Re: "My success is the result of a willingness to take risks and try different approaches."

I propose placing you inside the capped wall along with ******** Cheney and the Bush puppet, and see if that helps.

You in, so to speak?

[feelfree1]

rhs648,

Re: "For many people, safety and security is the greatest priority."

Here in the U.S., those of us who are not bootlicking cowards value freedom and democracy far more than false promises of 'security'. If we surrender those assets, we end up like the Israelis.

Re: "My son bought a condiminium eleven years ago for $48,000. The building has security guards and cameras."

Choosing to live in a gated condo in Miami, and being subject to having a prison wall built around your community by a brutal and illegally occupying force, are two very differnt things. Are you unable to differentiate?

[rhs648]

"I propose placing you inside the capped wall along with ******** Cheney and the Bush puppet, and see if that helps.

You in, so to speak?

Posted by FeelFree1

So, you favor the staus-quo. Bloodshed, torture, and instability. Successful people try different things. Mediocre people stick with the status-quo. The choice is yours.

[feelfree1]

rhs648,

Re: "So, you favor the staus-quo. Bloodshed, torture, and instability."

Incorrect. To the contrary, this is what I support:

www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow

[feelfree1]

This is also what I support, copied from a related thread:

Re: "What next, what do we do after pulling out?"

#1 Jail Cheney, the Bush puppet, Gonzo, Rumsfeld, Perle, Kristol, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rove, ect., etc., while they await war crimes proceedings.

#2 Apologize to the people of Iraq, for killing, torturing, raping, and maiming so many of their friends and family, and for destroying their country, in pursuit of a fraud-based war of aggression against them.

#3 Seize and liquidate the assets of war profiteers like Bechtel, Halliburton, Blackwater, Wackenhut, G.E., Lockheed-Martin, the American Enterprise Institute, the Carlyle Group, the Rendon Group, AIPAC, and so forth, and use the proceeds to create a reparations fund for the Iraq, Afghan, and U.S. victims of the global Bush regime/PNAC terror crusade.

#4 Organize fresh, free, and fair elections both in Iraq and here, with international observation and certification, and competent peacekeeping security in place.

[heetseeker]

"Liberators, Occupiers and Dividers"

Any intiative that causes the murder rate to drop by 96% deserves recognition and high praise. Yet even this success is a bitter double-edged sword and measure of our failure in Iraq. It has the effect of peace keeping rather than peace-making. It has the effect of delaying the inevitable rather than resolving the complex thorny issues behind the violence. It also has the effect of re-inforcing the psyche of separatness.

Though necessary to curb the bloodletting, the foundations of this wall are a powerful symbol of the new Iraq - disparate, divided and spiralling out of control. What we are seeing is a precursor to what will inevitably be separate Shia, Sunni and Kurdish nations). But it does not end there. Unwittingly we are driving the Shia's to their kith in Iran and the Sunni's to their kith in Saudi and Syria. This portends even greater violence ahead as all sides prepare the battle for the oil fields and other resources to make their new nations viable.

In Iraq it seems, nothing is ever straight-forward.

[rhs648]

heetseeker - You hit the nail on the head. Your analysis is probably as close to the truth as we can get. The wall is merely a tool. It may help bring some security and safety to some Iraqis. The solution is certainly more complex and elusive. From an American perspective, I can't help wonder if the divisions between the Sunni and the Shia are beneficial to us or not. On the one hand, peace between factions in the middle east seem desireable. On the other hand, we could have a huge united muslim world agaist us. Of course, now we seem to have divided factions against us. You are right, these are thorny issues.

[coffeehead-2009]

And the spin continues it's momentum....


Baghdad Rocked With Loud Explosions
Posted April 29, 2007, 3:12 AM EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S.-led forces fired an artillery barrage in Baghdad Sunday morning, rocking the capital with loud explosions.

The blasts began after 9 a.m. and lasted for at least 15 minutes.

Iraqis in the southern region of the city said American and Iraqi forces had stepped up their operations in the Dora area of southern Baghdad starting Saturday night.

[rhs648]

FeelFree1 -I checked out the petition. Supporters such as Cindy Sheehan should feel blessed that they live in a country which allows dissent. Although some of these people may qualify as America haters, this country allows them to be vocal. Unlike less tolerant countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, these people are allowed to roam freely and spew their sometimes anti-American beliefs.

[missingamerica]

Although Al Qaeda is predominantly Sunni, and isolating the Sunni population from the Shia population is and will undoubtedly continue to be effective in reducing the murder rate in Baghdad, I wonder if we are not doing the groundwork for religious genocide at some point in the future...once the Sunni have been boxed in like so many fish in a barrel.

[feelfree1]

rhs648,

Re: "Although some of these people may qualify as America haters"

The only 'America haters' that I see are those who wish to see more American blood and treasure squandered in an illegal, self-defeating, and disgraceful war of aggression, waged by the illegitimate and greedy Bush puppet.

You seem to be among these ranks.

Re: "should feel blessed that they live in a country which allows dissent"

We don't accept this as a 'blessing'. We demand it as a basic right; one that is guaranteed in our own Consitution.

Those who would surrender our Constitution just to appease their own irrational imaginations are the real anti-Americans, and should find another home.

[rhs648]

Most of us could just as easily be living in other countries if our ancestors had not found their way to America. For those of us who like the American way of life, we are blessed that our ansestors came here. Otherwise, we would not have the American constitution to protect us. Lets not read too much into the word blessed as a religious concept. You do not have to be religious to feel blessed.

[rhs648]

Most of us could just as easily be living in other countries if our ancestors had not found their way to America. For those of us who like the American way of life, we are blessed that our ansestors came here. Otherwise, we would not have the American constitution to protect us. Lets not read too much into the word blessed as a religious concept. You do not have to be religious to feel blessed.

[rhs648]

Most of us could just as easily be living in other countries if our ancestors had not found their way to America. For those of us who like the American way of life, we are blessed that our ansestors came here. Otherwise, we would not have the American constitution to protect us. Lets not read too much into the word blessed as a religious concept. You do not have to be religious to feel blessed.

[rhs648]

"The only 'America haters' that I see are those who wish to see more American blood and treasure squandered in an illegal, self-defeating, and disgraceful war of aggression, waged by the illegitimate and greedy Bush puppet."

Posted by FeelFree1

This sounds like something that could have come from an Al Qaeda manual.

[radiob-2009]

#3 Seize and liquidate the assets of war profiteers like Bechtel, Halliburton, Blackwater, Wackenhut, G.E., Lockheed-Martin, the American Enterprise Institute, the Carlyle Group, the Rendon Group, AIPAC, and so forth, and use the proceeds to create a reparations fund for the Iraq, Afghan, and U.S. victims of the global Bush regime/PNAC terror crusade.


And in the process corporate American just went bankrupt and subsequently Amercia.Who sits on the boards and who has significant quantitys of stock and bond ownership?

[heetseeker]

From an American perspective, I can't help wonder if the divisions between the Sunni and the Shia are beneficial to us or not.

Posted by rhs648 at 05:24 AM : Apr 29, 2007

This is a fair point. But it is also part of our problem in Iraq. We have been trying to design an Iraq that suits us, that reflects our needs, wants and perspectives. Since 2003 Iraq has become a laboratory experiment gone wrong. A classic example of the inherent dangers of geo-political and social engineering (or meddling).

It is plain to me that there is no way under the sun that we can construct an Iraq in our image, reflecting our values and sympathetic to our positions. It is simply not going to happen. The owners of Iraq are the Iraqi's themselves. We need to ensure that the new Iraq reflects their wishes and aspirations. If in defining those aspirations Iraqi's (Sunni's, Shia and Kurd) decide that they want to live apart - we must help them to realise that outcome.

We cannot impose our vision of the future on the Iraqi's. We need to let them decide it for themselves. More than that, we need to prepare ourselves for the reality that what is best for them may not be what is best for us.

[neoconrcrazy]

"The only 'America haters' that I see are those who wish to see more American blood and treasure squandered in an illegal, self-defeating, and disgraceful war of aggression, waged by the illegitimate and greedy Bush puppet."

Posted by FeelFree1


that sentiment is shared by over 60% of the American people - and growing everyday.

the misuse of America's trust is echoed across this country and those who deny it's true and refuse to accept that change is necessary are only fooling themselves.

[crater7]

Before Bush decided to infleck his SHOCK AND AWE on a conntry thad had nothing to do with with the 9-11 attacks on our country, there were no walls. People walked the streets,made trips to the markets, children walked to schools, played in playgrounds. There were no bombings. Sunni and Shia's lived and worked together.
Four years after the SHOCK AND AWE,Baghdad is a city of walls, total distruction in places, people are afraid to leave their homes. Sunni's are killing Shia's. Shia's are killing Sunni's.
But, Hey, SADDAM IS DEAD, SADDAM IS DEAD.