"Are We In The West Bank?"
We have clearly ran out of ideas and lost the war if we actually go through with this:
U.S. to cut off Baghdad neighborhood with barrier
Commanders hope the wall will prevent attacks on the Sunni Arab districts it surrounds.
By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer April 19, 2007BAGHDAD -- A U.S. military brigade is constructing a three-mile-long concrete wall to cut off one of the capital's most restive Sunni Arab districts from the Shiite Muslim neighborhoods that surround it, raising concern about the further Balkanization of Iraq's most populous and violent city.
U.S. commanders in northern Baghdad say the 12-foot-high barrier will make it more difficult for suicide bombers, death squads and militia fighters from sectarian factions to attack one another and slip back to their home turf. Construction began last week and is expected to be completed by the end of the month.
Although Baghdad is replete with blast walls, checkpoints and other temporary barriers, including a massive wall around the Green Zone, the wall being constructed in Adhamiya would be the first to essentially divide a neighborhood by sect....
. . .Sunnis and Shiites living in the shadow of the barrier are united in their contempt for the imposing new structure.
"Are they trying to divide us into different sectarian cantons?" said a Sunni drugstore owner in Adhamiya, who identified himself as Abu Ahmed, 44. "This will deepen the sectarian strife and only serve to abort efforts aimed at reconciliation."
. . .Several residents interviewed likened the project to the massive barriers built around some Palestinians zones in Israel.
"Are we in the West Bank?" asked Abu Qusay, 48, a pharmacist who said that access to his favorite kebab restaurant in Adhamiya has been cut off.
Come on, we can't run an occupation without an occupation wall, can we? The Israelis are never wrong when it comes to that sort of thing [/sarcasm]