Our buddy Noah Shachtman scored a money interview with Colonel Kilcullen, who seems to be a man who understands the importance of blogging. Noah focused the chat on Baghdad’s new network of security barriers:
Retired Colonel (and present-day blogger) David Kilcullen says that the walls were necessary to turn the security of Baghdad into a more manageable problem — one that could handled with somewhat fewer American troops.“The point of the walls was to structure the environment, to hold the city and keep it safe,” he tells DANGER ROOM. “It’s like [keeping] guard inside a concrete building, instead of in the middle of a field… You don’t need vast maneuver forces to do it… It’s the principle of economy of force.”
Now that the eleven sets of walls across Baghdad have been built — “controlling access, preventing attacks on the community, and preventing attacks from being launched on someone else,” Kilcullen says — “we’re now in a position to move against the [insurgent] havens.”
“Murders and sectarian killings have dropped 63%” in Baghdad’s Adhamiya neighborhood, since the wall has been put in place, he claims. Residents are “thrilled.”
That last line is important. A few months back, you couldn’t open a newspaper without reading a story detailing just how pissed off Baghdad residents were about these walls, which invoked fresh memories of the more famous (and incredibly unpopular) West Bank security barrier in Israel. I should caveat here though, the wall is unpopular in the Arab world. The Israelis love the thing, as that beautifully simple solution effectively killed off Arafat’s second intafada.
And now it’s helping kill Sunni and Al Qaeda terrorism in Baghdad.
Walls work, folks.
Back in the days of feudal Japan, the Shogun used a similar method to enforce their absolute control of kyoto. Each neighborhood was walled off with access forbidden at night and with local officers at each gate.
In the case of disturbances, the gate were closed and rioters imprisoned in one area until the samauri arrived. The people in each area were held collectively responsible for the behavior of their section and often punished for the transgressions of any theives concealed in their midst.
Walls worked well for the Japanese, they should work well for the U.S. now.
I don’t suppose you’re slipping a little commentary on border security in on the sly, are you, John?
Concur. However, opponents will equate walls with the Berlin Wall of the Soviet era.
Our side needs to be quick to respond that the Berlin Wall was meant to keep their citizens in.
A wall on the Mexican border would be meant to keep NON-citizens out.