Iraq 'wall' already criticized by BBC

[Teddy Bear]

In an effort to stop some of the sectarian violence in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad where hundreds have died in the last week alone, America is building a wall around one of the Baghdad districts.
It should be creditable,anything which will prevent loss of innocent life, btu the BBC manage to unearth those who find fault with it and run their story with little to counter it.

We are already used to something similar from the BBC, with the Israeli security barrier built around the West Bank. There is absolutely no doubt that this barrier has prevented many terrorist attacks since its construction, but try to find anything positive about it in a BBC article.

The BBC has continued to call this barrier a wall, although 95% of it is actually a fence. The only place a wall was constructed was near Palestinian villages that overlooked Israeli roads to stop militants throwing rocks at cars or people. However nearly every picture on the BBC webpages shows in relation to this barrier shows the 'wall' section of it. Richard Dimbleby continually referred to it as a wall, despite being informed that iot was a fence. It would be the same if somebody called a door a 'knob'.

Well the BBC are not wasting any time focussing on the negative aspects of a barrier in Baghdad. They would rather see miltants able to continue their agenda unhindered, and the more innocents that die, the more glee the BBC has at being able to blame the pro-Iraq war nations for their venture.

For the BBC, whatever the US does is doomed.

Sunni leader attacks Baghdad wall

Construction of the wall is already under way
A senior Sunni politician has condemned a US military project to build a concrete wall around a Sunni enclave in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
US forces say the wall, which will separate Adhamiya from nearby Shia districts, aims to prevent sectarian violence between the two communities.

But Adnan al-Dulaimi, who heads the biggest Sunni bloc in parliament, says it will breed yet more strife.

Some Adhamiya residents have said the wall will make their district a prison.

"The Americans will provoke more trouble with this," one resident, Arkan Saeed, told the BBC. "They're telling us the wall is to protect us from the Shia militia and they're telling the Shia they're protecting them from us.

"But it's the Americans who started all the sectarian violence in the first place."

Adhamiya lies on the mainly Shia Muslim east bank of the Tigris river and violence regularly flares between the enclave and nearby Shia areas.

Construction of the 5km (three-mile) concrete wall began on 10 April and the US military says it hopes to complete the project by the end of the month.

I resent the barrier. It will make Adhamiya a big prison

Mustafa
Adhamiya resident
US troops, protected by heavily-armed vehicles, have been working at night to build the 3.6m (12 ft) wall.

When it is finished, people will enter and leave Adhamiya through a small number of checkpoints guarded by US and Iraqi forces.

The US military says the barrier is the centrepiece of its strategy to end sectarian violence in the area but insists there are no plans to divide up the whole city into gated communities.

Senior Sunni cleric Adnan al-Dulaimi, who leads the General Council for the People of Iraq which is part of the Iraqi Accord Front, said the wall was a disaster.

Speaking to an Iraqi news agency, he said it would separate Adhamiya from the rest of Baghdad and help breed further violence.

'Maze of walls'

Some residents said the wall would harden the already bitter sectarian divide.


The wall is meant to prevent sectarian attacks in Baghdad
"Erecting concrete walls between neighbourhoods is not a solution to the collapse in security and the rampant violence," housewife Um Haider told AFP news agency.

"If so, Baghdadis would find themselves in a maze of high walls overnight."

Another resident, Mustafa, said: "I resent the barrier. It will make Adhamiya a big prison."

Other residents also expressed alarm and said they had not been consulted before construction began.

"This will make the whole district a prison. This is collective punishment on the residents of Adhamiya," Ahmed al-Dulaimi told the Associated Press news agency.

"We are in our fourth year of occupation and we are seeing the number of blast walls increasing day after day."

US and Iraqi troops have long built cement barriers around key locations in Baghdad and other cities to prevent attacks, especially suicide car bombings.

Iraq has been in the grip of raging sectarian violence since the bombing of an important Shia shrine in Samarra in February 2006.

[Teddy Bear]

Just to show how in the BBC eyes whatever the US does or doesn't do they will be shown in a negative light. In a counterbalance to the above article, here's this one telling of the 'despair' of the Iraqis at the ongoing sectarian violence, and the lack of 'control' of the US and Iraqi authorities to prevent it.

What exactly does the BBC think can be done against people who dress the same as everyone else, and blow themselves up in a crowded area, or simiarly with a car loaded with explosives? In the absence of any other strategy I'd certainly want barriers and checkposts at the very least to protect me.

Their bias is so much tripe, any BBC journalist who feigns being unaware of it is a total ass or blatant liar.

Despair stalks Baghdad as plan falters
By Andrew North
BBC News, Baghdad
Last Updated: Friday, 20 April 2007

Trying to get into the centre of Baghdad earlier this week offered one view of how far away the Americans and Iraqi authorities are from gaining control here.

We were at the airport. Just before we were due to leave, the entrance car park was hit by a car bomb.

US troops and private security forces who guard the perimeter locked the whole area down for the next four hours. No traffic was allowed in or out.

While we waited with scores of other vehicles, mortars were fired at the airport. Fortunately for us they landed on the other side of the runway, plumes of smoke shooting into the air.

You won't have heard about any of this because at the same time a series of other far more serious attacks was taking place.

One was at the Sadriya market in the city centre, where a massive car bomb killed more than 140 people.

It was placed at the entrance to a set of barriers put up around another part of the market where a previous single bomb, in February, claimed more than 130 lives.

The market blast "did not penetrate the emplaced barriers" a later US military press release helpfully pointed out, ignoring the fact that the bombers had yet again adapted their tactics with vicious perfection - setting off their device at the point where crowds congregated outside and at the very moment when they were busiest.

Bombers 'organised'

As we drove into the city, we counted six blast holes left by recent roadside bombs along just one 100-metre stretch or road.

A large patch of damaged, blackened Tarmac on a bridge spoke of another attempt to destroy a key crossing.

The Sunni extremists held to be responsible for these attacks seem to be making a mockery of the US and Iraqi security plan, which is now into its third month.

So far, their surge seems to be having more effect than the American one.

Last month alone there were more than 100 car bombings, and the number of attacks has continued at a similar rate so far this month. This indicates a high level of organisation.

This despite the fact that there are many extra US and Iraqi troops in the city now. There are more raids and patrols.

On our drive into the city, we encountered several Iraqi army checkpoints. But almost every vehicle - including ours - was being waved through.

Many new checkpoints have been set up across Baghdad.

But what is their purpose, many Iraqis ask, when they seem to stop so few people?

It is not always encouraging when they do - a couple of times we have been pulled over by Iraqi soldiers who ask us if we have any bullets to give them.

Optimism fading

Just a month ago there was a cautious - very cautious, but still real - sense of optimism among many Baghdadis that the plan was starting to work.

The daily count of bodies found around the city - mostly Sunni victims of targeted sectarian killings - had dropped off significantly.

The Shia militia of Moqtada Sadr, which was blamed for most of these murders, was largely obeying orders to put away its weapons and co-operate with the security plan.


Troops often come face to face with terrified and exasperated Iraqis
But there is a deadly and familiar equation here.

With official security forces apparently unable to protect Shia communities, pressure is growing on the militias to do so again.

And there are signs their death squads have returned to work. The body count is creeping up again. Twenty were found yesterday.

Dealing with the car bomb is "our top priority", says US military spokesman Lt Col Chris Garver.

But as ever it is a game of cat and mouse, played with insurgents who are "very adaptive", and very well-funded.

A man arrested by US soldiers after placing a truck bomb which failed to go off told interrogators he had been paid $30,000 (£15,000) for the task.

Lt Col Garver says the US believes it is up against several "car bombing networks".

"If there was just one, we might be able to pull the string and unravel it," he says.

People still have to be patient, he warns, adding a note of optimism.

"We are still not fully staffed," he says - there are another two months to go until all the extra US troops are in Baghdad.

Exhaustion

But there is frustration too among the Americans at the Iraqi government's lack of progress on reconciliation - ultimately the only solution to the conflict, most believe.

Key issues include the need to implement a new law on sharing oil revenues, an amnesty programme and limiting the scope of the de-Baathification process. All of these are crucial to winning over Sunnis.

The idea was that the security drive in Baghdad would create "space" for such efforts to get going. But although new laws have been drafted they are a long way from being approved.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates stepped up the pressure over these issues on his visit to Baghdad. In the meantime, the young men and women sent out here to implement President Bush's plan are paying a heavy price.

An average of 80-90 Americans die each month. And US personnel have just had their tours extended by another three months.

But, as it has always been since the 2003 invasion, it is the Iraqis who suffer most.

No-one knows the exact figures, but at the end of another week of unspeakable, random carnage, hundreds more Iraqi families are grieving.

Exhaustion and despair hang over the country.

And there are no signs of change.

[steevo]

They want George Bush to lose. They want America to lose. They live in total schizophrenia pointing out any and all angles of negativity and pessimism implying we should not be there... all the while claiming to speak for the Iraqi people. They are essentially like our Democrats with their cut-and-run solution. Its ideology and power.

Mohammad of Iraq writes:

It's frustrating to see the media turn a blind eye to the nature of the crimes and open fire on an honest endeavor to restore peace to a bleeding nation. I'm sure the terrorists are pleased by the coverage. Why not, when their crimes are being portrayed as successful breakthroughs against the efforts of Iraq and America it's likely motivating them to keep up the killing.

Would it be "hate speech" to expose the terrorists for what they are?

I think our hate for their crimes must not be hidden; there is no shame in hating those blood-thirsty monsters.

Even more appalling I see and hear some people who think the solution is to end the war from our end and I can't find an argument more naïve than this—I've seen enough wars in my life that I can't remember a day when there was peace and I hate wars more than they can imagine. But we didn't start this war; it's the terrorists who started this war against life.

Instead of telling us to stop fighting back, I'd like to see some people stand up and protest the crimes of the terrorists and tell them to stop the killing and destruction…turn the stop-the-war campaign against the terrorists, is that too much to ask for?

Tell the criminals to stop killing us and stop attacking the people who are risking their lives fighting for liberty and equality.

We're not asking the media and the stop-the-war crowd to carry arms and shoot the terrorists; we just want them to stop shooting at us.

[Teddy Bear]

Mohammed above, precisely explains the treasonous and insidious nature of the media in what they do. Their reportage, under the guise of being fair, seeks to undermine all our efforts to bring stability and democracy to the area, trying to show that our governments are corrupt in their policies. What they do is empower all the terrorists and militants to keep hammering away at us, thereby incresaing the death toll on our side. I sincerely hope the day will come when it is these reporters who are strung up.

For this reason I can say i would not be sorry at all if Alan Johnston has met his end at the hand of terrorists. Like many others of his ilk, if you sleep with dogs, then don't be surprised if you wake up with fleas.

[Teddy Bear]

We all know that negative news sells better than positive. Tabloids seek to bombard us with the worst and most bizarre events going on around us, because they know it attracts their readers.

But if you have a mandate to be impartial and fair, as the BBC does, where they receive money to operate without having to sell hard copy or please advertisers, we should therefore expect them to show both positive and negative sides around any particular story, providing both exist.

The meglomaniac and tyrant that was Saddam Hussein has been ousted and executed for his crimes. We know that many different factions are vying for power there, using terror and militancy to achieve their goals. But is there really NOTHING positive going on in the country? Is it all doom and gloom in Iraq?

Well the BBC is unable to find anything positive. I don't think for a moment that they even try, any more than they want to find anything positive about Bush. It wouldn't be so bad if they gave some background to the stories to show who is responsible and why, to show what the real enemy is - and it's not us.

Bear in mind our own troops are involved in bringing peace, democracy, and stability to this country. Would the BBC have reported World War 2 in the same negative and hopeless manner? if they would have, I've no doubt those running it would have gone to the firing squad for bringing down moral in the same way Lord Haw Haw did.

Here's their top stories on Iraq

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ


KEY STORIES
US troops die in new Iraq attack
Many dead in fresh Iraq attacks
Iraq bombing damages UK tank
Iraqi PM criticises Baghdad wall

BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
Baghdad despair
The US troop surge is being overshadowed by carnage and death, says Andrew North

Massacre fuels northern tensions
Profile: New US envoy
Sadr pressure
Baghdad: Mapping the violence
Iraq violence in figures

[steevo]

Teddy this is later war-time follow up including those 'cruel' barriers. A follow up on a war which for all intent is just about over.

By Michael Yon pajamasmedia.com/blog/down-with-barriers-up-with-iraq/

"Though they were heavily criticized at the time by observers, the installation of thousands of barriers around Baghdad is one of the most unrecognized tools of success in the restoration of peace in Iraq. In 2006, bombs were killing thousands of people. Al-Qaeda, in particular, was trying to foment civil war and they were succeeding. When they murdered large numbers of Shia, for instance, other Shia would pour out of their neighborhood and murder large numbers of Sunnis in a flash of revenge. The barriers thwarted these flows of vengeance and baffled the violence."

"Chalk another one up for the military leaders for standing their ground. When the barriers went up, it was a sign that we were trying to get a grip on the civil war, and it was “exciting news” to some in the “further evidence of failure” camp. But when I stood and watched some of the barriers being taken down, the only camera there was mine."

[Teddy Bear]

Thanks for posting it Steevo, but we both know this kind of story will never make mainstream media. Most reporters want to show how far more incisive and intelligent (at least they think) they are than the experts who actually make decisions to try and solve problems.