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12 foot walls in Baghdad reason for decline in violence?

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  • 12 foot walls in Baghdad reason for decline in violence?

    Hi, my friend opposes the Iraq war, but I do not. He keeps on trying to give me links to ******** stories and biased articles about normal anti-US/iraq stuff.

    He then gave me this link...

    YouTube - Baghdad, 5 years on (part 1): City of walls

    I'm investigating a bit to see if there is any truth to this, but if anyone on here can help, I would greatly appreciate it.

  • #2
    Originally posted by erik View Post
    Hi, my friend opposes the Iraq war, but I do not. He keeps on trying to give me links to ******** stories and biased articles about normal anti-US/iraq stuff.

    He then gave me this link...

    YouTube - Baghdad, 5 years on (part 1): City of walls

    I'm investigating a bit to see if there is any truth to this, but if anyone on here can help, I would greatly appreciate it.
    The cameraman makes the claim about a double bombing that kills 68 people. The video title is 5 years on so it has to happen in 2008, and was posted n youtube on March 18. This means the window is from Jan 1, 2008 to the middle of March 2008, it had to be edited after the attack to record the information of it after all. he also said it took him a month to organize safe passage for what ever that is worth to the time line.

    Only 1 attack fits the bill, the Feb 1 slaying of 62 by a woman suicide bomber in the "Pet Market". Followed by a second attack 20 minute salter in another part of the city. This is not in line with what he reports, not even close. On the face of it I would call it a hoax. I checked the causality counts from iraqbodycount.org going back to Jan 1 2008. To reach 179 Baghdadis killed the suicide bombers he got wrong have to figure into the time of his visit. If they occurred in the begining, middle or end of his visit then the total body count lines out. However he doesn't show any scenes after the attack, so it might have happened after he left. If the attacks occurred after he left, then the numbers do not add up. The attacks themselves account for over half the deaths and should not been seen as normal for Baghdad in 2008.

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    • #3
      Thanks for the help man. Anything more would help also. My friend discredits anything I say, so I would like to have a ton of information to slap in his face.

      Thanks again.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by erik View Post
        Thanks for the help man. Anything more would help also. My friend discredits anything I say, so I would like to have a ton of information to slap in his face.

        Thanks again.

        There is not a lot to go on. you can use ibc to count bodies but he doesn't give a lot of detail.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by zraver View Post
          The cameraman makes the claim about a double bombing that kills 68 people. The video title is 5 years on so it has to happen in 2008, and was posted n youtube on March 18. This means the window is from Jan 1, 2008 to the middle of March 2008, it had to be edited after the attack to record the information of it after all. he also said it took him a month to organize safe passage for what ever that is worth to the time line.

          Only 1 attack fits the bill, the Feb 1 slaying of 62 by a woman suicide bomber in the "Pet Market". Followed by a second attack 20 minute salter in another part of the city. This is not in line with what he reports, not even close. On the face of it I would call it a hoax. I checked the causality counts from iraqbodycount.org going back to Jan 1 2008. To reach 179 Baghdadis killed the suicide bombers he got wrong have to figure into the time of his visit. If they occurred in the begining, middle or end of his visit then the total body count lines out. However he doesn't show any scenes after the attack, so it might have happened after he left. If the attacks occurred after he left, then the numbers do not add up. The attacks themselves account for over half the deaths and should not been seen as normal for Baghdad in 2008.
          He said the district was Karrada and there was an attack that killed 68 people in Karrada on March 6 from a coordinated attack.

          http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07171570.htm


          It is possible if there are fifty miles of walls cordoning off sections of the city that it has helped reduce violence. Part of the surge strategy was to hold territory in a deeply sectarian city. I've never been to Iraq and I am not in the military so I don't know the best way to do this, but walls would not be an unheard of solution.

          http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP...ingVictory.pdf

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Herodotus View Post
            He said the district was Karrada and there was an attack that killed 68 people in Karrada on March 6 from a coordinated attack.

            http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07171570.htm
            oops, time for a mea culpa. I missed it on iraqbodycount.org

            Incidents :: Iraq Body Count

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Herodotus View Post
              He said the district was Karrada and there was an attack that killed 68 people in Karrada on March 6 from a coordinated attack.

              http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07171570.htm


              It is possible if there are fifty miles of walls cordoning off sections of the city that it has helped reduce violence. Part of the surge strategy was to hold territory in a deeply sectarian city. I've never been to Iraq and I am not in the military so I don't know the best way to do this, but walls would not be an unheard of solution.

              http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP...ingVictory.pdf
              Walls were part of the solution of reducing the cycle of violence. It is a classical counterinsurgency tactic that falls under the category of controlling the population. By limiting access into a neighborhood through just a few entry/exit points, it made it both more difficult for perpetrators of sectarian violence to enter a neighborhood and easier to unravel networks that were infiltrating these perpetrators into a neighborhood. This isn't to say that it was the sole cause (e.g., "soft" ethnic cleansing through forced eviction from a neighborhood also played a part, although resettlement is occuring now that the sectarian violenced has faded), but it was a big contributing to stopping the cycle. If Sunni doesn't die, then there's no need to kill a Shia in retaliation. Essentially, the walls, among other things, began to dampen the violence and resulted in a slow ebbing of the cycle of violence.

              Google "gated communities Kilcullen" and you should turn up some articles. There's also an article written by Greg Jaffe of the WSJ that quotes a LTC Peterson that deals specifically with this. If you go through this board, you'll find several articles on this dating from around spring 2007.
              "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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              • #8
                Having watched the video, I don't doubt the veracity of the snippets that he showed. However, Baghdad is a much more complex mosaic than what he just reported, and based on the date, much has transpired in the intervening half-year since this report. Authentic but not authoritative.
                "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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                • #9
                  Watching the video I observed, the author showed mostly sunni victims. He showed grave yard belonged to Sunni, orphanage belonged to Sunni's. All the terror attacks mentioned were carried out by Shia militia.
                  There was not mention of Sunni militia attacks, shia victim's, isn't it shows somekind of bias?

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                  • #10
                    Thanks again guys, I really appreaciate this.

                    I love reading on this board since there is such a diverse and educated people on here.

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                    • #11
                      Another thought on this video: The scenes show what I'd call "Positive Atmospherics" for the most part. Yes, there are walls, but within the walls people seem to be living relatively normal lives (for Iraq). When a population is fearful and living in a poor security situation, they're not often out in the streets or hanging out at local shops, etc. If the markets are open and people are conducting normal business, it's a sign of sucess and a "Return to Normalcy."

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