Max Boot Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties
Max Boot Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties
Today, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot continued to cheerlead for the “success” of the surge in Iraq in an online debate. Boot insisted that Iraq has met two-thirds of the original 18 benchmarks, that the government’s offensive in Basra was successful, and that the so-called Sons of Iraq will always remain loyal to the Shiite-controlled Iraqi state.
Boot concluded by conceding that there are walls separating Sunni neighborhoods from Shia, but dismissed the fact by stating simply that “there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too”:
It’s true that there are walls around Dora and other Baghdad neighborhoods. … But then there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too. The walls per se are not evidence of reconciliation, I’ll grant you that. But nor are they evidence that reconciliation is impossible. They are one of the important security measures implemented in the past year that is reducing violence and making possible political progress—which is real, whether you admit it or not.
There is a world of difference between American gated communities — where at least 7 million families have chosen to live — and the walls that divide Baghdad. The policy, begun last April, of walling off neighboring communities with a “12-foot high, three mile long wall” is hardly the benign trend Boot describes. The move was widely condemned by the Iraqi press, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a halt to its construction almost immediately. As one Iraqi put it, “This will make the whole district a prison.”
Despite what Iraq war hawks are willing to admit, the surge has transformed Baghdad into an ethnically-cleansed and religiously divided city that bears little resemblance to its former character.
It is, in essence, an update of the old plan known as “concentration” zones or camps. The latter name causes understandable confusion, since we’re not talking about extermination camps of the kind that Hitler built, but rather of settlements where locals can be moved to live under guard, thereby preventing insurgent infiltration. The British used this strategy in the Boer war, the Americans during the Philippine war, and many other powers took similar steps in many other conflicts. In Vietnam they were known as “strategic hamlets.”
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
The only difference being, of course, that there aren’t dozens of people being blown up daily outside the only gated community in the country.
Other than that minor triviality, I’m sure his arguement is spot on.
PEACE
May 7th, 2008 at 10:01 pmWhat about the Israeli walls?
May 7th, 2008 at 10:02 pmForgot to add that there are thousands of armed troops guarding the one “gated community” in Iraq.
PEACE
May 7th, 2008 at 10:03 pmDisparaging the boot is a bootable offense
May 7th, 2008 at 10:05 pmMax Boot is a good German.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pmWhat was the last thread about? Oh right, Reality Based Community.
This guy is on the outside of that gate looking in.
Pograms for all!
May 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm“But then there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too.”
Mr and Mrs Wasp, Tear down these walls!!
May 7th, 2008 at 10:10 pmWhat rock did this dumbass and Jonah Goldberg crawl from underneath. The reichwing has the dumbest scumbags on earth. All of them are cowards with absolutely no military experience.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:11 pm“…the surge (bushco)has transformed Baghdad (Washington, D. C.)into an ethnically-cleansed and religiously (honestly-cleansed and ethically)divided city that bears little resemblance to its former character.”
Read between the parentheses! So what is new?
May 7th, 2008 at 10:12 pmDid someone drop this neo-con scum on his head when he was a baby….repeatedly?
May 7th, 2008 at 10:22 pmIf it’s such a wonderful area, why doesn’t Boot and his boot-licking Reich-wing cohorts move their to prove his point? And no, it wouldn’t be fair for them to wear Kevlar vests.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:40 pmCorrected post:
If it’s such a wonderful area, why doesn’t Boot and his boot-licking Reich-wing cohorts move there to prove his point? And no, it wouldn’t be fair for them to wear Kevlar vests.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:48 pm“whether you admit it or not” ?!!!
WTF
Come on,
It’s not about whether to “admit” anything. It is about backing up your assertions with facts.
The facts “on the ground”, and the political realities suggest you are a tool Mr. Boot.
Is this what passes for “conservative” arguement.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:52 pmIf so, they have come a long way from Buckley.
What a name, “MAX BOOT” you can’t make this shit up. How can anyone take this baby-face seriously?—Go away Max
May 7th, 2008 at 10:57 pmI hear that in the “gated community” of Sadr City, you have to get the permission of the homeowners association in order to paint over blood stains on your wall, unless you use an approved color.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:57 pmAre you allowed to have a clothesline?
May 7th, 2008 at 11:15 pmMr. Boot, tear down this wall.
-Zombie Reagan
May 7th, 2008 at 11:17 pmBoot Head.
-GSD
May 7th, 2008 at 11:18 pm“There’s problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know.”
May 7th, 2008 at 11:20 pm- John McCain, on violence in Baghdad, March 2008.
Well gated communities have one guard and a “gate”. Does that mean everybody else can come home?
May 7th, 2008 at 11:21 pmI seem to recall another “gated” community.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:22 pmThere’s another gated community in which 2.5 million Americans live. In fact the U.S. with 5 percent of the world’s population has 25 percent of the world’s prison population. We’re really good at building walls.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:27 pmOT, but if that Florida substitute school teacher who was fired for “wizardry” (see Fark.com and google news for details) could somehow make Faux Noise and the whole reich-wing suddenly disappear from public view and the Internet Tubes, that would be useful magic…
May 8th, 2008 at 12:27 am.
Then Max Boot should stroll the beautifully gated communities of the Gaza Strip then… NO?
.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:31 amThere are other realities emerging from the debacle called Iraq too. It is the policy of military expansion that threatens to start a new cold war, according to the usually moderate Gorbachev. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23661731-2703,00.html
Hillary Clinton’s hot talk about annihilating Iran sure doesn’t help either. Our foreign policy is currently out of control and we need some adults to put things back together before it is too late, as this warning from Gorbachev illustrates.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:13 amJeezis Herbert Wept.
Spelunking fresh depths of right-wing stupidity — just when you thought you’d seen the last of crawly blind white things …
May 8th, 2008 at 1:47 amwhat a loser this guy is. I’d love to hear him explain exactly which iraqi political party it is thats going to steer the iraqi people away a hamas like government. amazing how these idi#ts who seem so concerned about “izlameofascizm”
May 8th, 2008 at 4:00 amhave no problem sending american troops to die for a government who throws VIP parades for Iranian heads of state and whose constitution includes “no law shall contradict islam” as one of its opening lines..
Is there a link to the original column in German?
Where do they get these people?
May 8th, 2008 at 4:18 amAs kimmy above mentioned, maybe Max JackBoot could discuss Israel’s Warsaw Ghetto-style walled community – The West Bank. The second one to go along with the Gaza walled community. “Wall of Shame”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1NZGI02WkI&mode=related&search=
May 8th, 2008 at 5:56 amThe Zionists’ future wet dream: wall into apartheid prisons everybody you don’t like. See what we can do in Gaza can be replicated anyplace…
May 8th, 2008 at 6:30 amNot too far down the road the United States will be partitioned off the same way.
Isn’t Gaza now the largest prison colony on earth?
Max Boot, another in a long line of young Chicken-Hawks,following in the footsteps of Bush, Cheney,Rush,Hannity,Boortz,Bolton and on and on! What a throughly repulsive excuse for a human!
“War hath no fury like a non-combatant!”
May 8th, 2008 at 7:29 amC E Montague,1867-1928 – British Writer
This baby-faced prick is way too young to be called a senior anything. What a joke to trot out these little boys who pretend to be experts at anything. Their expertise is limited to fu(kups.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:13 amThe walls around Dora and Sadr City are similar to “gated communities” the same way lightbulbs don’t emit light but “suck dark”.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:52 amThis guy is as clueless as the guy who compared waterboarding to swimming. He either genuinely thinks of a walled area in Baghdad as a country club, or he really thinks we are stupid enough to buy his spin. Either way, he’s totally removed from reality.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:52 amI am just now watching last night’s Countdown. Keith Olbermann just called Das Boot a dumbass :)
May 8th, 2008 at 8:54 amMax looks old enough to go over and fight and then he can really tell us what walled nieghborhood is so much like the gated community`s here where we have missles flying through the air,machine gun fire and suicide bombings. What a moron, he is another boot licking neocon cheerleader for this illegal WAR.Yea a real close comparison between here and a
May 8th, 2008 at 9:04 amBaghdad neighborhood.
Yes.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:42 amSo true.
Here in Southwest Michigan, if our houses in the gated community are not foreclosed, and if we are lucky enough to have a job, once we are able to leave after our 5 hours of electricity, we risk life and limb every single day just so we can provide our families with necessities, such as food and water!
Dum Bass!
It is, in essence, an update of the old plan known as “concentration” zones or camps. The latter name causes understandable confusion, since we’re not talking about extermination camps of the kind that Hitler built, but rather of settlements where locals can be moved to live under guard, thereby preventing insurgent infiltration. The British used this strategy in the Boer war, the Americans during the Philippine war, and many other powers took similar steps in many other conflicts. In Vietnam they were known as “strategic hamlets.”
*******************************************************
Boot apparently either forgot or never learned that the earliest of the Nazi concentration camps — Dachau being one example — weren’t used as death camps in the beginning but were exactly the kind of camps that he describes. Boot also either forgot or never learned about the Jewish ghettos in Poland which the Nazis built and into which they forcibly relocated Polish Jews in order to facilitate their future transport to the death camps — the ghettos were deliberately constructed near railway lines, ostensibly in order to make it easier to transport the products which the ghetto residents were forced to manufacture for the Germans, but also in order to make it easier for the people to be taken to the camps later on. That’s what makes these sort of forced relocation zones so problematic — the step between creating these kinds of places and an all-out genocidal campaign is a very small one indeed.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:46 amBack in the cold war era…
May 8th, 2008 at 10:14 amEast Berlin was a gated community.
So Palestine is also a “Gated Community”? And the Warsaw ghetto was one too?
May 8th, 2008 at 12:19 pmEh, stupid fcuk, American cowards CHOOSE to live behind segregating walls of fear (so called “Gated Communities”).
May 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pmBoot’s brain is its own “gated community”, with walls built of mush.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:27 pmJesus Christ! These gratuitous, gaggy, F’n comments should be printed ans stuffed down this assh*les throat. Where do people like him come from? The Ivy League? What kind of privileged life did he lead? If not, he is kissing enough ass to live one. He sure is in a different reality that those dodging RPGs in those “gated communities.” What a complete jagoff.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:40 pmP.S For Boot’s education; RPGs Rocket propelled Grenades. They kill and maim.