Rehabilitating walls

For a while there, they were out of style - that one in Berlin and all - but the Bush Brigades seem to be quite fond of walls (as opposed to levees, which are mostly underwater and don't count).

BAGHDAD — A U.S. military brigade is constructing a 3-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 said the 12-foot-high barrier would make it more difficult for suicide bombers to strike and for death squads and militia fighters from sectarian factions to attack one another and then slip back to their home turf. Construction began April 10 and is expected to be completed by the end of the month.

Some Army Lt. Col. spokesbimbo explains...

“We defer to commanders on the ground, but dividing up the entire city with barriers is not part of the plan.”

...implying there actually is a plan and raising the intriguing question, what if the “commanders on the ground” were actually expected to follow it, but hey. Which commanders are not on the ground is what I want to know, and where are they anyway? Floating around in balloons or something?

Or just, you know, high?

Link: In Baghdad, U.S. troops build wall to curb violence - Los Angeles Times