Mine and Yours

This time it's Sadr City. Soon, the US will need a Secretary of Walls and Fences. The candidate will have a background in political science, postmodern landscape architecture, and construction techniques. Close ties to industry are a plus. He or she will have shown signs from an early age of an intuitive sense of the ways in which space can be constricted. They will have barricaded themselves in their bedroom closets and in tree forts. Through the higher problem-solving skills of an abstract God's-eye view, they will have learned ways in which to keep Barbie and GI Joe separate through a complex, systematic arrangement of Lincoln Logs. The candidate will have a uniquely powerful sense of racial and/or ethnic identity. An added plus in the candidate's resume will be an ability to clean up after others' failed policies. Foreign language skills emphatically not required.

Bryan Finoki:

Essentially, Baghdad is being reconstructed behind a system of neighborhood dams; or, the warfare equivalent of an urban levee network. But, one wonders, when will we celebrate the stories of the walls coming down? Who knows when or how long that story will ever take in Baghdad to surface, or the West Bank, or anywhere else for that matter, aside from perhaps Cyprus (so there may be hope yet). More than likely, however, we may be hearing more about the levees being blown apart in these street corners (remember the recent Gaza episode?) than being peacefully and politically deconstructed.