In today's New York Times...
To the Editor:
Last September, President Bush announced a last-ditch plan
to pacify Baghdad: build trenches around the city.
"They're building a berm around the city to make it harder
for people to come in with explosive devices," he said.
But this insane plan to encircle a metropolis of five
million people with a medieval moat was rejected by the
Iraqis.
The most recent plan to engineer the city into submission
was to build a wall separating Sunnis from Shiites. But
the Iraqis don't want to live with apartheid-like
divisions, and that plan has just been scrapped ("Iraqi
Premier Orders Work Stopped on Wall," news article, April
23).
Rather than invent another civil engineering fantasy, it's
time for real solutions to the violence in Iraq: the
American troops must withdraw, and Iraqis, with the help
of the international community, must begin a process of
reconciliation.
Medea Benjamin
San Francisco, April 23, 2007
The writer is a co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK
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