Summary here and here.

Segmenting a city: putting up our own little versions of the Berlin wall.

With Iraq’s post-war government struggling to promote a national peace plan, military units are doing the job piecemeal, walling in Baghdad suburbs behind concrete barriers and building local relationships with street-level leaders.

[snip]

Ameriyah is a mixed but largely Sunni area, where many resent or violently oppose US intervention. They also fear Iraq’s new police, which are controlled by a Shiite-led interior ministry and often accused of death squad links.

The irony of the current surge in violence, in which the once dominant Sunni minority now often finds itself in the firing line, is that it has pushed besieged districts back into the arms of the once-hated Americans.

Many Sunnis in war-torn west Baghdad now want US troops to protect them — and help repair infrastructure and create jobs — or at least they say so when reporters turn up under the protection of heavily-armed American units. Article

Related: Balkanizing and the breaking of factions into sub-factions increases insecurity and multiplies the uncivil instigators of and outlets and opportunites for chaos.

So how’s that security going under the nose of scores of thousands of troops?

U.S. military officers in Baghdad have said violence including murders declined in August from July’s high levels but that there are still about 56 attacks per day in the capital. Article

Marketing a morass: spin, spin spin. What generates positive reports are positive occurrences. When stuck with tins of spoiled meat, concentrating on the labeling to boost sales simply isn’t prudent; it’s the product itself that must be addressed.

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.

The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide “public relations products” that would improve coverage of the military command’s performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.

[snip]

The proposal suggests a team of 12 to 18 people who would provide support for the coalition military command as well as the Iraqi government leadership.

Prospective contractors are also asked to propose four to eight public relations events per month, such as speeches or news conferences, including “preparation of likely questions and suggested answers, themes and messages as well as background, talking points.” Article

Related:

… Look at the Pew Research Center’s most recent “global attitudes survey,” released this past June. In only four of the 15 nations surveyed (Britain, India, Japan, and Nigeria) did a majority of citizens have a favorable view of the United States. In six countries (Spain, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and Jordan), Iran had a higher rating than did the United States. (In one more, Russia, the two countries’ ratings were tied.) Most remarkable, in all but one country (Germany), America’s presence in Iraq was seen as a bigger danger to world peace than either Iran or North Korea.

These views are widespread–and, by the way, they’ve grown steadily more prominent in the past few years–not because of “the media” or “blame-America-first” liberals, nor because Iran and North Korea have more skillful propagandists (or, if they do, it’s time for Condoleezza Rice to hire a better public-diplomacy staff). No, a country’s global image is usually formed not by what its leaders say but rather by what they do. Article

What was evident in 2005 (and before) is just as valid today, regardless of the ramping up of administration propaganda and mendacity.

Defective amnesia at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Lying in the morning, lying in the evening, lying at suppertime.

Under the radar: water as a commodity of conflict.