Barrier Art

Spiegel has an article up about Iraqi artists painting murals on the new barrier walls in Baghdad. Barrier walls which are referred to as “urban tourniquets” in counterinsurgency (COIN) work have been a controversial development in Gen. Petraeus’s strategy to control Baghdad by creating “gated communities” to stop the cycle of sectarian violence. David Killcullen who is an advisor to Gen. Petraeus had a great blog post about the barriers last week.

A political discussion about the walls is beyond the scope of this post. Nevertheless, I thought these pictures were great, and it sheds some much needed light on humanity on an otherwise dark world.

These pictures remind me of work by my favorite artist Banksy, he did much the same thing, albeit with a political and satirical aim at West Bank barrier wall in Israel.