Kingdom of Saudi Arabia insulates itself and protects its citizens with border fences including sandy ditches to slow those on foot, plus 5 layers of fencing with razor wire-CS Monitor, Jan. 2015

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Jan. 2015 article

1/15/15, "The Great Wall of Saudi Arabia?" CSMonitor, Alexander LaCasse

"Saudi Arabia is building a 600-mile barrier on their border with Iraq designed to keep Islamic State militants out."

"The Saudi "Great Wall" as it's being dubbed by some media outlets, will be a fence and ditch barrier that features soft sand embankments that is designed to slow down infiltrators on foot and are too step to drive a tired-vehicle up, according to the Telegraph of London. It will have 40 watchtowers and seven command and control centers complete with radar that can detect aircraft and vehicles as far away as 22 miles as well as day and night camera installations. 

The barrier system will have five layers of fencing, complete with razor wire and underground motion sensors that trigger a silent alarm. The 600-mile structure will be patrolled by border guards and 240 rapid response vehicles. The Saudis sent 30,000 soldiers to patrol the border in July 2014 after ISIS forces swept into western Iraq and Iraqi guards on the Saudi border fled.

The Saudi Wall was first proposed during the Iraq civil war in 2006, but the rise of the Islamic State, which now controls large sections of Iraqi territory, prompted the Saudi government to implement the plan.

But it's not the first Saudi border wall. Since 2003, in fits and starts due to Yemeni opposition, the Saudi government has been working on a less costly barrier along the 1,100 mile border with Yemen on the Kingdom's southern border.... 

The Saudi's wall is designed to function as the modern equivalent of the Great Wall of China, which was completed in 206 B.C. The Great Wall was intended to force attacking armies to have to circumnavigate the 5,500-mile structure."...images from CSMonitor

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1/14/15, "Revealed: Saudi Arabia's 'Great Wall' to keep out Isil [ISIS]," UK Telegraph, Richard Spencer, Middle East corresp.

"Middle Eastern Kingdom building 600-mile wall and ditch along its border with Iraq in effort to insulate itself from the chaos engulfing its neighbours." 

"When a raiding party from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant attacked a Saudi border post last week, it was no mere hit on a desert outpost. 

The jihadists were launching an assault on the new, highest profile effort by Saudi Arabia to insulate itself from the chaos engulfing its neighbours. The Saudis are building a 600-mile-long “Great Wall” - a combined fence and ditch - to separates the country from Iraq to the north. 
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Much of the area on the Iraqi side is now controlled by Isil (ISIS), which regards the ultimate capture of Saudi Arabia, home to the “Two Holy Mosques” of Mecca and Medina, as a key goal."... 

 



Image caption: "The funeral of the three Saudi guards who were killed in the attack last week (AFP)." Top UK Telegraph image via UPI, Airbus, and Animetrics

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Comment: Unlike the US, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia doesn't view murders of its citizens by terrorists as "inevitable:"

San Bernardino Islamic mass murderer passed three background checks and 2 in-person interviews, an 'example of trade-offs' US gov. makes while keeping borders open for billions in business and tourism: 

12/12/15, "U.S. Visa Process Missed San Bernardino Wife’s Zealotry on Social Media," NY Times, by Matt Apuzzo, Michael S. Schmidt, and Julia Preston

"Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passed three background checks by American immigration officials....Ms. Malik also had two in-person interviews, federal officials said....

"The discovery of the old social media posts has exposed a significant-and perhaps inevitable-shortcoming in how foreigners are screened when they enter the United States, particularly as people everywhere disclose more about themselves online. Tens of millions of people are cleared each year to come to this country to work, visit or live. It is impossible to conduct an exhaustive investigation and scour the social media accounts of each of them, law enforcement officials say."...
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[Ed. note: It's not "inevitable." The US became "who we are," ie, desired, by making its first priority the health and safety of its citizens. Until 1954, foreign visitors to the US stopped first at Ellis Island.] 

 

Image caption: "The San Bernardino attackers Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago in 2014. Credit U.S. Customs and Border Protection"
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Added, 2011 by Codevilla: "Again and again, the American people are forced to confront the fact that its ruling class is not on its side."  

Oct. 20, 2011, "The Lost Decade," Angelo Codevilla (years 2001-2011)

(scroll to subhead) "Public Safety"

"Solidity of the home front, i.e., mutual trust between the people and their government, has to be statecraft's paramount priority. But the assumption on which our ruling class based its approach to internal security against terrorism-namely, that it is impossible to distinguish ordinary Americans from terrorists—negates the basis for mutual trust. Ordinary Americans, on whom the government imposed ever more intrusive security measures and whom it scolded for being "Islamophobes," reasonably felt that government might regard them as "violent extremists." Our rulers also went out of their way to appease the most unfriendly parts of America's tiny Islamic population, including seeking advice on the proper attitude to take toward Muslims from the transparently anti-American Council On American Islamic Relations. But this simply gave such people more power to further their agendas, while foisting upon the American people a dispiriting political correctness. How could anyone have imagined that any people would not lose confidence in elites that seemed arguably more solicitous of enemies than of fellow citizens?..

Again and again, the American people are forced to confront the fact that its ruling class is not on its side.

After 9/11 President George W. Bush told the American people to go shopping and behave normally. In short: forget that you will never again be free to live as before. Think about money. This advice followed naturally from the government's decision to persist in its ways instead of lifting terrorism's burden from America....It sought to satisfy the American people with the pretend-safety of "homeland security," with images of U.S. troops in combat, and perhaps above all with domestic prosperity fueled by record-low interest rates and massive deficit-spending.

This pretend-prosperity aimed not only to anesthetize criticism of endless war, but also to feed both political parties' many constituencies—the ruling class's standard procedure."...


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