You can't say the mainstream media is not telling us. Even though it uses the antiseptic term "internal displacement," a New York Times news analysis about yesterday's dog-and-pony show notes that massive ethnic cleansing in Baghdad has soared during the surge:
[M]any Iraqis have told reporters they still do not feel secure, despite General Petraeus's charts showing drops in violence. Internal displacement has doubled since the "surge" began, reaching 1.1 million people nationwide, according to the International Office of Migration and the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. [Emphasis added.]
Shiite militias have continued their steady march to force Sunni Arabs from an ever-expanding area of Baghdad and surrounding villages. That has been compounded by mass roundups of Sunni Arabs suspected of being insurgents, who are held for months in dangerously crowded detention centers without trial or charges. Shiite judges concede that 40 percent to 50 percent of those detainees are innocent.
Of course, the analysis by reporters Alissa J. Rubin and Damien Cave, who are in Baghdad, is almost unfindable on the front of the NYT web site and pretty much buried in the print edition. It's on the bottom of page A16 (though, to be fair, the editors cite it above the fold as part of a front-page package).
Now read "The Erasing of Iraq," in The Guardian of London. It's excerpted from Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine, and it's mind-boggling. But I thoroughly disagree with her conclusion that "'[t]his was not what the Bush administration intended for Iraq when it was selected as the model nation for the rest of the Arab world." Or that "cleansing campaigns are rarely premeditated."
Thats what we do best.
Study what we did to Native Americans.
Study what we did to African Americans.
Study what we did to Japanese Americans.
I know, we beat Germany and Japan. A feat that would not have happened with out a military draft.
Realize what we are doing in Iraq. We thrive on lawlessness. Right here in the good old USA our leaders flaunt our aggressive behavior.
Statements such as, "Mission Accomplished" and
"Kick Ass" are true for Germany and Japan but now we are fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afganistan.
Iraq the country was no match for our military might. Iran the country is no match for our military might.
USA the country is no match against terrorist attacks. With all our military might bogged down through arrogance and imcompatence.
Time is on the side of the terrorists who are infinitely patient. Time is not on the side of Chaney-Bush (Republicans), or fall in line Democrats (support the troops).
Suck up USA the worst is yet to come. Have no fear for IN GOD WE TRUST.
The equation behind the smokescreen.
1 - let Shiites take over Baghdad
+
1 - support Sunnis in their majority territory.
+
1 - leave the Kurds alone
=
Partition of Iraq
That's the brutal equation behind the smokescreen. When it happens, Bush can claim that the ex-Iraqis wanted it that way. We're not protecting the Iraqi people at all, we're letting a bloody denouement of our horrible error take its course. How much blood and money from Americans until that happens?
The removal of the two primary guidance and control structures in Iraqi society - the Baath party and the Iraqi military - removed any constraints in acting on sectarian differences. The entire political pie was put up for grabs and all methods of attaining an advantage have been employed.
Once Iraqis realized that the chance of being caught and punished for sectarian violence was reduced to almost zero, the gloves came off and the car bombs came out.
What is even less visible in the press is the fact that the very phenomenon you decribe here has been going on in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the last 40 years.
As Walt and Mearsheimer, The Iraq study Group, Tony Blair, Jimmy Carter , and many others have observed, the blowback that the brutal ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories has caused over the last 40 years figured prominantly in the terrorist movement that eventually led to 9/11 and the totally avoidable and mistaken war in Iraq.
Perhaps we should follow thier advice and focus on ending the Israeli settlement movement and the occuaption that protects it once and for all in order to ensure that we are not visited with future 9/11s and future debacles like the war in Iraq.