Some pro-war advocates say we can't leave Iraq because the country will devolve into massive ethnic cleansing, neighborhood by neighborhood.
When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won. "If you look at pre-February 2006, there were only a couple of areas in the city that were unambiguously Shia," says a U.S. official in Baghdad who is familiar with the issue but is not authorized to speak on the record. "That's definitely not the case anymore." The official says that "the majority, more than half" of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now Shiite-dominated, a judgment echoed in the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq: "And very few are mixed." In places like Amel, pockets of Sunnis live in fear, surrounded by a sea of Shiites. In most of the remaining Sunni neighborhoods, residents are trapped behind great concrete barricades for their own protection.
Okay, since that argument has now been blown out of the water, can we just begin an American withdrawal?
Posted by Linkmeister at September 3, 2007 08:35 AM | TrackBack* Shi'a as much as 60%, Sunni about 40% (source: Britannica, Religion section of Iraq article).
Shi'a 60%-65%, Sunni 32%-37% (source: CIA World Fact Book).
Baghdad has a population of 4.5 million of which approx-1.8 are Sunni. So your saying the Shiite Militia have already completed the job of cleansing 1.8Million Sunnis from Baghdad. I find that hard to believe, but lets say that its fact. Some questions have to be asked to take your theory seriously.
1. Where are the bodies
2. What will the Shiite do with the other 9Million Sunnis that live in Iraq if the US were to leave?
I think if 1.8 Million Sunnis were eradicated, this would reinforce the need for the US military to stay in the country to prevent this type of cleansing from happening. Isn't that why we went into Kosovo in the 90s...ethnic cleansing.
Posted by: Mike at September 4, 2007 11:06 PMI'm not saying they've been murdered. I'm saying that I take from that article that the city has been ghettoized into ethnic conclaves.
And you're forgetting (wilfully?) the roughly 4 million Iraqis (per UN IRR numbers) who've left their homes. 2 million have left the country entirely, and another 2 million fit the category "internally displaced." Both those numbers are necessarily estimates, but they're huge even if wrong by 50%.
Posted by: Linkmeister at September 5, 2007 08:09 AM