Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold

[cal04]

Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale.

The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.

Mrs Mohammed is a Kurd and a Shia in Baquba, which has a majority of Sunni Arabs. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded fruit in the local market, said: "They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later I went back to try to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin. The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.

In Baquba, with a population of 350,000, gunmen last week ordered people off a bus, separated the men from the women and shot dead 11 of them. Not far away police found the mutilated body of a kidnapped six-year-old boy for whom a ransom had already been paid. The sectarian warfare in Baghdad is sparsely reported but the provinces around the capital are now so dangerous for reporters that they seldom, if ever, go there, except as embeds with US troops. Two months ago in Mosul, I met an Iraqi army captain from Diyala who said Sunni and Shia were slaughtering each other in his home province. "Whoever is in a minority runs," he said. "If forces are more equal they fight it out."

(snip)
The flight of the middle class started about six months after the invasion in 2003 as it became clear Iraq was becoming more, not less, violent. They moved to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The suicide bombing campaign was largely directed against Shias who only began to retaliate after they had taken over the government in May last year. Interior Ministry forces arrested, tortured and killed Sunnis.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article548945.ece

[babylonsister]

1. Another Darfur happening right under our collective noses? nt

[MadMaddie]

2. Yea and our soldiers are among the targets...

If we don't stop them in November the world may very well step in to stop them....

[Barrett808]

3. I remember when "peaceful" Diyala province was handed over...

...to a certain Col. Theya, late of the Ba'ath regime. He bragged about the peaceful quality of his province:

An Iraqi Army unit ready to control its turf
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=151620

[FloridaPat]

4. I wonder if * plan isn't to get rid of all the Iraqis. They've drenched

Iraq with depleted uranium which is killing people now and forever and causing lots of birth defects Now they have everyone fighting everyone else. Gee, who gets the oil if there's not one left?

[wtmusic]

5. Does W have any clue as to the suffering he's caused?

There isn't a hell hot enough for the man.

[ninkasi]

7. He doesn't care

how much suffering he's caused. Chimp is a sociopath, and is incapable of empathizing with anybody else. He sees the world only as it relates to him. If people suffer for him to have his way, it doesn't matter to him. For him, the world revolves around him, his desires, and his wishes.

Most people give up that degree of being self-centered after they are about three years old, and begin to grasp the concept of other people having feelings, and that hurting others is wrong. They develop a conscious in time, and are able to feel guilt. Pissypants never made it that far. I have heard from conservatives that we should pray for the president.

My prayer is that as he has sown, so shall he reap. I pray that what he has meted out in life, will be returned to him ten-fold. I pray that what he has done to others, shall be done unto him. Surely, there is nothing wrong with my prayer, because all it does is to pray that whatever he does, shall be returned to him. If he is the moral, Xtian man he claims to be, he should be satisfied with his reward.

[madrchsod]

6. here is a very disturbing story from an iraqi blogger

i`ve been reading his site for almost a year and was working with jill before she was kidnapped. he spent several months in the usa this winter. he is a young journalist in iraq and he`s one of the few and the brave that report the truth in iraq. be sure to read the comments on other iraqi bloggers differing explainations on just who is who.
i`ll post his site and he has links to other bloggers.
http://baghdadtreasure.blogspot.com

oh yes check his archives for his trip to the usa-- 2005`s nov, dec, and jan 2006-scroll to bottom of the page.

[wtmusic]

8. makes me want to scream

W. Who gave him the right to bring this upon the people of Iraq? :grr:

[Gman]

9. Might as well start calling it what it is... ethnic cleansing

Its been going on for months now. The MSM has tastefully called it sectarian infighting and other such phrases that are acceptable in polite company. Ethnic cleansing means thousands are killed because of who they are.

And the United States of America not only caused it, but allows it to continue. What then is the difference between Iraq and Darfur? The US reaction remains identical in both.