Iraq has become the new Bosnia (ethnic cleansing takes hold)

[Roland99]

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

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.

...

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."

The only thing that's been liberated in Iraq has been the safety and security of the average Iraqi. They've gone from having to deal with a cancer, in Saddam, to having their lives destroyed and families and friendships torn apart.

Welcome to democracy, Iraq.

My deepest regrets for the actions of the US Gov't.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Yupper.... we're showing Saddam how it's done, alrighty then...

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Yeah *crying*

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. Holy shit - I hadn't thought of it that way, but yeah, that's it!

We're showing Saddam how terrorizing and murdering your own people and letting them destroy each other should be done!

Your statement reminds me very much of Bill Hicks bit about how after Saddam failed to assassinate Shrubbie's dad, WE should have killed him and said, "There - that's how you do it." And, as Hicks said, that way there'd also be no loss of innocent life. :-)

[Roland99]

5. Well, the US has had decades of practice on multiple continents.

[enough]

4. "My deepest regrets"

I join you in that.