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Iraq

Satellite images show ethnic cleanout in Iraq

2008-09-21

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday.

The images support the view of international refugee organizations and Iraq experts that a major population shift was a key factor in the decline in sectarian violence, particularly in the Iraqi capital, the epicenter of the bloodletting in which hundreds of thousands were killed.

Minority Sunni Arabs were driven out of many neighborhoods by Shi'ite militants enraged by the bombing of the Samarra mosque in February 2006. The bombing, blamed on the Sunni militant group al Qaeda, sparked a wave of sectarian violence.

"By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left," geography professor John Agnew of the University of California Los Angeles, who led the study, said in a statement.

"Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said Agnew, who studies ethnic conflict.

Some 2 million Iraqis are displaced within Iraq, while 2 million more have sought refuge in neighboring Syria and Jordan. Previously religiously mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad became homogenized Sunni or Shi'ite Muslim enclaves.

The study, published in the journal Environment and Planning A, provides more evidence of ethnic conflict in Iraq, which peaked just before U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of about 30,000 extra U.S. troops.

The extent to which the troop build-up helped halt Iraq's slide into sectarian civil war has been debated, particularly in the United States, with supporters of the surge saying it was the main contributing factor, and others arguing it was simply one of a number of factors. Continued...

Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#6 Uhh ..... while as reported, this "study" is indeed BS insofar as it ignores the changes in widely dispersed parts of Iraq, many with their own distinctive profiles and histories since 2003, it accidentally trips over (in principle) one key - no, THE key - issue.

Wars - real, nasty, not-screwing-around wars - are won or lost. Period. One or more sides are defeated, the will of others is imposed on them, their MAM population is killed or reduced, their means to wage conflict or withstand the cost imposed on them for initiating/continuing their violence reduced or eliminated.

So - if the "study" actually showed what its authors claim (doubtful), then it's a reminder that wars are not won through fancy strategies that sound good at the war college (and they shouldn't do that, either).

The simple, obvious objection to the "study" is, uh, how do you explain Anbar .... or Diyala .... or Mosul ... or .... or .....

Sure, population shift may have been a "key factor" - but that doesn't have anything to do with other factors - the Anbar awakening, its analogues in Diyala and elsewhere, the cumulative improvement in the ISF - and .... the resumption (finally) of the initiative by MNF-I.

One other thing (category: erroneous shibboleths that help distort the overall picture): "hundreds of thousands" were killed? Maybe ... just barely. And the bulk of those were killed by one side, and its collaborators (10 guesses as to who that is). These people just, by sheer coincidence, happen to be the SAME people who ran the place before we showed up, and who DID kill millions overall, not to mention run the place into the ground in almost every imaginable human and material sense.

I'm still thinking the "hundreds of thousands" thing is nonsense - and I'm already certain that it has no place as a throwaway line in a wire-service report. One of the things that has destroyed basic "reporting" as a means of providing information to the public. Put someone knowledgeable and rigorous in a wire service editing position, and you wouldn't recognize the dispatches - instantaneously.

Posted by: Verlaine 2008-09-21 23:59

#5 Troll on aisle 5.

Posted by: tipover 2008-09-21 14:30

#4 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122186492076758643.html

Gen. Keane wants to make sure people understand why the surge worked. "I have a theory" about the unexpectedly fast turnaround, he says. "Whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, anyone who was being touched by that war after four years was fed up with it. And I think once a solution was being provided, once they saw the Americans were truly willing to take risks and die to protect their women and children and their way of life, they decided one, to protect the Americans, and two, to turn in the enemies that were around them who were intimidating and terrorizing them; that gave them the courage to do it."

Posted by: Parabellum 2008-09-21 14:23

#3 My mind almost blow when i read this BS text. Read they example they wrote about violence: A bomb planted by Al-qaeda that by definition doesn't have anything to do with with geographic/ethnic barriers. All Al-Qaeda based violence have nothing to do with that. It was Al-qaeda sunni violence over iraq sunnis that made some province hot bed of violence.

The politics behind this are disgusting.

Posted by: Gromoper Scourge of the Heathen Rus6841 2008-09-21 11:34

#2 "By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left," geography professor John Agnew of the University of California Los Angeles, who led the study, said in a statement

OR the more equal distribution of power on the electric grid left previously "special" places like Tikrit and Sunni Baghdad with less power than before...or they are conserving. I'd say Mr. UCLA man is making a huge jump to a predetermined conclusion

Posted by: Frank G 2008-09-21 11:16

#1 Actually, I don't think that's totally BS; IIUC, about half of the 20% or so of the Sunni Master Race Members have left the building. I remember reading about the delusional worldview of sunnis, many of whom supposedly thinking they were the MAJORITY of the iraqi population, but when half your neighbors choose to fly to greener pastures, and the guys fighting to restore your brood as the top of the chain food are either psychos and/or thugs, it's not hard to understand why the "sons of iraq" saw the light, and understood there was no future in their grand strategy. Basically, they were beaten, and they finally had to face it, couldn't happen to a nicer lot.

Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-09-21 10:59

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