Independent UK: McCain is deluding himself over the 'surge'

[marmar]

Johann Hari: McCain is deluding himself over the 'surge'

There's a hole in the US argument, and blood is rushing through

Monday, 6 October 2008




John McCain is desperate to talk about the surge rather than the splurge. His Iraq war is set to cost one trillion dollars, and his deregulation-mania has cost hundreds of billions. So in order to maintain his façade of being "tough on spending", he needs to shift the subject. That's why he has tried to shrink the debate about the Iraq War to one small question. Not: did Saddam have Weapons of Mass Destruction? Not: did Saddam have links to 9/11? Not: why do 70 per cent of Iraqis think the presence of US troops make them less safe and they should go home now?

McCain knows he will lose those arguments, so he wants us to talk solely about whether the surge of US troops last year has been successful. But a hole was just blown in that argument – and blood is rushing through.

Those of us who got Iraq wrong have a particular duty to honestly describe what is happening now. A major study by the distinguished scientific journal Environment and Planning A has just revealed the real picture. The Republican nominee claims the US troops have stopped the violence by their physical presence. To test this, Professor John Agnew and his colleagues used the same techniques the US government has adopted to monitor ethnic-cleansing in Burma and Uganda.

Here's how it works. When an entire ethnic or religious group is driven out, they abandon their houses – and aren't there to switch on the lights. Their areas become much more dark. If satellite images show night-light remains the same in the areas dominated by one ethnic group but significantly falls in mixed areas, you know ethnic cleansing is happening.

So what happened in Iraq? Before, during and after the surge, the areas that had always been Sunni and those that had always been Shia were brighter than ever. But in the vast mixed areas, half or more of the lights went out in the six months leading up to the surge. They then stabilised in half-darkness. By the time the US troops arrived, there were no more mixed areas left. The easy pickings – the Shia who lived next door, or the Sunni who lived up the road – had all been attacked. Sunni and Shia weren't killing each other any more because they had retreated into vast enclaves, cleansed and armed, surrounded by barriers manned by militias. Four million people had been driven from their homes. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-mccain-is-deluding-himself-over-the-surge-952490.html

[hay rick]

1. Recent post on subject.

Media has been looking the other way on behalf of McCain campaign. A recent post of mine on this topic:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7272205

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The Pentagon's own survey confirms this:

More evidence that ethnic cleansing, Not The Surge, has caused the drop in Iraqi violence

This is interesting. Buried in the new Quarterly Report from the Pentagon is this statistic: 74% of Iraqis feel safe in their own neighborhoods, but only 37% feel safe outside their neighborhoods. Iraq has become a nation of ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, separated by 12 foot concrete barrier walls. Before the US invasion, Iraqis lived peacefully enough amongst each other. Within the confines of these “gated communities,” people do indeed feel safer, but they’re scared to leave. Think Progress notes:

A new study released by UCLA concluded that ethnic violence was the primary factor in reducing violence in Iraq, conclusions also echoed by the GAO. Indeed, Baghdad is now a “city of shadows” characterized by blast walls separating Shi’a and Sunni.

http://breaktheterror.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/more-evidence-that-ethnic-cleansing-not-the-surge-has-caused-the-drop-in-iraqi-violence/

[northernlights]

3. that was why Biden proposed dividing the country

as a solution. Everyone argued that you couldn't move that many people around logistically. But it was already happening. He just wanted to make it less chaotic...and without the bloodshed.