Still Not Working
You know how the warbots are saying that the Surge™ is working because the numbers of bodies stemming from sectarian cleansing have dropped from massacre levels to just plain carnage? Well the truth is that the reason the numbers of bodies have been falling is because the potential victims are leaving in droves:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nearly two months into a Baghdad security plan intended to calm the Iraqi capital by protecting residents from sectarian violence, Shiite Muslim militia members are still driving Sunni Muslims from religiously mixed neighborhoods.Iraqi soldiers, usually ethnic Kurds, reportedly have intervened in some instances to stop the militia campaign. But interviews with Sunni residents found that most of the efforts go unchallenged in a city where it's increasingly rare for Shiites or Sunnis to remain in neighborhoods that the other sect dominates.
Residents displaced in the past four months describe a new effort that haunts them after they flee. It begins with intimidating phone calls, then escalates into bombings or the dismantling of Sunni homes.
The residents said the perpetrators were members of the Mahdi Army militia, which is loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr reportedly has told his followers to lie low and not challenge U.S. troops as they fan out across the capital in an effort to restore order.
But that show of cooperation hasn't prevented the militia from trying to cement its grip on some formerly mixed-sect neighborhoods, residents report.