Sectarian cleansing is NOT progress

Front paged at Booman Tribune and ePluribus Media

This past week or two have seen a large number of documents and reports being issued that paint an accurate yet bleak picture of the situation in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq.

And despite all of these sobering, yet completely expected assessments, the one thing that is being shoved down our throats is the completely disingenuous lines about “real progress” being made and how we should be “upbeat” about this escalation because it is working. Even worse is the outright lies that the violence is decreasing.

It is very simple.

The violence is not decreasing, and in the limited areas where there is a drop in violence, it is due largely to sectarian cleansing. And sectarian cleansing is not something to be proud of, nor does it show any success.

Now, the five words that are the title of this post should be memorized and used by every single Democrat and reasonable, rational person over the next few weeks. It is something that they should have already realized if they scratched below the surface of these assertions. Especially since this administration and its enablers have twisted facts, outright lied and hidden facts and details beneath the sugar coated exterior of their “expert assessments”. I’ll even give credit to Newsweek, which finally used the words sectarian cleansing in a recent article:

Thousands of other Sunnis like Kamal have been cleared out of the western half of Baghdad, which they once dominated, in recent months. The surge of U.S. troops—meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital—has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone. Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually "has increased the IDPs to some extent."

Now, it is clear as crystal that our military is not going to solve the issues that Mister Bush and his administration have created, as General Petraeus said back in March. It is also clear as crystal (at least to those who bother to use their brains) that the “success” being touted in Anbar is neither accurate nor relevant. And, despite what Reps. like Brian Baird, Jerry McNerney, Sam Clyburn and Senators Clinton and Levin have to say, any mention of “success” or “progress” not only misses the big picture but also contributes to the thought that “we just need more time”.

We do not need more time. The escalation was supposed to quell violence in Baghdad – NOT Anbar. The reduction in violence in Baghdad is because of sectarian cleansing.

Is anyone going to say with a straight face that sectarian cleansing is a good thing? Is anyone going to buy into the fact that sectarian cleansing and the doubling of internally displaced persons is progress? And is this worth giving Mister Bush another $200 billion?