LA Times: Surge Has Failed

[Quixote1818]

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military buildup that was supposed to calm Baghdad and other trouble spots has failed to usher in national reconciliation, as the capital's neighborhoods rupture even further along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and Iraq's government remains mired in political infighting.

In the coming days, U.S. military and government leaders will offer Congress their assessment of the 6-month-old plan's results. But a review of statistics on death and displacement, political developments and the impressions of Iraqis who are living under the heightened military presence reaches a dispiriting conclusion.

Read entire story.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/04/la-times-surge-has-faile_n_62984.html

[daninthemoon]

1. Does anyone know? Is Baghdad kind of divided up along these

religious sect lines the way American cities have come to be divided along racial lines? Are the sunnis or shias living in a barrio? Just wondering.

[Hamlette]

4. some of both, as I understand

there were neighborhoods which were heavily one side or the other and some truly mixed neighborhoods. The cleansing started in neighborhoods with a minority and moved to the mixed neighborhoods.

What I'm hearing now is the Sunni have all left the city or a dead. Mission accomplished?

[RufusTFirefly]

2. Fool me once...

And to think that I trusted Our President...

[theoldman]

3. You do not judge a war by the number of battles won or lost.

What counts is the final outcome as determined by the last battle. We are no where near the finish line in the war in Iraq.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. We're occupying a country where the ONLY thing they agree on is, they want us to LEAVE.

How the fuck can something like that "succeed"?

[RufusTFirefly]

7. Thank you!!!

To speak of "success" is to give this war crime a veneer of legitimacy.

[radfringe]

6. obviously, the LA times did not get a visit from the progress pixie

[Warren DeMontague]

8. At least they fired Mike Ramirez.

That guy is an asshat.