Is The US Conducting Ethnic Cleansing Operations in Baghdad Against The Sunnis?

[leftchick]

This is just the beginning. Haven't these poor people suffered enough?

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A man sifts through the rubble of a destroyed house after Tuesday's clashes in Haifa Street in Baghdad, January 10, 2007. The Iraqi government said Iraqi and U.S. forces killed 50 people in central Baghdad on Tuesday as American jets and helicopters prowled overhead, although details of the battle around Haifa Street remained sketchy. REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ)

"50 militants reported killed in Baghdad"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070110/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

<snip>

Meanwhile, the battle raged on Haifa Street about 1 1/2 miles north of the heavily fortified Green Zone — home to the U.S. Embassy and other facilities — on the eve of President Bush's expected announcement that he would send 20,000 more soldiers to Iraq despite growing opposition on Capitol Hill.

<snip>

The U.S. military said about 1,000 Iraqi and U.S. soldiers carried out "targeted raids to capture multiple targets, disrupt insurgent activity and restore Iraqi Security Forces control of North Haifa Street."

"This area has been subject to insurgent activity which has repeatedly disrupted Iraqi Security Force operations in central Baghdad," said a statement quoting Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesman for Multi-National Division Baghdad.

He said the U.S. jets buzzing the city did not conduct any airstrikes, but "attack helicopters were used to engage targets in support of the ground forces."


The Arab press views it as ethnic cleansing....

http://www.juancole.com

<snip>

In contrast, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni religious association, described the operation as a "bloody sectarian massacre." The Sunni Arab narrative, enunciated over the weekend by MP Adnan Dulaimi, is that the Shiite militias are attempting to drive Sunni Arabs from their neighborhoods in the capital, and that the Mahdi Army had attacked Haifa Street Sunday and been driven back. Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that locals say a (Shiite) militia invaded the quarter on Sunday and captured and killed 15 residents, then threw their bodies in the street. In this context, some Sunni Arabs see the US as having been duped by the Shiites to join in the ethnic cleansing of the Karkh district.

Haifa Street has been an important thread in the saga of Iraq's civil war. In In July of 2004 we saw the huge "Operation Haifa Street," involving 3000 US troops. There was the massive carbombing there of a police station in 2004, which doesn't seem to show that "Operation Haifa Street" was exactly a success. Even at that time, the US GIs called it "Grenade Alley" and "Purple Heart Boulevard" and fought constantly with locally based guerilla groups. It has been radicalized and supposedly pacified over and over again. By March 2005, the NYT found that the tide was turning on Haifa Street. CSM reported that it had calmed down under Iraqi army supervision by May of 2005. A year and a half later, and it is still a "terrorist stronghold" and we have yet another pacification effort. Or maybe by now it is just being levelled by airstrikes. Or maybe we really have been duped into ethnically cleansing it on behalf of the Mahdi Army. Bush's Iraq War is like Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray science fiction film about the guy doomed to live the same day over and over again. How is 2007 different on Haifa Street from 2004?


... Tom Hayden predicted this to happen and indeed is happening now....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/campaign-in-america-with-_b_38119.html

Campaign in America with Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq

Meanwhile, as the politicians position themselves in Washington, urgent appeals from Iraqis warned of Shi'a death squads being unleashed against Sunni neighborhoods. The Baghdad security plan agreed in a teleconference last week being Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki already is underway. According to al-Jazeera the Shiite militia attacks and roundups began on Sunday. The parliamentarian and peace advocate Saleh al-Mutlaq denounced the plan as an attempt to cleanse Baghdad of the Sunni majority it had in 2003. The Association of Muslim Scholars and Iraqi satellite TV stations began transmitting cries for help from relatives and neighbors in Baghdad.

Already tens of thousands have fled Baghdad, the largest percentage of the nearly one million Iraqis who have been displaced according to the United Nations. Forty thousand have relocated in Falluja. There they stand in a parking lot surrounded by razor wire, are hand-searched, given retinal scans, and provided ID's to enter Falluja, or weeded out. .

Baghdad itself, once a diverse city of five million, has become the Shi'a capital, with fifty of 51 governing officials being from Shi'a parties. The security forces, as well as the "commandos" and "public order brigades" under the Interior Ministry are from Shi'a militias. Having fostered, equipped, financed and trained these sectarian forces, US officials have attempted to distance themselves from the scandal, for example claiming in 2006 they only "recently learned" that the 7,700 members of the public order brigades were Shi'a. .


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[papau]

1. It appears Bush's wartime goal is Iranian takeover of Iraq - worth every one of the 3000 dead US &

600,000 dead Iraqis, and the $300+ billion to date.

[malaise]

2. Yes that is the McCain solution n/t