As Iraqis who fled their homes during the war begin to return, some are finding it safer to move into areas inhabited by other members of their sect, creating segregated communities of Shia and Sunni Muslims at ever-increasing rates.
The country has seen a drop in sectarian violence as a result, but some observers are concerned by the trend’s other possible consequences.
This does not bode well for a countries citizens, that once lived in relative comfort in a mixed religious/tribal sectarian society, under the rule of a dictatorship once propped up by the west.
Now, as Iraqis return — due to the decline in violence or because they ran out of money or face new visa restrictions in other countries — many cannot move back to their homes because they are destroyed or occupied by other families, or they are choosing to live elsewhere.
Ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and sections of the country, taking place under the control of an occupying military, may be bringing a calm to the destructive violence, but it leaves these area’s wide open to control of sectarian groups and not a weak central government.
International Organization for Migration – Report {PDF}
And since about one-third of Iraqis are in mixed marriages, “we’re getting reports of families who are being split up,” Ferris noted.
We have already seen the reports of how our occupation is contributing by walling off neighborhoods of Baghdad, in that report as well as this and this one which also has this video slide show, Fortress Baghdad.
And as I was writing this {home with a flu bug} NPR aired this report:
Baghdad Neighborhoods’ Future Security Uncertain
Morning Edition, February 14, 2008 ยท With the downturn in violence, some Baghdad neighborhoods have begun to spring back to life. Iraqi forces have been taking more responsibility for security. But with U.S. military officials committed to bringing some troops home by mid-summer, some Iraqis are beginning to ask what the city will look like a few months from now. Peter Kenyon
You can listen here
We created the extremely dangerous unstability by our invasion, in this War of Choice, and we have perpetuated that unstability by our longterm occupation and support of the puppet government!
Will what is taking place in Iraq, under the U.S. occupation, create an even more unstable country and regional problems leading to even more danger to the National Security of this country, and citizens of, and others than already may exist?
Time will tell, but I believe it will, for it was the failed foreign policies of the past and recent present that brought us to this evolving destructive point in todays World!
We aren’t “Fighting them over there so as to not fight them here.”, we are creating even more hatreds, in once innocent people in that country and enhancing the hatreds within the region, and for some they will lash out in the blowback of ‘Criminal Terrorism’, and already have!
Under the Ideologies of Conservative Republicanism and National Security this is the direction of this Countries Policies:
Enhance more Hatreds anywhere possible, through propaganda, destruction, mass death, under the terms ‘Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’ in order to Continue threats against from similar Failed Policies of Past!
Those Hatreds lead to ‘Blowback’ by recipients of the many Failed Policies called ‘Criminal Terrorism’!
Take the word ‘Terrorism’, while practicing same, and paste it on any group needed to Enhance the Fear in Populations causing Perpetual Conflicts and Huge Profits for any Military Industrial Complex and Control by same for Further Policies set up to Fail!
And when ‘Johnny and Jane’ come Marching Home, Dump Them {that one cuts across all Political Ideology and This Society }
It’s Not ‘Strong on National Defense’, it Destroys ‘National Defense’ and brings about more and more ‘Conflicts of Choice’ for Greed and Power!
If we don’t hold those Responsible for the Wrath of Failed Policies Instituted than in the eyes of the World ‘We Have Excepted All That Has Been Done In Our Names’ and are thus Just As Guilty!