Sunday, March 04, 2007
This is your legacy George - part 9
On the front page of the New York Times today is an article on the current way of life in Baghdad. The results of the civil war, called sectarian strife by those who want more bloodshed, are outlined by the streets that mark the boundaries of the different neighborhoods occupied by Sunni and Shi'a.
After centuries full of vibrant interaction, of marrying, sharing and selling across sects and classes, Baghdad has become a capital of corrosive and violent borderlines. Streets never crossed. Conversations never started. Doors never entered...Similar to Sarajevo at the beginning of that city's great tragedy, not the middle or end. The evil djinn of their passions has only just been let out of the bottle and no amount of US blood and treasure can put it back in for the Iraqis. That is something they will have to do for themselves. But never fear Georgie, they will always revere you for taking the cap off the bottle.
...The goal of the new Baghdad security plan is to fix all of this — to fashion a peace that stitches the city’s cleaved neighborhoods back together. After three weeks, there are a few signs of progress. The number of bodies found daily has decreased to 20 or fewer from 35 to 50. In some areas closely patrolled by American troops, a few of the families that fled the violence are said to be returning.
But even in neighborhoods that are improving or are relatively calm, borders loom. Streets once crossed without a thought are now bullet-riddled and abandoned, the front lines of a block-by-block war among Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents, competing criminal gangs and Iraqi and American troops.
Some Americans who have seen both Bosnia and Iraq say Baghdad has come to resemble Sarajevo as it began to unravel in the 1990s, latticed with boundaries that are never openly indicated but are passed on in fearful whispers among neighbors who have suffered horrific losses.
Labels: Bush legacy, failure
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