by Stephen of the Thinkery
To followup on my previous post about sectarian violence in Iraq, the New York Times reports today that the "surge" of American troops, far from reducing sectarian divisions in Iraq, has actually contributed to an increase:
The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the Americantroop increase began in February, according to data from twohumanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country intosectarian enclaves.
Actively turning Iraq into a collection of homogeneous, heavily armed, insulated and well-defined geographic regions is hardly going to alleviate sectarian strife. And here is a disturbing suggestion that the very plan put in action to deal with the problem of sectarian violence and division is making the problem worse.
Update: ThinkProgress has an excellent compilation of facts - facts, not spin, not assumptions - regarding the results of Bush's "surge." I'll reproduce the entire post after the jump, because it's just not possible to break it up.