Posted on 02/01/2015 7:05:24 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
When his father disappeared Dec. 18, Alaa Dawood reported him missing to the police but had little faith that they would find the elderly man, who had suffered brain damage when he was kidnapped six years ago and tortured by militants.
Shiite militias empowered by the government to fight Sunni militants have been asked to stand down by Prime Minister Haider Abadi, and police say they have assumed control of investigations and patrols. But many Baghdadis, including Shiites like Dawood, said they still fear the militias, which they said operate with impunity.
Casualty figures in 2014 were the highest since Shiite-Sunni sectarian warfare in 2007, with 12,282 civilians killed by violence, according the United Nations. In December, the highest concentration of civilian deaths was in the capital: 320.
Dr. Taha Qasim, head of forensic medicine at the morgue, said that kidnappings of both Sunnis and Shiites had increased, the motives unclear.
"These days in Baghdad everyone is a target, so where's the sectarianism?" he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
- George W. Bush, 2007
Obama did not fight for or care if the U.S. got a SOFA agreement with Maliki, and minus a high level presidential push for one the U.S. did not get it.
With that and with the U.S. not even giving all the aid and assistance it had agreed to give without a SOFA, U.S. leverage with the Iraqi government amounted to nil, and the Iraqi leader, Maliki, began governing more as a Shia Muslim leader than the leader of Iraq.
As the Sunni anger with Maliki’s Shia-centric governance grew, so grew the numbers of outraged young Iraqi Sunni men who began to see ISIS as preferable to Maliki.
Two bumbling idiots, Obama and Maliki, helped produce the soil in Iraq for ISIS to grow in.
And since Iraq has no real borders now, I would expect Iran would be plotting to take over Shia dominated Baghdad.
The Shia have been increasing in Baghdad the last 30 or so years and I believe now they are the dominant population of Baghdad.
The Sunnis could flee Baghdad and join with ISIS. -Tom
Shiite militias empowered by the government to fight Sunni militants have been asked to stand down by Prime Minister Haider Abadi, and police say they have assumed control of investigations and patrols. But many Baghdadis, including Shiites like Dawood, said they still fear the militias, which they said operate with impunity.
Hmmm. I haven’t seen any articles like this when Sunni terrorists dominated environment, to point at them as a problem. Now, there are groups to counter said terrorists and they ‘add insecurity’ according to LAT.
Kurds must be so happy they got so good press during the First Gulf War, otherwise the media might have been called their defiance to ISIS an ‘extremism, which adds to violence’.
The Shia represent about 60% of Iraqis and in a country where the central authority controls and runs so much it collects money, power and people to itself - a pattern evident around the world. The general majority demographic - the Shia - becoming the majority in Baghdad is a consequence of their general national majority and the concentration of power in Baghdad.
GWB might have removed Saddam, but the displacement of any Sunni (like Saddam) as head of Iraq was only a matter of time (as it is in other places where self-appointed Sunnis rule over national majorities of Shia).
Unfortunately, a much more true statesman-like “nationalist” head of state, could have started to lessen the Sunni-Shia divisions, but that man was not Maliki.
‘Unfortunately, a much more true statesman-like “nationalist” head of state, could have started to lessen the Sunni-Shia divisions, but that man was not Maliki.’
There was a man like that actually.
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