Juan Cole on “evacuation” of Sadr City-Apparently there’s a golf course at stake

[kpete]

Iraqi military orders Sadr City residents to evacuate

“The residents here are laughing at the government,” she said. “Their demands are very strange. Either hand over our sons or leave our houses to live in small tents.”

Um Mohammed will stay in her home, she said, even though her neighborhood is beset by gunbattles and sporadic airstrikes.

“We refuse to leave,” she said. “Our death will be inside our homes.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/36436.html

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From Juan Cole:

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The Iraqi military has warned civilians to leave the vast slum of Sadr City, apparently in preparation for a massive government assault on the Mahdi Army militia based there. Since slum dwellers notoriously lack the means to leave their slums, this call seems more likely to be for the sake of appearances than a realistic expectation. When thousands are massacred in the course of a military attack on a densely packed civilian area, the authorities will be able to say that they gave fair warning. Although the US demonizes the Mahdi Army, Many Sadr City residents view it as in part a charitable organization, and they also are often grateful for the security it provides. It is not as if the federal government is providing security.

Saddam Hussein was the Iraqi leader who invented the technique of ethnically cleansing rebellious populations as a way of making his rule stick. He did it to the Marsh Arabs in the south and also to Kurds in the north. The US has already either conducted or allowed ethnic cleansing in Falluja and West Baghdad. It now seems set to empty out the east of the capital.

Apparently the fractious, RPG-wielding slum dwellers are getting in the way of the planned Green Zone golf course, so they have to be removed.

You know some British colonial administrators were still planning new cricket fields in India in 1946.

more at:
http://www.juancole.com/2008/05/sadr-city-residents-warned-to-leave.html

[floridablue]

1. Lesson learned from the Shrub crew

Like when they told the residents of the 9th Ward in New Orleans to evacuate and wouldn't let them walk across the bridge.

Hey !... I wonder if 'ole Brownie is hanging around Baghdad doing some important consulting work for DOD? Sounds like it. After all, a loyal man like Brownie should have a well paying job shouldn't he ? Didn't he earn that right in NO??????

[annabanana]

2. This is going to be really really ugly folks... Fallujah on steroids

more people, less room...
repercussions to the 10th generation.


stupid stupid stupid