Matthew Yglesias » A Surge of Ethnic Cleansing

Sep 20th, 2008 at 9:32 am

A Surge of Ethnic Cleansing

The fly in the ointment of the feel good story of “the surge” and improved counterinsurgency tactics bringing security to Iraq has always been that the level of sectarian violence in Baghdad actually kept increasing for quite a while after the new problem was in place. By the time the violence drop occurred, Baghdad neighborhoods had generally become monosectarian enclaves after a process of cleansing. This sequence of events is, on one level, fairly well known — General Petraeus owned up to it in congressional testimony, CNN’s Michael Ware has talked about it, etc. — but on another level it’s barely penetrated political consciousness. But a new UCLA study that uses the innovative method of looking at patterns in electricity use manages to really quantify the impact much better than previous characterizations:

Now needless to say, this ethnic cleansing in Baghdad doesn’t explain, say, the success of the Anbar Awakening at all. But on the other hand, the “awakening” began well before the surge. And in Baghdad terms, if we’d begun withdrawing troops in 2007 and then violence shot up, and then eventually violence went down once minority groups had all been pushed out of their homes, I doubt people would be crowing about the success withdrawal had in bringing peace to Baghad.

Comments
23

23 Responses to “A Surge of Ethnic Cleansing”

kafka Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 10:24 am
The war is yesterday’s news. Think it cost a lot? You haven’t seen anything yet. Bailout screw job will make war $$$ lok like chump change.
Matt Weiner Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 11:20 am
So I said to myself, what exactly is that graph supposed to show? And what do patterns of electricity use have to do with anything? And how can we learn about this if we don’t want to download the pdf at the link?

Here’s an article about it. Apparently what this shows is that electricity use at night has gone down in Sunni neighborhoods but not in Shiite neighborhoods or the Green Zone (that’s the gray area). The idea is that the Sunnis have fled. I don’t know how robust this result is.
serial catowner Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Gotta give this a 9.9 on the “huh? what?” scale. Maybe it’s some kind of double acrostic.
El Cid Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Shut up. SHUT UP. SHUT! UP!

The SURGE ™ was the most importantest victoriousest policy ever made in the policy of every policy! The only people who ever questioned Its will were traitorous Democrats who want to lose the glorious war in Iraq! Only John McCain

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!
El Cid Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I also recall that before it became all traitorous and anti-victory to question “The SURGE ™” as actual policy rather than holy scripture, it was argued by hawks that if we began to plan to leave, there would be ethnic cleansing.

I do not doubt that it is possible that the right wing / media nexus’ hatred for the existence of the past will prevent them from ignoring or reconstructing these simple truths any way they want.

But I sort of suspect that this time they may not succeed.

Unless of course the Democrats once again decide that the best strategy is to genuflect completely toward The SURGE ™, which they still may.
Weston Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Sympathetic as I am to using actual empirical data to help sift through policy questions in Iraq and to the suggestion that the explanation for the decreases in violence there is more complicated than the US government claims, I have to say that this article spouted some pretty confident conclusions on the legs of some pretty shaky evidence. When the authors turn their attention to other possible causes for changes in regional light signatures–you know, the things that would falsify their theory–their response is basically “um… we don’t think that happened because of um… private home generators, or something.” No doubt some ethnic cleansing has occurred, and has decreased the levels of violence. No doubt the adminstrarion is claiming more credit than is due for the surge. We didn’t need a science project to tell us that, and the science project we got didn’t tell us that anyway.
Chris Davis Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
This is just silly. I don’t see enough data to draw any conclusions at all.

The data being analyzed consist of a 15 pixel x 15 pixel section from four satellite images with ‘comparative cloud-free nighttime light imagery under low moon conditions and time of night’:
16 Nov 2003 9pm – Sunday
20 March 2006 9pm – Monday
21 March 2007 9pm – Wednesday
16 December 2007 11pm – Wednesday

Just for number of sample points, I’d think you would want to get multiple images over a full month to average together.

The ‘digital number format’ (huh?) data for each of those pixels have a grand total of 6 possible values – so, less than one decimal digit of precision. How did they come up with some kind of table of results that have 3 digits of precision?

But you dont even have to look at the article, just check out that pretty picture posted above, which reports zero change in light intensity for most of the center of the city – not a range like the rest of the possible values, but precisely 0%. (Maybe that should be 0.000%?) This is because out of six possible values, the numbers for those pixels were all saturated at the top end of the scale – you can’t detect a difference in values at all.

Isn’t that like taking two pictures of the sun with your digital camera and saying the surface temperature at the center of the photo changed 0%?

So let me make sure I have this right: they took two 0.000225 megapixel pictures (with 2.5 bit color) of a city from space nine months apart, and then came up with statements on the comparative quality of life in different neighborhoods of that city, based on no other information?

This has zero to do with Iraq. This is just a Saturday afternoon with bad science.
croatoan Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
“OK, the surge worked. Can we go home now?”
El Cid Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
The fact that the Reuters satellite photo matches up with what everyone reporting on the ground has been saying for months should be borne in mind.

This is not the study establishing the fact of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, it’s the colorful illustration of its effects.

I haven’t seen anyone (not including pinhead ideologues like the Kagan brood) suggesting any evidence whatsoever that there hasn’t been a mass flight from Baghdad and that there wasn’t massive ethnic cleansing of Sunni / Shi’a neighborhoods in Baghdad from before the very start of the Surge.

Or has there? Have there been any U.S. authorities or U.S. military agencies arguing that, oh, no, we’re just building walls throughout Baghdad to keep the rain better channeled through the streets? Has some sort of British study come out claiming that hysterical levels of sectarian insurgent violence did not effectively drive out ethnic groups from the neighborhoods under attack?
El Cid Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Michael Ware, as usual, reporting from Baghdad:

The sectarian cleansing of Baghdad has been– albeit tragic– one of the key elements to the drop in sectarian violence in the capital. Now, the US military says that violence has fallen by as much as 97 % over the past year, and it’s certainly true that we’re not finding the dozens of bodies on the streets tortured and mutilated, each morning, that we once were.

Now, there’s a number of factors, but the cleansing of Baghdad is definitely a part of it. It’s a very simple concept: Baghdad has been divided; segregated into Sunni and Shia enclaves. The days of mixed neighborhoods are gone. They are literally protected by either Iranian backed or U.S. backed militias, who night and day guard those neighborhoods to prevent rival death squads, be they in government uniforms or be they under al-Qaeda banners – coming in and taking victims. They are also walled off — LITERALLY — by massive concrete blast barriers that the U.S. forces put in place. So, what’s happened is that the cleansing of Baghdad means there’s simply less people to kill and of those who remain, they are much harder for a death squads to get to – it’s as plain as that. […]

And it started – this segregation — was consolidated; was entrenched when the Americans started funding the Sunni militias. Now, that was done for a multitude of reasons and there are very positive benefits to that, but there are also deep costs and consequences to that. So, in very many ways, if anyone is telling you that the cleansing of Baghdad has not contributed to the fall in violence, then they either simply do not understand Baghdad or they are lying to you.

How on Earth can anyone treat this stuff as other than obvious? Is there just some sort of unhealthy addiction to the nearly pornographic appeal of The SURGE ™ myth to some people?
rmwarnick Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I work with remote sensing data and GIS maps every day. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) night lights datasets have very coarse spatial resolution (ground sample distance was 2.8 km in this case). In most urban areas it’s usually the case that more light = more residents (places like airports and the Las Vegas Strip are exceptions). In Baghdad the electricity supply is spotty, and often controlled by Shiite militia groups such as the Mahdi Army.

Michael Ware, IMHO, knows what he’s talking about. Everyone agrees that Baghdad neighborhoods are now segregated by sect, and this obviously was a result of sectarian violence. It’s also obvious, because 70-80 corpses no longer appear on the streets every morning, that this phase of the civil war is essentially complete.
S.G.E.W. Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Ethnic cleansing will continue until morale improves.
Marshall Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
The violence is mostly down because the Iranian backed parties won. I think that everyone else is waiting to see what happens here in the US in November.
JohnH Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Matt Weiner: “Apparently what this shows is that electricity use at night has gone down in Sunni neighborhoods but not in Shiite neighborhoods or the Green Zone (that’s the gray area). The idea is that the Sunnis have fled. I don’t know how robust this result is.” My gratitude. Now why is it that MY’s post couldn’t be bothered to spell this out? Does blogging have to be so shallow and impulsive? He can do better. He’s proved it.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Not only did the Surge not hinder the sectarian cleansing, it ACTUALLY HELPED IT! Because the surge of troops into Baghdad prevented the Sunni militias from being on the street guarding their neighborhoods from Shia death squads. So the Shia death squads had more or less a free run of Baghdad – because they were nominally part of the “government security forces” – while the Sunni militias and insurgents were locked out or suppressed.

This was explained in an Asia Times analysis article. The article also explained that the attacks on Fallujah before the Surge also started or accelerated the sectarian cleansing because many Fallujah refugees went to relatives in Baghdad which aggravated the Sunni-Shia conflict.

In short, the US military bears a considerable portion of the blame for the success of the Shia sectarian cleansing.

The only advantage the US got from it is that the Sunni insurgency couldn’t fight the US and the Shia at the same time, and THAT is why the “Anbar Awakening” occurred at all. So the Surge actually had nothing – directly – to do with that, either. And once the US troops are forced out by the Maliki government and Iran, the Sunnis will go right back at it, unless they are accommodated by the Maliki government, which is extremely unlikely.

This should all play out next year during the Iraqi provincial and parliamentary elections – if there ARE any elections. And if there AREN’T any elections, it will probably really play out.
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A Surge of Ethnic Cleansing

23 Responses to “A Surge of Ethnic Cleansing”

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