The untold little secret

When Fred Kagan and the surge-monkeys proclaim sectarian violence has decreased they never consider this:

The fighting here is daunting, with the eyes of the militia seemingly everywhere. The violence that U.S. troops monitor -- shootings, bombings, mortar and rocket fire -- has risen and fallen in their four months in the district, without obvious trends. Roadside bombs encountered rose from 25 in March to 51 in April, then fell to 49 in May and 32 in June. Gunfire attacks numbered 84 in March, 152 in April, 113 in May and 132 in June. Sectarian killings dropped to their lowest level of the past four months in June. But the downturn in violence in Shiite-dominated areas was not necessarily encouraging, Wink said.

"Now that the Sunnis are all gone, murders have dropped off," he said. "One way to put it is they ran out of people to kill."