ABSTRACT discussions about the supposed impact of the ongoing U.S. "surge" in Iraq consume a lot of public attention.

But streets and neighborhoods in many Iraqi cities have been devastated by five years of clashes between U.S. forces, Shiite militias and Sunnis and other resistance groups.

Danfung Dennis, in his article "The Myth of the Surge" in the March 6 Rolling Stone, depicts the grim day-to-day desolation in Iraqi towns such as Dora.

"Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded 'surge,' Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood."

After the United States invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, many Sunnis who backed Hussein joined resistance forces against the new Shiite-dominated government, Dennis writes.

Recently, U.S. forces have tried to counter the resistance by recruiting and arming former Sunni militants to join neighborhood watch groups called "Iraqi Security Volunteers."

But one young Army intelligence officer told Dennis, "The only reason anything works or anybody deals with us is because we give them money."

In places like Dora, the "strategy of the surge seems to be to buy off every Iraqi in sight," Dennis writes, many of whom previously ambushed and killed U.S. soldiers.

"Loyalty that can be purchased is by its very nature fickle," Dennis warns.

But streets and neighborhoods in many Iraqi cities have been devastated by five years of clashes between U.S. forces, Shiite militias and Sunnis and other resistance groups.

Danfung Dennis, in his article "The Myth of the Surge" in the March 6 Rolling Stone, depicts the grim day-to-day desolation in Iraqi towns such as Dora.

"Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded 'surge,' Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood."

After the United States invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, many Sunnis who backed Hussein joined resistance forces against the new Shiite-dominated government, Dennis writes.

Recently, U.S. forces have tried to counter the resistance by recruiting and arming former Sunni militants to join neighborhood watch groups called "Iraqi Security Volunteers."

But one young Army intelligence officer told Dennis, "The only reason anything works or anybody deals with us is because we give them money."

In places like Dora, the "strategy of the surge seems to be to buy off every Iraqi in sight," Dennis writes, many of whom previously ambushed and killed U.S. soldiers.

"Loyalty that can be purchased is by its very nature fickle," Dennis warns.

U.S. occupiers have also created the Iraqi National Police, a paramilitary force whose members frequently disappear, often with American rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.

Raids by American military forces against local residents have also become part of daily life in most of Iraq.

Dennis calls those raids "a systematic form of violence imposed on an entire nation" and "inevitably involve terrorizing innocent Iraqi civilians."

Yet American television, radio and newspaper reports do little to convey any details about the fear and desperation that consumes the lives of so many Iraqis.

Life inside Baghdad's "Green Zone" is safe for most who live there. But beyond its barricades, life is different.

Assassinations and bombings are daily events throughout a nation whose central government is almost nonexistent.

And "with American forces now arming both sides in the civil war, the violence in Iraq has once again started to escalate," Dennis warns.

No matter Americans' reasons or opinions about the start of this war, the nation has a responsibility to the people of Iraq that is going to be with the country for a long time.