NBC's Richard Engel posts an absolutely heartbreaking entry from Syria on The Daily Nightly.

There are now 1.4 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, and they're not allowed to work legally. As a result, a red light district has sprung up outside of Damascus, filled with young Iraqi girls forced into prostitution to support their families.

The 14-year-old also has a mobile phone stuffed into her bra.  She pulls it out when men, mostly from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, call her over to their tables to exchange 'missed calls.'  The men call the next day and negotiate a price and a meeting place.

Some of the girls we saw also looked very young, perhaps under six years old.  The club owner told us they were younger sisters or cousins who had come to the club because they couldn't find babysitters.  But the little girls were dressed in tight costumes and gyrated in unbalanced pirouettes.  They were apprentices and once on stage, everything has a price. (Link)

With all the talk of the troop surge and whether or not it's working, it's important to remember the millions of lives affected by the Iraq war. There's now a generation growing up in the middle east whose opinion of the U.S. is being shaped not just by what's happening in Baghdad, but what's happening across the region as a direct result of the war. Engel quotes a U.N. official who says the refugee crisis is a "time bomb" waiting to explode.

When that bomb explodes, it's a safe bet that local groups like Mercy Corps and Medical Teams International will be in the thick of what follows.

---