posted
Perspective offered from the 'barrel end' of the guns. We must look at both perspectives to find the truth. I see allot of articles posted today on how well it's going... but they are all from the 'trigger end' perspective. We should discuss both.
I also learned something here...I used to believe that propensity for civil War in Iraq was due to age old dispute.. however I have learned fron this Iraqi novelist and former prisoner of the Bathist regime that this is may well not be the case.. she believes (as many Iraqis do she states) the US occupation has incited civil War and encouraged it. Creating an us against them sinario.
(divide and conquer? it works here at home)
However -- this interview addreses rebuilding, the state of things there and more... I hope folks will read an Iraqi perspective before making judgements..
Mo
Iraqi Novelist Haifa Zangana: U.S. Troops Must Withdraw Now Thursday, March 9th, 2006
Zangana, a former prisoner under the Baathist regime in Iraq, speaks out against the occupation and increasing violence in Iraq. She also warns that hundreds of Iraqi academics have been assassinated since the war began.
We turn now to the war in Iraq. The latest bloodshed comes amid a spike of killings following the bombing of one of the holiest sites to Shiite Muslims. As many as 1,300 Iraqis were killed the week following the February 22nd bombing of the gold dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra. It marked one of the bloodiest periods since the U.S. invaded the country nearly three years ago.
Today we are going to look at the targeting of one group that has received little attention -- hundreds of Iraqi academics and scientists have been assassinated since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The exact figure of deaths is unknown; estimates range from about 300 to more than 1,000. Iraqi novelist Haifa Zangana wrote in the Guardian last month that Baghdad universities alone have lost 80 members of their staffs. These figures do not include those who have survived assassination attempts.
Zangana writes there is a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out against the occupation.
Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi-born novelist and artist, and former prisoner of the Baathist regime.
AMY GOODMAN: Haifa Zangana writes there is a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out against the occupation. She joins us here in London. She was a prisoner under the Baath regime. She left Iraq in the 1970s and eventually came here and lives in Britain. We welcome you to Democracy Now!
HAIFA ZANGANA: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, why don't we start off by talking about this group of people that get very little attention?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Well, it started immediately after the occupation, and the main target used to be, then, scientists. And we believe that there was a list of scientists being handed over by the Baath regime under Saddam to the United Nations during the inspection period in Iraq, but we haven't got really to the point of comparing the names of the killed scientists immediately after the occupation with that list. But we are working on it.
The main problem is, of course, it's moved on to include academics and academics from wide-spectrum backgrounds, political backgrounds, and also various subjects, whether they are teaching English literature, Arabic poetry or Islamic studies. So it's covering all and didn't spare even women. We have four of our top law academics and other teaching other subjects being killed. And it is a systematic way. It's unlike the rest of the killing and kidnapping. Usually you'll be kidnapped in Iraq. There will be negotiations about your release. You pay the ransom, you'll be released or not released. So there is this whole process of it.
In case of academics, it is systematic in the way you are shot or assassinated in the streets, mostly, while you're leaving your university or going ahead to your house. And the shot is in the head, so there's no chance of survival. And we -- obviously, no one, none of those killings being investigated, whether by the interim government or the occupation forces. Also, I mean, the tragedy of the whole thing, in Iraq you cannot, because all occupation forces, plus diplomats, plus contractors, subcontractor, everybody involved with the occupation enjoy immunity, and we cannot prosecute them under Iraqi law or international law of that.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any idea who is doing it?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Well, I mean, if we go back to the beginning of the shooting, assassination of the scientists, the men that pointed -- Iraqis, if you ask any Iraqi, they will say, ``Well, the Mossad were involved,'' because those are scientists, and Israel at one point in the 1980s, they targeted the nuclear plant in Iraq, so it's connected within that. But the rest of the academics -- but we, I mean, we don't know exactly, because no investigation whatsoever.
People talk about it. People can really speculate about the killing or who's -- but mainly, the main issue is: why are they targeted? We feel this is a kind of intimidating. What connect all of them, the main factor is they are people who spoke against occupation.
They are outspoken against occupation. A few cases we know about, they were speaking on television, satellite Arab TV, condemning the occupation and also the interim government. So that could indicate, with the chaos taking place in Iraq at the moment, that could implicate Badr Brigade, for example, occupational forces themselves directly, if they don't like what they've been said, or anybody else.
The main issue is, we need an independent inquiry, independent questioning of what's happening and whose responsibility is this in the end. This is a brain drain. This is going to affect future generations in Iraq, because we are losing our academics.
Also, by this campaign of terror, we are sending people outside the country. They are escaping. Academics, teachers, consultants, they are escaping the country, leaving it. In fact, at the medical school in Baghdad University, and this is the oldest medical school in the whole Middle East, at the moment we have only two professors teaching, and they are based in Jordan. So they go back for exams time and they leave Baghdad, because of the lack of security. So what kind of level of qualifications are our doctors going to have under these circumstances?
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Haifa Zangana, born in Iraq, imprisoned in Iraq under the Baath regime, escaped, came to Britain, and is a fierce critic of the occupation and invasion of Iraq. You write regularly for the Guardian here in Britain; also Al-Quds Al-Arabi, you have a weekly column. What about the situation now? Are you seeing a civil war or something near to it?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Well, it is, yes. We were really refusing to admit this for a long time. We thinking that Iraqi people are solid enough not to be dragged into this mayhem of killing, but it is happening. It is happening, not on the level of our neighbors killing neighbors, no, but it seems also it's kind of organized civil war. It's imposed civil war.
It's almost similar to the timetable imposed by the occupation, the political process that there should be the writing of constitution at this time, there should be an election at that time, regardless of the priority of Iraqi people, because what is ignored from the beginning, from day one of the occupation or what's called liberation, Iraqi people and their priorities. So what's happening now, we're almost living into imposed with a timetable of civil war.
They've been banging from day one, like asking you, ``What are you? A Sunni or a Shia?'' I would not dream nowadays of even giving an interview on the BBC without being asked whether I'm a Sunni and a Shia. That's never happened before occupation.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, there's a sense, especially in the United States, maybe here as well and all over, there's this discussion of sectarian violence, which gives us the sense of something that's gone on for centuries. It's sort of hopeless.
HAIFA ZANGANA: Well, in Iraq we never had any civil war, not in the last 1,500 years. So this is a totally novel idea.
AMY GOODMAN: When you were growing up, did you know who was Sunni and who was Shia?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Not at all. I mean, one day I was arguing with a close friend, who I had been brought up with, and we were discussing -- he was defending the coalition now. And I said, ``Why? Why are you doing this? What are you?'' And apparently, he is a Christian. I didn't even know that. This is someone, a close friend for 30 years. We do not really discuss these things. It's not because we ignore it, no, but because we live together for such long time. The culture is one for the whole country.
And if you see, I mean, some of the prominent people who are against the occupation are either Christians, Assyrians, and some of the prominent people who supported the Saddam Hussein regime were either Christians, Assyrians or Kurds or all -- if we want, one has to say something about the previous regime. We have to admit that previous regime altogether persecuted Iraqi people equally, at various stages, regardless of this -- what kind of background or sect or religion or whatever. We never had that before.
But now, it is almost established as a daily fact. And, of course, the media is playing a very important role in that, in establishing it. They don't look -- I read the headline that Turkmani woman was killed by Sunnis. And you read into it, and you realize, well, this particular Turkmani woman, in fact, not being assassinated or shot because she was Turkmani; on the contrary, because she is working as interpreter for the American forces.
So, this is a totally different story. And if you deal with it in this prospect, from this angle, it will be totally different than sectarian, but people choose now this manufactured labeling of Iraqis, and we are going through it.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the answer right now?
HAIFA ZANGANA: The answer is, as from the beginning, we should not have war. Also, now we have the war, we have the occupation, and we are asked to move on. Let's move on. Withdraw the troops. It is bad for the Americans. They are in a mess. It's bad for the American troops [inaudible] British.
AMY GOODMAN: The whole discussion in the United States right now is if the U.S. troops pull out, the U.S. and some British troops, that there will be full-scale civil war, that the troops are preventing that war.
****HAIFA ZANGANA: Yeah, but that's -- I mean, we heard that from the beginning. They were threatening us with a civil war day after day after day. And the things are getting worse by the day. If we see just a slight improvement, they are welcome to stay.
If we can only see an extension of, instead of one hour electricity per day, let's have three hours of electricity per day. They are welcome to stay. If we start drinking clean water rather than filthy water mixed with sewage, they are welcome to stay.
If they are building our libraries, which have been burned and looted under their supervision, if they are building our museums, if they are helping to protect our archaeological sites -- we have 10,000 archeological sites in Iraq, none of them is protected; it's been looted completely, they're digging them and moving them outside the country -- if we see some troops, American or British, helping us, doing this, they are welcome to stay. They are our guests. But they are doing the opposite. They are really creating atmosphere of terror. The killing is continuing. They are a problem in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Haifa Zangana, what about the women in Iraq?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Women are abused. Women are really imprisoned in their houses, more or less, because it's not safe for them to go outside. Women used to work, doctors. Doctors are leaving now. In general, we have the general problems, which is the whole thing, regarding all Iraqis, and also because of their gender, they are targeted more than anybody else.
AMY GOODMAN: How does the situation compare to under the Saddam Hussein regime?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Well, let me just say one thing. I never thought I would live to hear some Iraqis regretting getting rid of Saddam Hussein. We are going through this. I've never thought I'll live that day, because we struggled, we fought against Saddam's regime, continuously, all Iraqis did that.
AMY GOODMAN: You, yourself, were imprisoned under the Baath regime.
HAIFA ZANGANA: Yes, but I don't regret it, because I'm not living continuously there, but some people are that. See how we're being reduced --
AMY GOODMAN: You don't regret that?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Not at all. Not at all. But that wasn't the way.
You see, there were alternatives. There were other options. None of the -- either the British government or the U.S. administration looked into alternatives, looked into what Iraqi people really wanted. They confused the issue according to what they wanted. They confused the issue of getting rid of Saddam Hussein with occupation. Iraqis would not, would not accept occupation. If they have even -- if they only had the chance of looking at one page of Iraqi history, they would have realized that.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of Saddam Hussein's trial that's going on now?
HAIFA ZANGANA: It's a farce. It's a complete farce. I think it's a mockery of Iraqi's suffering and pains.
AMY GOODMAN: How?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Because a trial should be a real legal trial, so you can see justice done. You don't make it into a farce, a laughable thing. Iraqis, they don't even watch it any more. They lost interest. They think, ``What's going on? This is not really what justice should be done.'' It should be a chance for people to look at their past, to understand their present, in order to make better future for us, not to repeat the cycle, the vicious cycle of torture, of imprisonment.
It's not happening, because they have doubts about it now. This is orchestrated by the Americans. Some people even think, ``Well, he's a hero,'' they're standing, saying something good against the Americans. So the whole thing has been turned upside-down, a mockery of justice we are witnessing there.
AMY GOODMAN: Haifa Zangana, as we flew into London, there were protests and vigils. It was the 100th day that the four Christian Peacemaker Team members had been held, kidnapped in Iraq. Norman Kember is a British citizen. He's one of the four. And so, all the news one day was about him, with his friends speaking out. You've also written about them.
HAIFA ZANGANA: Yes. I think they were doing fantastic job there inside Iraq, and they were a group of people who, almost the last group of people staying there and working with the Iraqi people.
In fact, the day they were kidnapped, they were collecting information regarding Iraqi detainees, and they were working on that list with some of the -- a woman organization called Iraqi Women Will, regarding Iraqi women detainees. They were working together on that. And immediately after they left her office, that organization's office, they were kidnapped.
So, why is that? I mean, I leave it to you to think why they're being kidnapped. Are they really the kidnappers? Who are the kidnappers?
Why the Iraqi interim government or the occupation forces doing something about them? No one knows. How come when the sister of the Ministry of the Interior was kidnapped, it took them a few days? Everybody knew about Baghdad.
Baghdad, the whole city came to a standstill of looking for that lady, and she was released. And it's good for her; she shouldn't be kidnapped in the first place. But they knew how to deal with the problem. Why are they not dealing with this problem?
AMY GOODMAN: And Jill Carroll, the American freelance journalist?
HAIFA ZANGANA: She -- I don't know. I don't know who is doing this and why, because we need journalists.
We need independent journalists in Iraq. Everything going on, inside, the crimes, the killing, the slaughtering, going unreported at the moment. We are relying on the whole story coming out from here and there, and when Iraqis themselves talk about it or write about it, nobody believes them. They say, ``Well, bring us figures and facts, and this and that.''
We talked about Abu Ghraib prison one year, one year before it's being declared this is the story that's worth publishing in the western media. We were talking about torture, about people in prison. I wrote about it seven months before that.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the wife of the Prime Minister, an attorney herself, Cherie Booth, speaking out against torture this past week?
HAIFA ZANGANA: Well, that's good. Anyone can speak about torture, but are they doing anything about it? We have a saying: talking is cheap. It's free, actually. So you can talk forever.
But what she is doing -- what is, in fact, Tony Blair's human rights [inaudible] for Iraq and [inaudible] is doing about torture in Iraq? Has she ever said anything about the use of phosphorus in Fallujah, the white phosphorus in Fallujah, about the MK-77, which is a new generation of napalm in Iraq, about the depleted uranium? Do you need -- why is it selective? Why human rights becoming a selective issue?
AMY GOODMAN: Haifa Zangana, you brought in a poem you wanted to end with.
HAIFA ZANGANA: Yes, this is a poem by a woman poet. Her name is Nedhal Abbas, and she's a mother of two.
She wrote the poem immediately after the siege of Samarra. And Samarra, as we know recently, the al-Askari mosque in it, but last year there was the siege, where people were shot in the street by U.S. snipers, and during the siege, bodies were left in the streets and scattered.
And, you know, in Islam, we have to bury our dead immediately, the same day or the day after. So people were - couldn't even reach them, for the fear of their lives, being shot by the snipers. She is calling the city by its old name. It's called ``Sarre men ra'a,'' and it means ``a delight to the seer,'' and she's talking about it. ``Sarre men ra'a.''
On a Friday morning in Sarre men ra'a, a young man lays in pieces, torn apart by snipers' fire. A woman in a black abaya passes by, holding her toddler by the hand. The child stares at the remains. At the hand open to the sky, he reaches for a touch, wondering, could it be his father's?
Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Haifa Zangana, thank you for joining us, novelist, artist, journalist, Iraqi, imprisoned there under the Baathist regime, fierce critic of the U.S. occupation and the invasion, and living now in Britain.
-------------------- life shrinks and expands in proportion to one's courage -- anais nin Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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I can't comment right now, as I feel even sicker to my stomach, after reading this.
It's a good transcript. Thanks for posting it.
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LabRat
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If mo put it up, it must be true!
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Softballmom
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This is just a question and I am sure I will probably regret this but here goes.
This women graduated from college in 1974. She moved to London in 1976 and has been living there for the past thirty years.
How is her perspective on what is happening today any different from anyone else?
Let me word that differently. I presumed this was an Iraqi citizen who lived and breathed there. Knowing that she has lived almost all of her adult life in London makes me view her statements as an outsider looking in.
Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi born writer - former opposition member in Saddam Hussein's days - former prisoner if the Bathist regime which is why she left, she is living in exile and as she states does not live in Iraq full time now.
I suppose that's wise since writers and academics who spreak out against the War, doctors and other academics as well..she states..are leaving Iraq becuase their lives are threatened as citizens. To my mind.. an average Iraqi in the throes of War, who has no resources - is going to have an tough time leaving Iraq to write articles ...or to be interviewed.. there are only a few journalists in the World who are interviewing them.
Haifa is one of them. She has written scores of articles and books.
I am not understanding your point or the idea that she is an outsider looking in. She is very much ingrained in Iraq, and offering perspective of what the people are experiencing. She is giving perspective as an Iraqi herself. I'm not following.
Ie: regarding re-building:
Yeah, but that's -- I mean, we heard that from the beginning. They were threatening us with a civil war day after day after day. And the things are getting worse by the day. If we see just a slight improvement, they are welcome to stay.
If we can only see an extension of, instead of one hour electricity per day, let's have three hours of electricity per day. They are welcome to stay. If we start drinking clean water rather than filthy water mixed with sewage, they are welcome to stay.
If they are building our libraries, which have been burned and looted under their supervision, if they are building our museums, if they are helping to protect our archaeological sites -- we have 10,000 archeological sites in Iraq, none of them is protected; it's been looted completely, they're digging them and moving them outside the country -- if we see some troops, American or British, helping us, doing this, they are welcome to stay. They are our guests. But they are doing the opposite. They are really creating atmosphere of terror. The killing is continuing. They are a problem in Iraq.
Anywho... did you read the article? What do you think? I'm interested in a discussion is all.
Mo
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Softballmom
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She was put in prison in 1970. However she Gaduated from the School of Pharmacy in Bagdad in 1974 and then worked for two years between Lebanon and Seria with a Pharmacuitacle company. Yhen moved to London in 1976.
So I am not quite sure that everything I am reading is true to for.
The way this Lady worded this looks misleading as to what I have read.
She joins us here in London. She was a prisoner under the Baath regime. She left Iraq in the 1970s and eventually came here and lives in Britain.
She Joins us here in London? She has lived there for 30 Years.
Was she in prison because she was a writer because she was a writer? She was going to the School Of Pharmacy. And pursed a career in Pharmacuticles upon Graduation.
Was she exiled? She managed to finish College after her release.
Sorry its hard for me to believe everything in the article because I felt misled about the person in the beginning.
And don't forget she is trying to sell a book.
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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I can't help but wonder - if you were as interested in the content or Iraq as you are in discrediting Haifa, we would actually get a discussion going.
Amy said "she joins us.." becuase she welcomed her to the interview. She is a novelist. Novelists write books.
She is ingrained in what is happening in Iraq, her family is there as well.
Here's more about her in another interview if you are interested:
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Haifa Zangana, writer and humanist, grew up between the Baghdad of her mother and the Kurdistan of her father: a seamless mix of identity between the overwhelmingly male society of Baghdad, and the cool mountains of Kurdistan, where women never covered their faces and could inherit property.
'Kurds were major actors in overthrowing the monarchy in 1958; it was only when the Kassem junta took power that the attack on the Kurds began -- they were accused of being collaborators with the Israelis.'
Haifa was imprisoned by the Ba'ath regime in the early 19705. She escaped execution, released because the Ba'athists needed the help of the Left to consolidate their supremacy.
'When I came out of prison I stayed in Iraq to finish my studies. They used to call me to Security Forces HQ. I sat on a chair all day, watching other people arrested, humiliated. You never knew if you would be detained or released. They controlled you by fear. Then I went to Syria and worked for the PLO there before coming to Britain in 1976.
Haifa explains she is against war in Iraq, since the Iraqis have suffered enough -- from Saddam, war with Iran, the Gulf War, sanctions and continued bombing by US and British aircraft. 'I was imprisoned, my three brothers were conscripted to fight against their will in the first Gulf War.'
What have you written about?
'I write about exile, an autobiographical novel, short stories; a book in homage to Halabja, where Saddam gassed thousands of Kurds.'
Clearly, Haifa does not fit into the ideological mould.
'My instinct is to sit in a corner and observe the world. But I can't be silent. I see these young Iraqis trained by the CIA to speak like automata at meetings. They spit out statistics and soundbites: They say it is more urgent to get rid of Saddam than to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are completely without feeling. Anger makes me speak.'
'The Ba'ath regime took away our voice. The Kurds had a role in Iraq. Students in Baghdad learned Kurdish as a second language. The union of writers flourished.
When they were attacked, they retreated to the mountains, from where revolt has continued ever since. Gradually Kurdish voices were silenced, discussion was reduced, until only the voice of Saddam was heard. He hijacked the multiple voices of the people, claiming he can see further than they can, that he has a vision that goes beyond this world into history.'
'I always feel for the poor and oppressed. That hasn't changed. I was punished for this; and you go on being punished for it. It is as though I never came out of prison.'
Haifa Zangana's book is Through the vast halls of memory, Hourglass, 1991. She is working with Maysoon Pachachi and Dr Nadje Al-Ali on Behind the Numbers -- Beyond Sanctions: Women's Voices on Iraq.
************************************************
I'd like to talk about the electricity and energy, water conditions.
One article you posted today stated things were 'better'.. but what is better?
She is not the only one reporting that they have about 3 hrs a day electricity if they are lucky..
wait two days for a tank of gas..
and that the water is filthy.
There is new article out today from the San Francisco Gate that states the electricity/energy is at an all time low.
We have to begin looking at things as a group -- not this us against them thing within our own country.
Can you really see no merit in this writer? What would she have to gain? Book profits? Her life's doesn't reflect that assumption.
What do American media outlets owned by coorperations connected to our government have to gain by stating everything looks better?
Look, I'm not saying to take anything as word, but not to arbitrarily dismiss it because you don't like what it says... either.
And to look from many different angles.
Mo
-------------------- life shrinks and expands in proportion to one's courage -- anais nin Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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Softballmom
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This proffesor does not points the finger at dangers due to speaking out against the occupation. He believes that the overthow of Saddam benifited the Unnivercities. Yes they are getting threatening letters but what if it is the left behind constituates of the Baathist Regimin. He feels that the sucsess of the Unnivercity Lies soley on the efforts of the US forces.
This guy is living in Iraq. This guy was most definately exiled by what he has said. Being a Proffesor of Physics, why does he not have a chilling story to tell?
Iraq's students say, 'Welcome back, professor' By Christina Asquith
BAGHDAD - After a decade of sanctions had left his physics lab a crumbling shell, Raad Mohammed decided it was time to go. In 1999, following a route trodden by thousands of the best and brightest of Iraq's academics, Dr. Mohammed escaped to Jordan without a goodbye to his lifelong colleagues. He was accompanied only by his wife, their suitcases, and handfuls of cash to bribe Mukhabarat agents at the border.
He was not alone. An estimated 2,000 professors fled Iraq's 20 major universities between 1995 and 2000, according to news reports at the time. Professors say a thousand or more had left before them -- usually the most qualified.
But now, with Saddam Hussein's ouster, Mohammed is back. He has returned to his homeland out of loyalty to his country, pride, and a deep desire to restore his university system to the halcyon days of the 1960s and '70s, when it was the intellectual Mecca of the Middle East.
"We are free," says Mohammed, sitting in the Department of Science at Baghdad University, where he is an assistant physics professor. "I am a son of this university. I aspire to see its excellent future and to build the sciences back to the level from which I graduated."
In a surprising turn of events for Iraq's beleaguered universities, professors are seeing signs that the "brain drain" of the 1980s and 1990s is slowly being reversed.
In recent months, university presidents report that dozens of professors have returned from exile and are looking to get their jobs back. At the US-led Ministry of Higher Education, staffed by expatriate professors, hundreds more have e-mailed from England, the US, and the Netherlands to inquire about returning. They also want to offer donations and scholarships, and to start partnerships.
Just as lost professors were symptomatic of universities' slump under Saddam Hussein, their reemergence offers a thread of promise for the future, particularly to colleagues struggling to piece back campuses suffering from academic repression, sanctions, looting, and now terrorism.
"When [Mohammed] left, he left a wide gap behind him," says physics professor Hussein Ahasal, who stayed behind. "I missed him very much when he left because he was not only a colleague, but also a very close friend."
Iraqi chemistry professor Ghazi Derwish was living well in London; semiretired and working as a visiting professor at the University of Surrey. He'd fled Baath Party persecution 11 years earlier, and held little hope of ever returning.
The war changed all that. He was already arranging flight back when he was tracked down by the American senior adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Higher Education, who was in great need of educated, English-speaking Iraqis with no ties to the former regime.
Mr. Derwish now makes up the largest handful of expatriate professors: He's working for the US civilian government Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), tasked with, among many other things, undoing years of Baath Party policy.
While many former Iraqi professors have returned from Yemen, Jordan, and Libya to their former teaching posts, others are reaching out from abroad. Several Iraqi professors in London are organizing donations and conferences.
In the US, an Iraqi professor, Dr. Abdul Jabbar al-Wahedi, created a website, www.iraqihighereducation.com, to link Iraqi scientists abroad with Iraqi universities, foundations, and ministries. So far, he's had responses from more than 120 Iraqis in 32 different countries.
One Iraqi expat professor brought 100 computers to Iraq universities over the summer; dozens of others are arranging to come to Iraq as visiting lecturers. Through e-mail, expat professors are consulting Iraqi professors on everything from reviewing graduate student theses to research evaluation. A website discussion has also started to encourage the Iraqi government to bring expats back.
"[Expats] call and say, 'We want to help in the rebuilding,'" says Dr. Joseph Ghougassian, deputy adviser to the US-led Ministry of Higher Education. "They feel an emotional pull. They really want to come back and bring their own skills and American way of thinking."
Waves of departure
Iraq's brain drain coincided with the rise of the Baath Party, with the first wave leaving immediately after the 1963 Baath Party coup d'�tat. Another wave left in the early 1970s as Hussein brutally muscled his way into power.
It was the Iran-Iraq War, however, that opened the floodgates. As the Baath Party recruitment began in earnest, the universities' goals shifted from centers of research and edification to promotion of Baath Party interest and Hussein's personal preferences.
Like most professors, Derwish never dreamed of leaving Iraq.
Derwish received his PhD in England in the 1960s, like many others among Iraq's burgeoning intellectual elite. He was so eager to return to Iraq that he went ahead of his wife and children, who were still tying up travel plans.
Trouble started for Derwish in the early 1980s. He was one of the 50 top professors forced to transfer out of the university by "presidential order" to a government ministry position as an adviser on the Iran-Iraq War.
"I resented greatly the way we were transferred," says Derwish. "I'm an independent-minded person who's worked hard to cultivate my faculties, and I was not prepared to be submissive to anyone's orders."
The academic environment deteriorated. Even as existing universities wilted, Hussein continued to build new ones. As one part of an education policy that befuddled many, Hussein ordered the construction of seven universities starting in 1988, including Kirkuk University, which he opened in January 2003 -- three months before the war. As more buildings went up, less money went into them.
As a result of the war and UN sanctions, lab supplies dwindled, broken equipment could not be replaced, and printing presses ceased operation. Entire classrooms of science students would gather around one piece of equipment.
As salaries decreased throughout the 1990s, corruption entered university life. Professors blackmailed students, who in turn bribed professors.
For select professors and administrators who supported the Baath Party, salaries rose. But the majority of professors had to take second jobs as tutors or start small businesses.
Baghdad University design professor Al Atif Suhairy said his monthly salary fell from $2,000 in the 1980s to $50 in the 1990s. Mr. Suhairy, who has four children, eventually left to be a professor in Yemen.
"We received the same salary as the merchant on the street who sells melons," says Suhairy, who is now back in his teaching post at Baghdad University. "I had no money even for the wedding of my son, who was a doctor. This was the case for us all."
Like many, Derwish refused to join the Baath Party, and suffered for it.
In the mid-1980s, Derwish's daughter lost her scholarship because she wouldn't join the Baath Party. Mukhabarat agents and Baath Party officers began visiting Derwish at his home at night, just to "check up on him." Once they asked him for passport photos -- he didn't know why.
In the early 1990s, professors were still allowed to take their summers abroad. Derwish went off to Jordan. He did not return.
Here today, gone the next
For those left behind, academic life became unbearable.
Throughout the 1990s, as more professors fled, Hussein cracked down. He prohibited foreign travel and refused to issue certificates of graduation, documents needed to apply for jobs abroad. Still, many professors escaped by bribing people in the passport office.
Their disappearance always rattled the departments.
Dr. Abdul Mahdi Talib Rahmatallah, dean of the College of Science at Baghdad University, remembers well the feeling of losing his colleagues. A student would report yet another ghost lab -- students sitting at desks with no professor. Weeks might pass, until someone drove to the professor's home and discovered it empty. Rumors would start to spread about whether those missing had been detained by the Baath Party, or had escaped.
Eventually, a letter with no return address would arrive, typically with news that the professor was teaching in Jordan or England. They would sometimes offer to send computers, journals, and even money. Word spread quickly. "We would all want to know: What new way did they invent to escape?" recalls Dr. Talib Rahmatallah.
The departures were a permanent loss for the universities. New professors graduating in the 1980s and 1990s were often unqualified. They were dubbed "homemade PhDs," meaning they had no international experience and had been trained in the bereft conditions of Iraqi universities. Many PhD candidates were Hussein's relatives from the villages of Tikrit and Baath Party loyalists. They rarely showed up except on exam day. They damaged the culture of education that Iraq had been so proud of, and terrorized professors.
"Some students would put guns on their desk to take the test," says Dr. Hafudh Alwan, assistant dean of the political science department at Baghdad University.
"Once, one was cheating and when I told him to stop, he said, 'Leave me alone or I will take this pen and draw on your face.'" He paused, overcome by emotion at the memory.
"It made us so upset, we would cry. We are PhD professors, and our students humiliate us. We could do nothing," says Dr. Alwan.
Dr. Kasim Mohammed, assistant dean of higher education and scientific affairs at Baghdad University, was one of those who stayed behind and concedes he felt both sympathy and bitterness when a colleague left. He has mixed emotions regarding their return.
"If they left because they were oppressed, we welcome them back again. But those who left for more money left us adrift in the middle of a sea," says Dr. Mohammed. "It is difficult to welcome them back."
Just visiting or staying for good?
Derwish, who has been back in Iraq for two months, is approaching another major decision: Is this a visit, or a permanent return? This question forces him to struggle between safety and patriotism, his new life abroad and the home he left behind.
"Should I stay or should I go?" he asks himself as he gets up to leave Baghdad University's department of science. "I haven't decided yet."
Returning has not been as easy as some had expected. The thrill of living in Iraq free of Hussein has been countered by the looting, lapses in security, and a rise in terrorism.
Professors who left because of inferior lab equipment and outdated journals now find themselves struggling to teach in classrooms that, because of the looting, are without light fixtures, desks, or doors.
Salaries have not risen, and in most cases are much less than a professor could earn abroad. Security also weighs heavily on professors' minds. Many say they have received threatening letters, and the president of Basra University walks on campus with an armed guard. Whether the return continues depends a great deal on how successful US efforts overall are in Iraq.
"I say to them, 'Please come back, but I warn you that your salary will be very low and you'll have to live exactly as we live, without mobiles or push-button facilities like they have in Europe,'" says Dr. Musa Jawad Aziz Al Musawy, president of Baghdad University.
"I have to give them the reality. In the end, they will come back because this is their country." _______________________________________________ This is writen by american reporters so certainly we should not believe it. Although they are talking to someone living there and dealing with it first hand.
It is also stated theat academics of different political views are targeted not just the nay sayers of the occupation.
Approximately 300 academics have been killed
By Charles Crain, special for USA TODAY BAGHDAD -- Isam al-Rawi, who marks down the dead in a datebook, can read back the details: a scientist killed on Dec. 21; the assistant dean of Baghdad's medical college killed on Christmas Day; a professor in Mosul killed on Dec. 26.
Al-Rawi, a geologist at Baghdad University and head of the Association of University Lecturers, says about 300 academics and university administrators have been assassinated in a mysterious wave of murders since the American occupation of Iraq began in 2003. About 2,000 others, he says, have fled the country in fear for their lives.
American and Iraqi officials say elections Jan. 30 will be one step toward ending the insurgency raging here. But scientists and academics have been under siege for more than a year and a half, and they fear the threat against them will continue. Doctors, scientists and academics -- the educated elite who would be the foundation of a healthy economy and democratic society -- continue to leave Iraq.
The attacks have caught the attention of the U.S. military and Iraqi security forces, but professors and university administrators say little progress has been made toward halting assassinations.
At the Ministry of Education, Abdul Rahman Hamid al-Husseini documents cases of murdered and intimidated academics. His numbers are far lower than al-Rawi's: 20 professors killed, more than 100 forced to flee. The precise number is impossible to pin down; al-Husseini's list omits victims confirmed dead by al-Rawi; al-Rawi includes people who do not work in academic fields, such as Ph.D.s working in government ministries.
Al-Husseini has met with American and Iraqi officials to discuss the problem and search for ways to end the campaign against academics. But with Iraqi security forces themselves the target of a bloody insurgency, law enforcement authorities have been at a loss to explain the assassinations of Iraqi academics. "We don't have a specific answer," al-Husseini says. "We don't know who's behind it."
The police "cannot protect themselves, so how can they protect us?" asks Khalid Joudi, the president of Baghdad's Al-Nahrain University. Promises that elections will bring relief ring hollow; Joudi remembers the hope he and his colleagues placed in the Iraqi interim government appointed in the spring.
"We were hoping with this government that things would improve, and they've gotten much worse," Joudi says.
Joudi says Iraq is already suffering an exodus of engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians.
In a country with distinct political, ethnic and religious fault lines, the university killings seem to follow no pattern. The dead have been Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Arabs, and supporters of various political parties. "They have a common thing: they are Iraqis," al-Rawi says.
Joudi says the motives for the attacks are varied -- from score settling to terrorist attacks designed to weaken civil society. "Some of it may be personal," he says. "Just personal envy and hatred."
Extortion is another motive, al-Husseini says. Criminal gangs have kidnapped academics and other wealthy Iraqis for ransom and have threatened others. But, he says, some of the killings are designed to weaken Iraq by forcing its scientists and academics out of the country.
"There is a kind of campaign to make physicians leave the country," al-Husseini says, rattling off a list of medical specialties that are now understaffed in Iraq.
"We think it's politically motivated," al-Husseini says of the murder campaign. "Just to create a frustrating and disappointing situation among Iraqi college teachers and university lecturers."
The loss of some of Iraq's best minds has had an impact far out of proportion to the number actually killed or sent into exile, al-Husseini says, by depriving the country of its sharpest thinkers.
"Not because of the number of lecturers (killed)," al-Husseini says, "but because of their quality."
The persistence of the attacks has been a roadblock to the emergence of an open atmosphere on Iraqi campuses. Armed guards search visitors at Baghdad University's entrance. Professors and administrators must choose whether to work and travel with additional protection. Al-Rawi has chosen to forego such precautions, despite the risks.
"I deal with other human beings in a very normal way," al-Rawi says. "I can't deal with them normally if I'm carrying a pistol, or if I have guards behind me."
But Joudi, who has received death threats against himself and his staff, travels to and from his office with armed bodyguards.
Iraqi intellectuals see few signs the insurgency will end with elections scheduled for Jan. 30.
"The same forces will still be operating in Iraq, I think, after the elections," Joudi says.
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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LabRat
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Hey, you don't have to convince me mo, I'm with you. If you say things are worse, then they must be worse, I mean, what would you have to gain by saying things were worse than they are? Granted you've not been there but that really isn't necessary with all the web sites available to provide you with up to the minute ``bad'' news.
I noticed Link TV, that puts on those good anti American programs like democracy now, relies on donation to keep going. You'd think sponsors would be lining up to buy time as popular as you imply that station is. You do endorse Link TV right?
Posts: 1887 | From Corpus Christi, Texas | Registered: Oct 2000
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Lots of documentaries and Mosaic (News from the Middle East) as well as my fav - Democracy Now!
The thing I like about that show is they do about 10-15 minutes of headlines... some we hear in mainstream, some we do NOT hear here --
Then they spend the last 45 minutes usually interviewing people in depth -- like the interview above.
The interviews give allot of time to the speaker, in fact....Goodman only asks short questions and lets them talk the whole time.
No conjecture...no rhetoric.. no injecting her own opinion or spin at all.. no yelling debates where the newscaster talks over and controlls what is said.. no turning up the studio music real loud to go to break when someone says something she doesn't like.........
And they show the side of some stories that no network does here.
Our media in the past few years has become essentially merely an echo-chamber of the White House.
I watch Fox too. I have Bill on right now... for real.. you know, for balance.
Hey Laberoneous -- if I can watch Bill, certainly you can watch Amy.
SBM --
I am interested in this topic. I was astounded to find out about all this.. like the USA Today article states.. hundreds of academics have been killed.
(that article was printed in '05) .. and it says within the article and some of the quotes that basically, they don't know WHO is behind it.
It's really disturbing, tho... because the result is the country is litertally gutted of so many great citizens and contributors to society. Like she Haifa said -- a 'brain drain' on the country.
The rest have fled or are fleeing.. what does that leave for Iraqis as far as education and healthcare and rebuilding??
That brings me back to your first article..
Just for perspective here... we have had a good look at who Haija is and where she came from..
I have to state (it's important to know) that this article is from three years ago, and by a collumnist for the Christian Science Monitor. (2003)
The most important thing is the date, tho. Because hundreds of Iraqi academics and scientists have been assassinated since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The assassinations had probably not begun when the article was written.
Then I got to thinking what happened to this Doc, and the others that went back with such hope in '03 ??
I mean, even tho this collumnist only grabs snippets of quotes from him and others.. (the rest is her writing)
but you really do get an idea of how Iraqis felt back then and how heartfelt their hopes were.
Amazing lives, really.
So, I got to thinking what is this Doctor doing now?
Turns out, I Google his name and I am shocked to find he he may have been assassinated:
Prof. Dr. Mohammed A.F. al-Rawi F.R.C.S. in Medicine; President of Baghdad University; member of the Arab Board of Medicine; member of Iraqi Board of Medicine; Chairman of the Iraqi Union of Physicians.
Here is an international plea to help with the situation, with a database of names of all doctors and academics assassinated on Iraq from '03 thro December '05
I can't be sure this is the same guy, but there are ALLOT on the list from University of Baghdad..where all of those interviewed in that article worked.
This is a horrible, horrible situation.
Mo
-------------------- life shrinks and expands in proportion to one's courage -- anais nin Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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Softballmom
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quote:Originally posted by Mo: Prof. Dr. Mohammed A.F. al-Rawi F.R.C.S. in Medicine; President of Baghdad University; member of the Arab Board of Medicine; member of Iraqi Board of Medicine; Chairman of the Iraqi Union of Physicians.
Mo
I think you got the two men mixed up.
Dr. Mahamad is Raad in the first article
And Al-Rawi is Isam Al-Rawi
I checked the lists before I posted the articles and did not find either of them.
You stated that my article was written by a Christian writer. I thought that it wouldn't be pointed out due to the fact that your interview was done by Demacracy now.
I think this is a good subject too. Being that it has two totally differnt views.
I plan to look further into this.
I still feel from my common Sence thread, why would our administration do that it would only hurt what they are trying to do.
Some say we do things to make our country and others think that the enemy did it, why are they not capable of the same.
And why would we do it when what we want to see is the insurgency levels drop and show that terrorism is not running rampit as it was?
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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Just that they are happening is trajic and very frightening.
My point about the article regarding how many were going back to Iraq after the War began was not so much the source.. but that it was written in 2003.
The assassinations (hundreds of them) have taken place between '03 thro today, it's still happening and many other academics are fleeing.
I do not know if Raad is one of these men or not, but certainly many have come from where he was working.. and many have fled. I did not think you knew about the assassinations or the lists, because you posted an article saying academics felt good about the new Iraq and that this was their current view..
I wonder where all the Docs in the article are today, and what their view is today. Moreover, I hope there is an investigation into who is doing it and something done about it. This is a horror story.
Mo
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Softballmom
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Here is a few different sanarios
There is much speculation about who is responsible for these killings. Some allege it is Mossad, the Israeli secret service, which obviously has an interest in a weak and possibly theocratic Iraq - the better to declare Arabs undemocratically minded terrorists. ("It's not personal; it's business," one professor in Baghdad says of Mossad's possible motives.)
Denis Halliday, a former assistant secretary-general of the UN, has wondered aloud whether this is the work of anti-secular fundamentalists hoping to recruit students to the madrasas and to the tenets of Islamist fundamentalism. Others have pointed to militias such as those commanded by Ahmad Chalabi, once favoured by the Pentagon. At the same time, some allege these are acts of revenge and fury over grades from disgruntled students, now armed, along with the entire civil society, with weapons that the US sold to Iraq without reservation less than two decades ago.
Here is someone on the list. It said on the list abducted tortured and killed by American-Israely Death squad. But now read this.
Dr. Wissam S. Al-Hashimi has died. His daughter, Tara, reports that he was kidnapped early in the morning of August 24 while on his way to work. The ransom demanded by his abductors was paid by his family, but to no avail. He died of two bullet wounds to his head. Because his identification was taken from him, it took his family two weeks to find his body in a Baghdad hospital. Tragic indeed, and senseless.
Also I read of two Dr's Kurdish Christians, appear to have been targeted and Killed by Kurdish Police.
To assume or place blame on the US occupation or the US themselves seems very speculative to my opinion. I will continue to read.
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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They have only two profesors left at Baghdad university!
Haifa had some of the same theories, but noone knows. She isn't accusing the US troops. But I agree with her point that there needs to be an independant investigation.
"Well, I mean, if we go back to the beginning of the shooting, assassination of the scientists, the men that pointed -- Iraqis, if you ask any Iraqi, they will say, ``Well, the Mossad were involved,'' because those are scientists, and Israel at one point in the 1980s, they targeted the nuclear plant in Iraq, so it's connected within that. But the rest of the academics -- but we, I mean, we don't know exactly, because no investigation whatsoever.
People talk about it. People can really speculate about the killing or who's -- but mainly, the main issue is: why are they targeted? We feel this is a kind of intimidating. What connect all of them, the main factor is they are people who spoke against occupation.
They are outspoken against occupation. A few cases we know about, they were speaking on television, satellite Arab TV, condemning the occupation and also the interim government. So that could indicate, with the chaos taking place in Iraq at the moment, that could implicate Badr Brigade, for example, occupational forces themselves directly, if they don't like what they've been said, or anybody else.
The main issue is, we need an independent inquiry, independent questioning of what's happening and whose responsibility is this in the end. This is a brain drain. This is going to affect future generations in Iraq, because we are losing our academics.
Also, by this campaign of terror, we are sending people outside the country. They are escaping. Academics, teachers, consultants, they are escaping the country, leaving it. In fact, at the medical school in Baghdad University, and this is the oldest medical school in the whole Middle East, at the moment we have only two professors teaching, and they are based in Jordan. So they go back for exams time and they leave Baghdad, because of the lack of security. So what kind of level of qualifications are our doctors going to have under these circumstances?Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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lymie tony z
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It's astonishing no one ever mentions Iranian interests in keeping Iraq weak.
Are'nt they mostly Sunnis over there?
Do you think they might still harbor a grudge against Iraq for previous war?
Is this a possible reason our troops are still present? Ya think Iran might pose a threat to Iraq in their weakened state? Do ya think they(Iran) may be behind the recent bombings of the mosqes...They're the ones who would understand the significance...and probable outcome.
zman
-------------------- I am not a doctor...opinions expressed are from personal experiences only and should never be viewed as coming from a healthcare provider. zman Posts: 2527 | From safety harbor florida(origin Cleve., Ohio | Registered: Jan 2004
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On Iran, I believe we are hearing rhetoric again that is similar to pre-Iraq invasion.
On the thread down the page a ways, where Benn (30 yrs in British Parliament) talks..
he has allot to say of interest about all this, and about nuclear proliferation, and a hypocracy that's rather obvious in Britain by now.. which is that the US and Britain have broken the proliferation treaty themselves, yet are demanding other nations don't even think about nuclear programmes of any nature.
We invade countries that 'might one day' have capabilities.. as we go on developing.. and interestingly invade/or threaten countries who have no capabilities for nuclear weapons.. and we do not invade or take any action against the ones who actually do have nukes.
essentially, that send the message that you better have nukes or the US will invade. Setting up the Cold War all over again!
On Iran's influence in Iraq ..
I do not think we are told the truth, like Iraq.. and if I were the Iranians, I would be worried. Then they are led by one who will play on legitimate worry.. and this is a recipe for disaster IMO.
I agree with Benns -- I don't think the United States plans to invade Iran, but to bomb it. And when they make accusations that Iran is involved in Iraq, think about it -- who really is involved in Iraq?
The US and Britain have occupied the country, and then they say Iran is providing some support for the Shias.
British public is well aware of the hypocracy, but we must be catching up - if the polls are reflecting any concern over a replay of Iraq in Iran.
Untruths are being flung left and right again..
and didn't General Pace come right out and say that what Bush and Cheney just said about Iran -- yes I'm sure.. the General spoke out shortly after and said we have no reason to believe that right now. The General corrected their public claims against Iran.
I'm very concerned we (the American public) are being manipulated again..
I would want to be sure and know what the intelligence is on these claims this time around. Learn something from the first time. We are talking about bombs, lives, and War here.
Mo
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LabRat
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You tell' em mo! Conundrum! Can you say that in mixed company? Do you let your kid watch democracies now and the link channel in general?
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Softballmom
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I agree with Benns -- I don't think the United States plans to invade Iran, but to bomb it. And when they make accusations that Iran is involved in Iraq, think about it -- who really is
Make accusations. Have you done much research on Iran's involvement in Terrorism? In my view we already have enouph reasons to go in there without accusations of interfering with Iraq.
Or do you think it all is lies?
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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I think there is a glaring element of hypocracy in our government's accusations --
Plus the de' javou sence of urgency and imminent threat (in Iraq and now it looks like it is headed in that direction regarding Iran) .. the threat 'greatly exhagerated' and hence used to manipulate public opinion (would I call that a lie? probably..)
Then if there is later an assertion that there is NO other choice, that there is NO other solution (than invading in Iraq, or, if in Iran they do try and justify bombing) -- that assertion also being greatly exhagerated, at best circumventing possible solutions by merely saying they won't work - and at worst -- lying outright about the potential alternative solutions.
Here's the thing .. I am not saying 'Iran's involvement in Terrorism' is a lie, perse..
I am saying if that alone is the criteria, there must be a dozen or more countries we would then have the right to invade (based on just that).. including Israel, Britain..
(It would also mean that Iran would be justified to invade America.. based on the statements we already have made to them. The Bush admin has posed threats of action taken against them... this is an agruement Benn makes - in my post below - he was in Parliament for 30 years, has never disagreed with a Prime Minister before, and states that the US (and Britain) are taking a position with Iran in which Iran could go to the UN with a violation against them --- imagine if Iran told the US to stop our nuclear energy programmes or they would consider 'all military options' against us)
He has interesting points to consider. I am NOT defending Terorism. I am NOT saying Iran should be let to develop nuclear weapons. I am against both those things. I am looking at the US handling, the knowledge there ARE other options..and the hypocracy, and true threat to National Security as opposed to the drummed up ones. Also looking at World view of this administration. It matters.
Where does it end? And how loosely do we define 'involvement in Terrorism'? And to whom do the rules apply -- should be all countries, right?
My understanding is America has never in it's history stood for invasion or attack of other nations unless they pose an imminent threat to us or our allies.
My understanding is we need solid evidence of that fact. Not merely 'involvement in terrorism', or 'potential threat' because like I said.. There would be many countries that could fit that bill -- and we certainly fit that bill regarding Iran right about now.
In the view of much of the World, including most of Britain right now.. America (backed by Prime Minister in UK) is doing the very things we are threatening/attacking other nations for doing - regarding both nuclear proliferation, and threatening other nations.
If this is the view, and certainly it is how it looks.. then US actions both in Iraq or if they move on Iran in the same way (attack without solid intelligence, and unilaterally)-- that is the kind of stance that will INCREASE Terrorist motivation, not decrease it. As it has done.
It is a very dangerous game now IMO. I do not believe the Bush administration is handling this situation well at all.. and we are going to allow them to go down the same road again, in the same way?
It is interesting that General Pace spoke up and corrected Bush and Cheney on their public statements regarding Iran/Iraq involvement. (statements it seems some of you already believe to be true)
Mo
[ 16. March 2006, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: Mo ]
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Softballmom
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I am saying if that alone is the criteria, there must be a dozen or more countries we would then have the right to invade (based on just that)..
I have stated before in other post that Iraq becoming our alli will give us a base for operations. I have never believed that it was going to stop at Iraq.
I do believe that we will go after other countries.
So you concider the Queen of England a terroist threat?
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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Blair does the dirty work while the Queen waves.
...kind of like Bush is to Cheney.
Under what criteria do you think we should invade/attack/bomb a country?
Bush publicly endorsed pre-emptive strikes recently. Shouldn't there be strict criteria with verified intelligence and all other avenues exhausted before we attack?
I am not comfortable holding the example of Iraq up now as a model for future military action. None of the above was followed going in, the War was fueled by faulty media more than faulty intelligence... and noone even asked for the IAEA documant about those aluminum tubes.. (a document that did not exist, and they did not bring forth the document that stated Saddam did not have the capabilities)
I would think all this means we have to be allot more careful, not support shooting from the hip when it comes to war. We are already hearing specific exhagerated claims from Bush and Cheney regarding Iran.
Mo
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lymie tony z
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First of all I did'nt need any "hypocracy" or untruths to convince me that Iran was a threat. These radicals come out of prayer and march down the street declaring hatred for the unbelievers...America in particular.
Second, I believed a long time ago that Iraq and Afganastan being situated on either side of Iran were good places to start strategically.
Third, the war on terror is going to be a long one and you gotta start somewhere.
Fourth, even if all the lies spread by our poiticians are real...so what! There happens to be a real threat over there ya know. Whether you choose to believe it or not...these folks hate us and want to kill us all and take over the world.
Pre-emptive strikes are the only way to prevent their attacking us...IMO. Is it going to prevent all of their attacks? Probably not. But limiting their capabilities would be a good idea.
These other nations that have nukes have'nt used them against us cuz they don't hate us irrationally and know we would also blow them off the map... Muslim freakazoids don't care if they die! Remember? The ayatolla sent thousands against Iraq armed with nothing but their prayer books...
Iraq slaughtered thousands of them and the ayatolla kept sending them anyway...
How wacky is that?
I believe the academia is being assasinated by the religious fanatics cuz free rational sectarian thinking challanges religious thinking too much...and is a threat to the grand ayatolla's hold over his people.
IMO....zman
-------------------- I am not a doctor...opinions expressed are from personal experiences only and should never be viewed as coming from a healthcare provider. zman Posts: 2527 | From safety harbor florida(origin Cleve., Ohio | Registered: Jan 2004
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Softballmom
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Before you say anything Mo, I am quite sure you don't agree with this source but I am posting it anyway.
Iran's treat has been known for a long time. It didn't just come about during the Bush administation. Do you suppose that it all has been lies dating back, well forever and a day ago?
Missile Threat From Iran
Why is Moscow aiding the strategic-weapons program of a nation engaged in terrorism?
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Last August an American spy satellite spotted a scar of fire on the outskirts of Iran's capital, Teheran. It was the unmistakable signature of a rocket-engine test. On the ground, engineers and technicians watched a powerful liquid-fueled missile engine bolted to a test stand shoot a plume of fire.
The engine firing, conducted at the secrecy-shrouded Shahid Hemat Industrial Group research facility, sent tremors through Western intelligence agencies:
First, the successful test marked an ominous advance for the anti-Western Islamic government of Iran. New-generation ballistic missiles could give the regime a decisive military edge in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Second, the new missile program bears the fingerprints of an old adversary that is now supposed to be an American ally--Russia. Iran's rocket engines, originally acquired from North Korea, were upgraded in Russia. Technicians at Iran's test facility included engineers from NPO Trud, a prestigious Russian rocket-motor plant that helped develop the missiles that targeted the West during the Cold War. And Iran's new missiles are based in part on Soviet SS-4 strategic rockets.
Iran, whose leaders have chanted "Death to America," is believed to be less than a year away from test-firing a ballistic missile, the Shahab-3, and is developing more powerful versions. "The deployment of these missiles, using just conventional warheads with modern guidance, adds a giant measure to Iran's ability to blackmail allies of the United States," says former CIA director R. James Woolsey.
But the threat goes even further. The CIA states that Iran is also developing chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons. This, from a regime that the State Department has labeled a terrorist threat.
A Growing Partnership. After Islamic radicals overthrew the Shah of Iran and seized the U.S. embassy in 1979, Washington slapped an arms embargo on Iran. Undaunted, Iran conducted an international campaign of assassinations and terrorism, pursued a clandestine nuclear-weapons program and waged a bitter war with neighboring Iraq (1980-88).
In that war, Iran launched missiles bought from North Korea or assembled from parts made in China. When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, Teheran began shopping in the huge arms supermarket of the fledgling Russian Federation.
In a confidential meeting in Germany, Reader's Digest interviewed an Iranian former intelligence officer who confirmed Western intelligence reports that Russians began working on Iran's long-range-missile projects in 1994. At that time, Russian technicians visited the top-secret Iranian Defense Technology and Science Research Center near Karaj, 50 miles northwest of Teheran. Iran subsequently began receiving assistance from Russia's state-run missile plants and technical universities. Russian advisers worked at Iran's missile plants in Esfahan and Semnan, as well as at design centers in Sultanatabad, Lavizan and Kuh-e Bagh-e-Melli on the outskirts of the capital.
"After that, Iran's missile program jelled," says Patrick Clawson, an Iran analyst at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
The United States in Range. With Russian help, Iran is working to field two families of missiles in the near future. The Shahab-3 is the closest to deployment. It will carry 1650 pounds of explosives at least 800 miles--allowing Iran, for the first time, to hit every major city in Israel, including Jerusalem. It would also reach vital Persian Gulf oil fields--and the bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey where American forces are serving. A Shahab-3 carrying the anthrax germ could kill millions.
Intelligence sources say that a number of engine tests for the Shahab-3 have been observed, and that development will be completed in early 1999, with production soon after. A senior White House official told Reader's Digest that the United States now believes Iran has most of what it needs to mass-produce the Shahab-3. "It may already be too late to stop them," he said.
An even more powerful missile in development, the Shahab-4, will carry a one-ton warhead 1250 miles--making it capable of devastating cities in countries as distant as Egypt. The Russians are also helping a solid-fuel design team at the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group in Teheran develop a 2800-mile missile, capable of reaching London and Paris, and a 6300-mile missile that could strike cities in the eastern United States.
Diplomatic Stonewall. At high-level meetings with Russian officials, including President Yeltsin himself, the United States has repeatedly expressed concern over Russian arms sales to rogue nations such as Iran. But when Vice President Al Gore pressed Russian Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin on February 6, 1997, Gore received a categorical denial.
Two months later, in April, Iran tested a new missile engine. After analyzing the evidence, U.S. officials concluded that the Russians had transferred technology from SS-4 rockets to Iran--a clear violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime that Russia signed in 1995. It also violates the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, in which the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to destroy all such missiles, including the SS-4.
Yet each time the United States presented new evidence of Russian assistance to Iran's long-range-missile program, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov and other officials denied that this was Russia's policy. "While we appreciate such assurances," State Department official Robert Einhorn told the Senate last June, "we remain disturbed by the discrepancy between them and what reportedly is occurring."
In fact, U.S. and Western intelligence sources have confirmed that several hundred Russian engineers and technicians travel regularly to missile facilities outside Teheran, helping the Iranians draw up missile-production blueprints. Russia may have transferred to Iran a supercomputer made by a U.S. company to complete the work. And when the Iranians run into technical snags, they fly to top-secret military institutes in Russia to see how the Russians solved similar problems.
"This is not a private operation by some crazy engineers," an Israeli official told Reader's Digest in an interview in Tel Aviv. "The contracts [to assist Iran's missile program] have been signed by companies that are at least partially owned by the Russian government."
Last July President Clinton assigned veteran diplomat Frank Wisner to conduct a joint investigation with the Russians into the missile allegations. His Russian counterpart was Yuri Koptev, head of the Russian Space Agency, which intelligence sources say is aiding in Iran's missile program. (Koptev denies such involvement.)
Talks on Russian-technology transfers to Iran continue. Meanwhile, Russian technicians still travel to Iran, and shipments of missile components continue to reach Iran.
"It must be made clear that doing business with our enemies will cost them if they want to do business with us," former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz says of the Russians.
U.S. laws require the President to impose sanctions on countries that assist certain nations in building ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. But the Administration has refused to invoke sanctions, including those in a law co-authored in 1992 by then-Senator Gore and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.). Now Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.) and Trent Lott (R., Miss.) have introduced new legislation with sanctions that could involve:
Russia's space program. The United States is pumping $140 million a year and invaluable expertise into Russia's space program. This aid could be stopped.
U.S. contracts. Russian companies working in Iran have some $2.5 billion in contracts with the U.S. government and U.S. defense contractors. The United States could bar them from American business.
High-tech exports. Russian firms in Iran have been buying advanced U.S. technology. Such high-tech exports could be barred.
In addition to these sanctions, the United States could step up assistance to Israel's Arrow antimissile program to ensure that Israel will have adequate defenses by the time the Iranian missiles go into production, possibly in 1999.
The United States could also increase pressure on Teheran. Instead, the Clinton Administration has been seeking to open a "dialogue" with the Iranians, a gesture interpreted by some of Teheran's ruling clerics as a sign of American weakness.
Some American leaders are determined to send a different, stronger message, not only to Teheran but to Moscow as well. "Russia's transfer of missile technology to Iran is an issue of enormous national security importance to the United States and its allies," warns Senator McCain. "It threatens to further destabilize the region--and risks undercutting U.S.-Russian relations."
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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"Kenneth Timmerman authors The Missile threat from Iran" in Reader's Digest,
**December 1997"
SBM,
I haven't read Reader's Digest in a very long time, so I can't say I have a problem with the source. Timmerman has written from this stance for a long time, tho.
But what I have a problen with the date. That was written (with slant) nine years ago.
(It's important to put date and source with articles for readers so they know what's what..IMO.)
I agree that we have to be careful about any Iranian nuclear development -- and take it all very seriously BUT
I'm wondering:
Under what criteria should we attack/bomb/invade another nation?
And what verification will we need regarding current operations?
Do you agree that we need more than we had going into Iraq?
Like I said, there are many nations that fit the bill if it is simply a 'possible threat' that brings justification.
You guys seem to be saying that this has been a master plan, first Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Iran.
If this plan has been set as you see it -- that would mean America is operating Imperialistically.
Mo
[ 19. March 2006, 12:56 AM: Message edited by: Mo ]
Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
The Bush administration consists of a core group who wrote of military expansion and World dominance, and in the area of resources in the Persian Gulf.
The PNAC document is a blueprint we are following today. This was writen in the 90's. long before 911.
This is a gang that needs us to be afraid in order to get backing.
We have to ask for proof and truth, that is our basic right. They have proven to operate without truth in Iraq.
Bush and Cheney both recently connected Iran to the 'terrorism in Iraq'.
..........general Pace contradicted them and said they have no proof.
It's happening all over again.
Mo
Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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lymie tony z
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5130
posted
No Mo,
It's not happening again. It's been a constant all along.
You don't happen to remember a hostage situation a few years back do you?
I do believe one of the countries mentioned in the "axis of evil" speach was Iran.
Why are you so surprised?
zman
-------------------- I am not a doctor...opinions expressed are from personal experiences only and should never be viewed as coming from a healthcare provider. zman Posts: 2527 | From safety harbor florida(origin Cleve., Ohio | Registered: Jan 2004
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Softballmom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6235
posted
I know that it is old article. I specificly looked up articles prior to the Bush administration.
I believe that Iran should have been put under sanctions a long time ago however Clinton vetoed it.
If Iran is all on the up and up then why are they being so uncooperative.
Intel believe that by 2015 Iran will have capabilities to cause catastofic damage to there enemies and alo believe that they intend to do so. Or do you believe that is all lies as well.
I keep seeing your prove it defence, however If we don't do something I feel that in the future we will not have to prove it because Iran will show the world the proof up close and personal.
You may be comfortable with your defence however I see your "prove it" as Iran's "just wait and see"
Personally I do not want to wait and see.
Do you agree that we need more than we had going into Iraq?
My answer to your question is, I think we had enouph then and I think we have enouph now.
-------------------- It's not the Lyme, I just can't spell! Posts: 1331 | From North Carolina | Registered: Sep 2004
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