"Many academics have been killed in Iraq since the American occupation..."

[bloom]

Many academics have been killed in Iraq since the American occupation began according to the Iraqi Union of University Lecturers.

The most striking fact is that the majority of those killed where not sciencists (thus targeted for the alleged knowledge of Iraq’s weapon’s programme) but were involved in field of humanities (such as law, geography and history). The motives for these assassinations are unknown.

This ‘war on Learning’, as Robert Fisk, a reporter in Iraq for the Independent called it, is making Iraqi intellectual’s work impossible and further augments the view that a ‘normal life’ in Iraq is far too dangerous for them. According to an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement: ‘there is a widespread feeling among the Iraqi academics that they are witnessing a deliberate attempt to destroy intellectual life in Iraq’. Furthermore, quoting Dr Sinawi – a geologist formerly employed at Baghdad University and interview by THES- the academic dismissals, the assassination of intellectuals will bring a ‘disruption of higher education in Iraq for years to come. This will dramatically affect the standard of teaching and research for generations’. Source: http://www.nearinternational.org/alerts/iraq320040915en.php

Many academics in Iraq are imprisoned, were discharged, have disappeared, or were forced into exile....

http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Academics.htm

(Linked from http://www.juancole.com/ )

[ReadTomPaine]

1. Iraq was one of the most well educated regions in the middle east...

A fact not widely known outside of academic circles. It's hard to exploit a new colony when the locals are so well educated, so that had to stop.

[bloom]

2. That's what I'm afraid it means also... eom

[SharonAnn]

3. Yes, this is the same is Chairman Mao's and Pol Pot's technique.

[DELUSIONAL]

4. Ronnie Raygun (gov of Calif) hated college students & Professors

it was his goal to get rid of the college system -- make it too expensive for most to afford.

He waged a war on the University of California -- Berkeley.

Many GOP hate academics -- so it isn't surprising that this attitude toward academics is found in Iraq --

Raygun is/was a symptom of an anti academic movement which is spreading like a cancer.

Then the GOP chose bushie as their "leader" and he is the ultimate in anti-intellectual -- anti academic.

The fundamentalists (christians & Islamic) are anti intellectual and academic -- they have a very similar mind-sets because they don't want critical thinkers and the academic process helps to foster critical thinkers.

[bloom]

5. kick...

[karlrschneider]

6. The Mesopotamians and Persians managed to preserve a lot of

academia even as the Crusades attempted to quash it. They are just about the oldest scientific and philosophically literate societies on the planet.