Iraqi intellectuals flee 'death squads' - 1000 Iraqi intellectuals killed

[Quetzal]

Iraqi intellectuals flee 'death squads'

Occupied Iraq is suffering a new brain drain as intellectuals flood out of the country to avoid unemployment and an organised killing campaign.

In recent months assassinations have targeted engineers, pharmacologists, officers, and lawyers.

More than 1000 leading Iraqi professionals and intellectuals have been assassinated since last April, among them such prominent figures as Dr Muhammad al-Rawi, the president of Baghdad University.

The identity of the assailants remains a mystery and none have been caught.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FBE0836E-F273-4A36-8347-66BE05F39475.htm

[rooboy]

1. We are fast approaching a bizarre situation...

where Saddam's regime will be considered an Iraqi "Golden Age" by comparison.

[Nlighten1]

2. Pol Pot comes to mind...

oy...I'm glad the Iraqis are so much better off now.

[NickB79]

28. We think alike

My best friend's parents escaped that murderous regime with nothing but the shirts on their backs, minus their oldest son who died before they made it out. The stories his parents told were chilling; men and women shot dead on the streets simply because they wore glasses (what they percieved as a sign of intelligence), anyone with a nice car robbed, tortured, and sent to slave labor camps, etc. After hearing of that experience, it doesn't surprise me that his dad, who's never hunted in his life, owns a .30-06 deer rifle, an SKS, a 9mm handgun and an AK-47.

[Voltaire99]

34. And indeed the Khmer Rouge ultimately won U.S. help and succor

As John Pilger memorably wrote, "What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot completed."

The essay is online here:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/nlevine/khmer_polpot.htm

[Barrett808]

3. Riverbend also reported this several weeks ago

But I didn't think the numbers were that high.

[Robbien]

4. I was thinking about Riverbend also

She wrote that there were many people being held for ransom by the "gangs" running the streets. My thought was that these gangs were the tough people who were in the slums of Baghdad who ran scams before but were controlled from committing too much damage by Saddam.

[Eureka]

5. If you replace "Iraqi" with "American"

it would sound like what the Freepers will get up to if Bush wins again. Goddam elist intellectuals.

Please Mr Kerry, save your country.

[hang a left]

6. What the hell? Who would benefit from wiping out intellectuals?

I am afraid to find out.

[Old and In the Way]

8. Who? The fascist religious fundies.

In the late 80s, Iraq was the most progressive country in the ME, in terms of heathcare, education, and women's rights. In order to give radical fundie Islam a new beachhead, the educated, secular class most be eliminated.

[lumpy]

14. You are so right, Old and In the Way

During the 80's many articles were published regarding the progressive advances that were being made in Iraq. Now it is all over and the religious zealots will have their way thanks to the power hungry unthinking present administration. Was the US, Iraq and the world better off with Clinton in office? A resounding yes!

[leesa]

27. Or this administration...which is the same religious fundie kind of crap

The US and Israeli RW gov. would benefit as well as Muslim Fundies. Hard top tell who the culprit might be. One thing that is for sure, the US won't get to the bottom of it. Al Qaeda!! Al Qaeda!!

[lindashaw]

9. Chalabi, for one. And others. Perhaps the Shiite underground,

because the majority of intellectuals were/are Sunni.

[kera]

10. I read in many news paper

that isreail has been tracking scientists and killing them

[FlemingsGhost]

15. Links, please.

That's quite a statement to make without documentation.

Thanks.

[nodehopper]

17. it was in that al-jazeera article

that was linked above as a quote from one of the people interviewed. not a substantiated fact, just a speculation. i have not seen it anywhere else.

[yardwork]

26. al-jazeera says a lot of unsubstantiated things

[hedgetrimmer]

31. So does Fox news and MSNBC and so on... media is manipulation.

Just choose who you want to be manipulated by.

[nodehopper]

36. how about no one?

reading multiple sources helps check them against each other, even when they are all blatantly sensationalist and speculative. no one says that Faux is somehow more credible than Al-Jazeera.

[peterh]

13. Well…we know Twit senior doesn’t like intellectuals….

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - An emotional former President George Bush, senior, has defended his son's Iraq war and lashed out at White House critics.
It was "deeply offensive and contemptible" to hear "elites and intellectuals on the campaign trail" dismiss progress in Iraq since last year's overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein,


And if I recall correctly, he also doesn’t regard non-christians as citizens….

With the neo-cons, an intellectual is synonymous with wearing a yellow star….

[jokerman93]

19. Who would benefit from wiping out intellectuals?

Anyone who has a vested interest in creating a complete pattern interrupt in the intellectual and cultural development of Iraq. Anyone with a vision of radical change.

[ixion]

7. gee, that must be a side effect of 'liberation'

:-(

[Gloria]

11. This flight also came up in an interview done on the BBC World Service

a few days ago or so....The BBC does a lot of interviews with Iraqis and I did hear this expressed by the man they were talking to.

[DrWeird]

12. Mercenaries?

nt

[rfkrocks]

16. don't forget the Christians

This great god ordained Christian president (so they say and we know WHO they are don't we duers) has allowed the Christian minority to be attacked and by the end of next year they will probably be ethnically cleansed-isn't that great-an Iraq with no religious minorities and no intellectuals-can you say PAKISTAN-the new model of an ally of Buschco BTW Iran not Iraq has WMD-oops bush did it again.

[lostnfound]

18. Folks, it is a normal part of "liberation".

In other nations, the US has given lists of leftist intellectuals to be purged when a new regime is being installed. I think it's called 'killing off the competition'.

Iraq had quite a bit which was nationalized and I would guess that many of their intellectuals have been indoctrinated in the merits of publicly-owned infrastructure just as we enlightened ones are indoctrinated in the merits of privatization.

There's probably a variety of reasons, but -- I hope I'm wrong -- this might be the biggest.

[kera]

20. Killing intellectual

I have first hand experience on this issue , if I can consider myself an intello, I survived to tell the story

if you want to know the reason why I will give you a statement from an editor journalist just a week before who got his throat slit in his office

" if you speak out you die if you keep silent you will still die than speak out" he also said " a pen is more powerful than a sword for the religious extremists"

[FlemingsGhost]

22. Still waiting for those "many" newspapers...

Links, please.

[kera]

30. voila

I read it in the link below
in this website you may certainly know, news articles from all over the world are posted and updated every 5 minutes since there are so many, i usually just click on the links see for yourself



http://www.newsnow.co.uk/

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. Sounds like Einsatzgruppen in WWII....

...who followed the invading armies and eliminated intellectuals, Jews, Communist Party officials, etc. Arnold Schwarzenegger's father was a member of one of these units during WWII.

<http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/einsatz.html>

It also sounds like the Phoenix Program used by the U. S. in Vietnam to eliminate village leaders and their families believed/rumored to be working with the Viet Cong. Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge is believed to have worked in the Phoenix Program.

<http://www.serendipity.li/cia/operation_phoenix.htm>

[WHAT]

23. We all know that "elites" can't compete....

otherwise there would be no need for hedging/hedgemony. A popular idea in the 60's was that if you kill the leaders you kill the group. This idea was reassuring to the "political elite, the "voting" class", because it assumed ascendency...whatever that means (personally specific advantage?). But, implicit in the idea of "elitism" is advantage synonymous with superiority. It's where language/definition directs concept...but, it ain't no mobius,,,it's an inflected/inflicted , stagnant, concept. Mother nature, not barbara bush or some other false diva, knows math and sic. mother nature...art, athletics, arithmetic don't lie. My heart says let the numbers play-out and if survival is defined as advantge specific to our world and culture that would trump specific advantage by personality or cult of persona (which is just egoism).

What is so frightenong about a level playing field? Is winning really more important than success. If you/one is so successful as to destroy humanity while furthering you and yous success, is that "succeeding"?

Pretty much all that is going-on now is a scam and that leaves us without god/grace in art, architecture, literature...and I'm kinda an athiest but I want beauty with an agenda in my life (and the life of my progeny...consangunial or not). I guess I want a better world and something to admire. In my world, the mediocre are too small to succeed...I mean Timothy Russert, et. al.

"scuse me for really wanting something to admire...

[keithyboy]

24. I certainly don't believe the Iraqis are killing their "intellectuals."

But whose purpose would it serve to do away with the brightest and best Iraqis? That will answer your question.

[Voltaire99]

33. Nor do I.

Which side is it that has constructed the language of extermination, after all -- of "decapitation" and "regime change", of the mass murder of "shock and awe"?

By their foreign policies, ye shall know them.

[Just Me]

25. LIfe,...is not getting better,...huh.

Welcome to the life created by humanity: unjust, inequal and full of suffering.

The leaders perpetuate the misery.

So sad,...too bad,...we are willing to give away our power and willing to suffer that delegation.

I have little sympathy left but for the ignorant,...and they are the masses.

[neverborn]

29. Hi...

Operation Phoenix? :x

[hedgetrimmer]

32. Bingo!

[wickerwoman]

35. Maybe it's connected to the WMD hunt.

Engineers and pharmacologists?

Is someone targetting Iraqi intellectuals who might know something about the presence or lack of programs developing WMDs?

[xxqqqzme]

37. That's it!!

How brilliant!! That is why they can't find those WMDs. I hope bremmer corrects this outrage B4 there is no one left 2 tell squatter where those weapons R hidden.

Oooopppps - tooo late! Now we'll never find them.