Iraqi intellectuals flee 'death squads'

March 31, 2004 4:12 PM

8% of Iraqi academics have Fled, 1000 Professionals Assassinated in past Year - '' 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. But families and colleagues of victims believe that Iraqi parties with foreign affiliations have an interest in wiping out Iraq's intellectual elite...''  From Juan Cole, who notes, in relation to Chalabi's control of de-Baathification, ''It can't be good for the future of Iraq to lose nearly 10% of its academics. Some of those may have been involved in Baath Party dirty tricks, but were all? And, the campaign of assassination makes a mockery of the rhetoric about democratization."
posted by y2karl (24 comments total)

this is not a great post
posted by David Dark at 4:30 PM on March 31, 2004

Iraq is rich in intellectuals, largely as a result of Saddam Hussein's policy of sending tens of thousands of Iraqi students abroad to gain post-graduate degrees in a wide range of disciplines.

where are they now? should they come back?

but they are leaving now to avoid being assassinated by unknown, well-organised death squads,"

Is he sure they are all being killed by "death squads" how many shia academics have been killed, how many sunni, how many kurds. Does personal vendetta play any part of this?

Usama al-Ani, director of the research and development department in the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research said top Iraqi scientists have been targeted by foreign parties.

"I believe Iraqi scientists are being targeted by foreign powers, most probably Israel."

does the good doctor have some data for this 'theory'.

nice propaganda karl.
posted by clavdivs at 4:47 PM on March 31, 2004

For once, I will say that this story doesn't go far enough. First of all, the rationales for assassinations of this sort are all over the map:

The Ba'athists *were* like the Nazis for exterminating their own countrymen. Imagine what the Jews would have been like after WWII, had they returned to their homes in Germany. I can easily picture Jewish "death squads" hunting ex-Nazis with rare passion, and not just the few 'big names', either.

Second, the Shiites haven't forgotten how the Sunnis abused the heck out of them for years, nor have the Kurds. These "professionals", despite what they actually did, were the 'faces' of the regime, within country.

Third, and not to be underestimated: family feuds. This doesn't quite compute to most westerners, thinking of the Hatfields and McCoys; but more appropriately, think of the Balkans. Family feuds taken to ridiculous extremes.

It's also noteworthy that towards the end of the Milosevic regime in Serbia, assassinations of this sort were truly rampant. Otherwise, I'm not sure a clear comparison can be made, except numerically.

There *is* something going on here. But I'm not sure it's quite as easy an answer as all that.
posted by kablam at 5:33 PM on March 31, 2004

As Juan Cole noted and y2karl quoted--in the title--"In my view, a lot of the assassinations have been carried out by individuals with Baath-era grudges or by radical Shiite militiamen. But some of them could just be personal grudge-settling. (I saw this phenomenon--of personal grudge-settling, not with regard to academic--in Beirut during the Civil War. When there is social chaos, neighbors with rifles who don't like another neighbor sometimes just take a pot shot at him through his kitchen window. It is a little unlikely that the shooter will be caught when there are few effective police and bigger fish to fry)."

Attacks test Muslim unity in Iraq

After an advocate's killing, Iraqi women try to stay course

Ahmad Chalabi is loyal to just one cause: his own ambition

--Chalabi, it might be pointed out, is Shia. The Pentagon flew him in with his own private army. Has anyone read an article about them turning in their arms? It seems to be open season and there are many people with guns... Cole's assessment, however, seems sensible.*

On a related tip, consider this tale by Riverbend at Baghdad Burning: "M. and her uncle later learned that a certain neighbor had made the false accusation against her family. The neighbor's 20-year-old son was still bitter over a fight he had several years ago with one of M.'s brothers. All he had to do was contact a certain translator who worked for the troops and give M.'s address. It was that easy.

Abu Hassen was contacted by M. and her uncle because he was an old family friend and was willing to do the work free of charge. They have been trying to get her brothers and mother out ever since. I was enraged- why don't they contact the press? Why don't they contact the Red Cross?! What were they waiting for?! She shook her head sadly and said that they *had* contacted the Red Cross but they were just one case in thousands upon thousands- it would take forever to get to them. As for the press- was I crazy? How could she contact the press and risk the wrath of the American authorities while her mother and brothers were still imprisoned?! There were prisoners who had already gotten up to 15 years of prison for 'acting against the coallition'... she couldn't risk that. They would just have to be patient and do a lot of praying. "

posted by y2karl at 5:43 PM on March 31, 2004

Third, and not to be underestimated: family feuds. This doesn't quite compute to most westerners, thinking of the Hatfields and McCoys; but more appropriately, think of the Balkans. Family feuds taken to ridiculous extremes.

It's also noteworthy that towards the end of the Milosevic regime in Serbia, assassinations of this sort were truly rampant. Otherwise, I'm not sure a clear comparison can be made, except numerically.

There *is* something going on here. But I'm not sure it's quite as easy an answer as all that.

Nail. head. This is something most of us do not intuitively understand in the secular West, kablam, as you well know--we don't do clans and tribes here in the USA--well, except for gypsies, perhaps, and certainly the Native Americans.... So the concept seems exotic in our bubble.

Crime and effect

The "revolutionary" culture that adopted these Arab regimes, or that these regimes adopted, is itself the offspring of such structures. This culture was another vacuum, another regurgitation and another death. And, with this death and the assorted armies that existed to promote it, this culture camouflaged the profound fragmentation of Arab life, fighting all the schisms and eruptions that make up the linguistic, chromatic and aural textures of that life. Thus, it entrenched the authoritarianism of culture and the culture of authoritarianism, and it perpetuated the Arab regimes by freezing society's dynamism, compelling it to sustain life and thought in a backward-looking present and in tribal, clan, and religious- ideological sectarian loyalties.

A bit dated but along those lines:

How Saddam keeps power in Iraq

Unlike the Nazi model, the Ba'ath version deployed Iraq's traditional tribes and clans in key state institutions; these groups still survive in the provinces and outlying rural areas. Three strategic posts were set aside for the ruling clan: the defence ministry, the party's military bureau (al-maktab al-askari) and the National Security Bureau (maktab al-amn al-qawmi). In the early years of the regime, state tribalism (the ruler's employment of his own tribesmen in state institutions) focused on the tribe that made up the ruling elite: Albu Nasir and its leading core, the al-Beijat clan. In later years other junior tribal groups were admitted (2). This strategy, based on fear, aimed to strengthen the regime's power base, build a monolithic ruling elite, and stem the schisms and power struggles that had plagued the army and party politics between 1958 and 1970.
posted by y2karl at 6:27 PM on March 31, 2004

Imagine what the Jews would have been like after WWII, had they returned to their homes in Germany. I can easily picture Jewish "death squads" hunting ex-Nazis with rare passion, and not just the few 'big names', either.

LONDON -- Israel's first president supported a Jewish group's plans to murder Germans immediately after World War II, according to the man who led the avengers.

Details of the plan, which included poisoning bread at a bakery, were unveiled by Lithuanian-born Joseph Harmatz, 73, in an interview published recently in the British newspaper the Observer.

Harmatz, who lost two brothers in the Holocaust, led an organization -- Din, or Judgment -- made up of survivors of the Vilna Ghetto. Their objective: the deaths of 6 million Germans as vengeance for the Jews who died in the Holocaust.
posted by clavdivs at 7:29 PM on March 31, 2004

clavdivs - that would have to be one hell of a huge bakery, to kill 6 million with poisoned bread.
____________________________________________

It's a good thing that the US mass media is so right on top of this significant development which will help shape the future of the emerging, post Saddam Iraq.......

Or else I might only learn about it from some guy named Y2Karl, on the internet!

Not.

This is a very good post.
posted by troutfishing at 7:51 PM on March 31, 2004

hey trout,
"Din also wanted to poison the water supply of the German city of Nuremberg..."

"I believe Iraqi scientists are being targeted by foreign powers, most probably Israel."


perhaps this is why it is not in the U.S. media

not.
posted by clavdivs at 8:16 PM on March 31, 2004

`The preceding paragraph and context to clavdivs's out-of-context quote was

Usama al-Ani, director of the research and development department in the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research said top Iraqi scientists have been targeted by foreign parties.

Thus, given the quotation marks, "I believe Iraqi scientists are being targeted by foreign powers, most probably Israel." can be assumed to be a sentence Usama al-Aani spoke. False or not, for an average Iraqi, it's probably not exactly an outlandish belief. It's not like assassinations are not part of the Israeli repertoire, from an Arab point of view.

A man gave his opinion. The writer quoted him. In quotes. Big whoop.

Except for clavdivs, for everything is a pissant competition to find the tinest hair to split, the cleverest--not by fuckin' half--possible misinterpetative reading in to order to make himself right by straw man. Once again. Another out of context experience.  pathetic...
posted by y2karl at 9:49 PM on March 31, 2004

clavdivs, could you please learn how to write in English? If you do, I might bother to read your posts.
posted by interrobang at 10:18 PM on March 31, 2004

y2karl, Iraq is so 2003! You're just like those people who keep asking about that Osama guy! This is 2004, so get with the program and starting recognizing the threat that gay homosexuals and Janet Jackson's sweater puppets pose to America!
posted by subgenius at 12:24 AM on April 1, 2004

False or not, for an average Iraqi, it's probably not exactly an outlandish belief. It's not like assassinations are not part of the Israeli repertoire, from an Arab point of view.

false or not. true or false. blah-blah.

sure it may not be so outlandish in iraq. This doctor is entitled to his opinion.

It's not like assassinations are not part of the Israeli repertoire, from an Arab point of view.

perhaps they are, perhaps they are not. don't strawman me sir.
This man is in HIGHER EDUCATION. Should he not have some other rationale then foreigners and Israelis committing these killings?

What is the "arab point of view" karl. Could you enlighten us?

A man gave his opinion. The writer quoted him. In quotes. Big whoop.

ya, big whoop.

clavdivs, could you please learn how to write in English? If you do, I might bother to read your posts.

I have a suggestion
just don't read the post. That simple. Or did you figure that out?
posted by clavdivs at 11:26 AM on April 1, 2004

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

The article did not state the thesis that the Israeli's were assassinating Iraqi professionals, it quoted an Iraqi professional who thought so. From what I have read in recent news accounts, the man's opinions regarding the Israelis is by no means new.

From what you have gone on about here, you read a statement by a person clearly quoted as being a statement or conclusion by the writer of the article--or at least it could be taken that way, given your hatred for writing intelligibly.

From your past displays of reading [in]comprehension and your inability or unwillingness to write clear, simple sentences, rather than belligerent fragments, raises the question you've oft been asked in MetaTalk--is it from dyslexia or is it art? Inquiring minds want to know.
posted by y2karl at 1:18 PM on April 1, 2004

Make that - Your past displays of reading [in]comprehension, and your inability or unwillingness to write clearly raise the question you've oft been asked in MetaTalk--is it from dyslexia or is it art? Inquiring minds want to know.

Just to be clear.
posted by y2karl at 1:21 PM on April 1, 2004

"And where are we now, a year from the war? Sure- we own satellite dishes and the more prosperous own mobile phones… but where are we *really*? Where are the majority?

We're trying to fight against the extremism that seems to be upon us like a black wave; we're wondering, on an hourly basis, how long it will take for some semblance of normality to creep back into our lives; we're hoping and praying against civil war…

We're watching with disbelief as American troops roam the streets of our towns and cities and break violently into our homes... we're watching with anger as the completely useless Puppet Council sits giving out fat contracts to foreigners and getting richer by the day- the same people who cared so little for their country, that they begged Bush and his cronies to wage a war that cost thousands of lives and is certain to cost thousands more.

We're watching sardonically as an Iranian cleric in the south turns a once secular country into America's worst nightmare- a carbon copy of Iran. We're watching as the lies unravel slowly in front of the world- the WMD farce and the Al-Qaeda mockery.

And where are we now? Well, our governmental facilities have been burned to the ground by a combination of 'liberators' and 'Free Iraqi Fighters'; 50% of the working population is jobless and hungry; summer is looming close and our electrical situation is a joke; the streets are dirty and overflowing with sewage; our jails are fuller than ever with thousands of innocent people; we've seen more explosions, tanks, fighter planes and troops in the last year than almost a decade of war with Iran brought; our homes are being raided and our cars are stopped in the streets for inspections… journalists are being killed 'accidentally' and the seeds of a civil war are being sown by those who find it most useful; the hospitals overflow with patients but are short on just about everything else- medical supplies, medicine and doctors; and all the while, the oil is flowing.

But we've learned a lot. We've learned that terrorism isn't actually the act of creating terror. It isn't the act of killing innocent people and frightening others… no, you see, that's called a 'liberation'. It doesn't matter what you burn or who you kill- if you wear khaki, ride a tank or Apache or fighter plane and drop missiles and bombs, then you're not a terrorist- you're a liberator.

The war on terror is a joke… Madrid was proof of that last week… Iraq is proof of that everyday.

I hope someone feels safer, because we certainly don't"

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#107981292647420559
posted by specialk420 at 2:20 PM on April 1, 2004

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

that should be assassins. assassinations are a deliberate act. Targeting is implied in assassination.

But families and colleagues of victims believe that Iraqi parties with foreign affiliations have an interest in wiping out Iraq's intellectual elite.

the families left out Israel unlike the doctor.

so karl, what is the thesis of this article?

do you understand that?
posted by clavdivs at 8:04 PM on April 1, 2004

what is the thesis of this article?
posted by clavdivs at 8:05 PM on April 1, 2004

families and colleagues of victims believe that Iraqi parties with foreign affiliations have an interest in wiping out Iraq's intellectual elite.

Is this the thesis?

n. pl. the·ses (-sz)
A proposition that is maintained by argument.
A dissertation advancing an original point of view as a result of research, especially as a requirement for an academic degree.
A hypothetical proposition, especially one put forth without proof.
posted by clavdivs at 8:13 PM on April 1, 2004

The quote says

A) People are getting killed. That's a fact.

Then it says Nobody knows who is doing the killing. That's a fact.

Then it says families and colleagues of victims believe that Iraqi parties with foreign affiliations have an interest in wiping out Iraq's intellectual elite.

That's a speculation by families and colleagues of the victims.

The article really drew no overt conclusions. It's not the greatest example of what is called reporting but it is reporting, unbiased as it is not.

Juan Cole read the parties with foreign affiliations to be a reference to the INC. This was to me a novel concept--INC death squads. It's a scary thought and certainly not out of the question--Chalabi has the goons, the guns and the motive. Juan Cole, however, did not sign off on the implication that the killings were being done by the INC because--who knows?--it could be anyone, it could be over personal grudges as in the story from riverbend above. I tend to agree.

But he did note that Chalabi controls the de-Baathification process and meditated on that possible consequences of that.

There has been a struggle during the past year over de-Baathification. Party membership was forced on a lot of capable people. Ahmad Chalabi wants to do massive de-baathification, which means even minor party members would be blackballed.

From the rest of the comments, everyone pretty much seemed to read that Iraqi parties with foreign affiliations as meaning Chalabi and the INC. You seem to have a problem with the concept and keep going wacka wacka about Israel. Que sera. Or wacka wacka. Whatever.
posted by y2karl at 9:21 PM on April 1, 2004

karl, yes i have a problem with the Israel comment, so what, it is mt right. I was the second person in this thread after david dark (sorry sir for not heding your warning)

I HAD QUESTIONS:
where are they now? should they come back?

Is he sure they are all being killed by "death squads" how many shia academics have been killed, how many sunni, how many kurds. Does personal vendetta play any part of this?

does the good doctor have some data for this 'theory'.

yes, i chided you about propaganda. I did not call you a name nor discount the "argument" of the post. I tend to agree with kablam, there is more to this, just what, i don't know. The Article does not say.

so your saying that Chalibi is using his dirty little files and sending out hit teams? Is this what you mean?
posted by clavdivs at 9:47 AM on April 2, 2004

so your saying that Chalibi is using his dirty little files and sending out hit teams? Is this what you mean?

No. The possibility was raised by an article. So far, the line by the administration and in the American press are these killings have been done by Baathists or jihadis. The novel idea that the INC might be in on the killings is impossbile to discount. But we don't know. That seems to be the conclusion all around now.

I have my biases and interests but I am not presenting or trying to win arguments. What is the point of that? I'm not articulate or logical enough to do that and who ever admits to error here? You keep trying to score points like there was some contest where you can best me with your logic and wit.

You have arguments but you don't convince me--because you are not articulate or logical enough to persuade me to see the error of my ways. Or I am just too dense. All I get is your constant belligerence and desperation to score points. It really gets tiresome at times but you keep at it.

Is it possible to win a contest where only one side perceives themself to be a contestant? I have no respect for anyone who tell you they've won the argument without convincing you there was an argument, myself. I may have a point or a counterpoint to a point someone else makes here but I don't have the ego to tell anyone I've beaten them because they've stopped responding out of boredom. or whatever else. You, on the other hand, have a track record for doing this. So if it helps you, declare yourself the winner again--that's what you've done in the past.
posted by y2karl at 2:51 PM on April 2, 2004

blah-blah-blah.

I have no respect for anyone who tell you they've won the argument without convincing you there was an argument, myself

you hand craft that run-on sentence yourself or did teacher help you.

you win karl. Because you always win.
Everyone loves a winner.


"The first duty of any social entity is to protect the lives of it's members. Either modern states cope with low-intensity conflict, or else they will disappear; suspicion grows, however, that they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. War being among the most imitative of all human activities, the very process of combating low-intensity conflict will cause both sides to become alike, unless it can be brought to a quick end. Extensive conflict of this nature will cause existing distinctions between government, armed forces, and people to break down. National sovereignties are already being undermined by organizations that refuse to recognize the state's monopoly over armed violence. Armies will be replaced by police-like security forces on the one hand and bands of ruffians on the other, not that the difference is always clear today. National frontiers, that at present constitute perhaps single obstacle to combating low-intensity conflict, may be obliterated or else become meaningless as rival organizations chase each other across them. As frontiers go, so will territorial states. All of which to say that the tail wags the dog by as much as the dog wags the tail. To the extant that war is indeed the continuation of politics, radical shifts in war will inevitably be followed by important changes in politics.
As the old war convention fades away, a new one will no doubt take it's place-the waging of war without such convention being in principle impossible. The coming convention's function will be the same as it has always been:namely, to define just who is allowed to kill whom, for what ends, under what circumstances, and by what means.
....Future ages may well shudder with horror as they remember us"

-van Creveld, 'The Transformation of War'
posted by clavdivs at 12:51 PM PST on March 31

go ahead and take the weekend to study this and make a response....if you can.
posted by clavdivs at 4:50 PM on April 2, 2004

wait, you cannot understand me so never mind and I will admit that last post was a very cheap shot.
Have a good weekend.

if it matters, I do not want Chalabi to run anything once Iraq has some semblence of self rule.

(not even a used car lot)
posted by clavdivs at 11:28 AM on April 3, 2004

The liberation of Iraq is going remarkably well. Why don't you get your head out of the liberal-pacifist-UN-European sewer.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:33 AM on April 3, 2004