Death to those who dare to speak out

By Annia Ciezadlo, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD – Even under Saddam Hussein, Saad Jawad spoke his mind. The mild-mannered, political science professor was one of only four people who dared to sign a petition asking Iraq's dictator for a more democratic form of government.

Today, Dr. Jawad still speaks out. But like other university professors across Iraq, he is increasingly afraid that saying what he thinks - or saying anything political at all - could get him killed. "To tell the truth, at the time of Saddam Hussein, we used to speak to our students freely," says Jawad. "Ministers, for example, were criticized all the time. But now, a lot of people are not willing to say these kinds of things because of fear."

Over the past year, Baghdad's intelligentsia has seen a wave of killings: scientists, professors, and academics, executed in carefully planned assassinations.

Death to those who dare to speak out....

All of the victims specifically mentioned in the article were scientists or engineers.

On this basis, the article mentions several other possibilities, e.g., possible knowledge about Saddam's weapons programs or an ability to resurrect them.

What of the possibility that these people were killed simply because they were scientists and engineers? What sort of person would want to intimidate people with education and ability in those fields? Religious fundamentalists, perhaps?

and the PNAC cabal fits that picture!

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=7583

Scroll down to the section, A New Freedom Threatened by Lawlessness.

I read recently that life is cheap in Baghdad, in the sense that you can buy somebody's death for a fistful dollars.

Here is an older story about vigilante shopkeepers:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20031204-0345-iraq-vigilantes.html

So I wouldn't rule out any conspiracy theories out of hand, but I think the situation of daily violence and instability is a big part of the story.

... that claims of WMD were totally specious, if not fabricated. :shrug:

My money is on the Busheviks. Why? This part of the article:

But then, in late January, came the killing of Abdul-Latif al-Mayah, a middle-aged political science professor at Mustansiriya. Dr. Mayah had been interviewed the night before he was killed on the Arabic-language satellite television station Al Jazeera. A human rights advocate and longtime pro-democracy activist, he spoke in favor of holding elections in Iraq by June 30, the date set for America's planned handover of political power to Iraqis. Less than 24 hours later, he was gunned down on his way to the university.

To many Iraqi intellectuals, Mayah's killing seemed like a signal to keep their mouths shut on controversial topics.

"I know that he was a quiet man, a peaceful man, honest," says Dr. Riyadh Aziz Hadi, dean of the Faculty of Political Science at Baghdad University. "But he had political activities, talked to politicians from time to time, and he would give his opinion about everything when they asked him."

<snip>

Now, this is not to say that perhaps the insurgent were angry at him or didn't know that he was pro-get-Imperial-Amerika-out-ASAP or perhaps they just whacked him for being an intellectual. Remember, the Busheviks and al-Qaeda HATE liberal intelkectuals like this man for pretty much the same reasons.

But the "delivering a mesage" is Standard Bushevik Practice. My money is on the Busheviks.

the first class to go MUST be the intellectuals and your educated thinking class.

Once they're out of the way, the rest is down-hill.

I watched this happen in Haiti and it happened in Palestine. That's the first group Hitler and any tryrant like him locked up. It's pretty par for the course.

Triste isn't it?

And of course, Tahiti Nut's :hi: excellent point about getting rid of anyone who can disprove your claims of WMDs.

Fear of political speech is the antithesis of freedom.

Geez,...I sure wish the situation in Iraq would improve quickly.

But, of course,...that is just my wish.

Haven't you heard?

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030411-secdef0090.html

One asks, are these jokers too big for their britches? Or diabolical?

The scary part of the Henny Penny outburst--as if there were only one, and not an incremental descent into terror, a masquerade where the costumes are slowly seared into the flesh of the revelers--the germaine revelation comes after Rummy is challenged, "Given how predictable the lack of law and order was...."

Rumsfeld: This is fascinating. This is just fascinating. From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been.

And, you say, "Well, what was it in the plan?" The plan is a complex set of conclusions or ideas that then have a whole series of alternative excursions that one can do, depending on what happens. And, they have been doing that as they've been going along. And, they've been doing a darn good job.

Can one reasonably maintain that the killing of intellectuals isn't an aspect of the Gestapo's catastrophic success? Maybe, but it seems naive. Could they have intended to maintain an environment in which they could assassinate their enemies and detractors with impunity? Morally, Rumsfeld and Viceroy Bremer move in that sphere--and I say that based not solely on their record of murder, mayhem and mendacity, but also because of the company they keep.

It does give one pause.

,...his head may not spin, but his tongue certainly does.

Is he naive?
No.

Is he utopian?
No.

Is he stupid?
Hell, no,...the man is actually quite brilliant.

Is he incapable of examining consequences?
Of course not.

This man and the company he keeps are quite capable of ascertaining the logistics of every action they pursue. But, they really are Machiavellan, focused upon completing an idea set out on paper, without regard to laws or morals or ethics. They are power-mongers, big time, and invest absolutely nothing in such notions as humility or honor or dignity or respect for human life. As arrogant power-mongers, humanity goes right out the window.

<On edit - they are both arrogant AND diabolical>

Yeah, and it's eerie. If Rummy's so diabolically clever, why can't he see past his arrogance?--Oh, yeah. He doesn't care one whit for the fungibles who bear the consequences of his arrogance.

I think you nailed it.

imagine the George Steinbrenner character on 'Seinfeld'. Hilarious.

That IS freakin' hilarious!!!

:yourock:

Rummy:And, you say, "Well, what was it in the plan?" The plan is a complex set of conclusions or ideas that then have a whole series of alternative excursions that one can do, depending on what happens. And, they have been doing that as they've been going along.."

In other words: No. No plan. We are making it up as we go along.

The only plan was to get rid of anybody who gets in the way. And you can bet that is exactly what they are doing.
End the war. Now.

...the destruction of the middle. Extremists of any persuasion ready to resort to violence rather than consensus attack the middle first and thereby make the middle untenable. While the occupying power or the colonial regime might wish to eliminate the intelligentsia, I don't really think that they are the prime suspect here. Technocrats are desirable and necessary to someone trying to establish some semblance of order. The colonial power doesn't really need to assassinate these people either. They could arbitrarily be acused of sedition and imprisoned. The most likely suspects IMHO are Israel who want to permanently castrate Iraq and create as much anarchy as possible and the Sunni and Shia militants who want to dictate their own worldviews without the interference of independent thinkers. Israel openly favors assassination policy and so do the Sunni militants. There may be those of a similar totalitarian bent among the Shia but I don't think that they have been identified yet.