Doctors in Iraq are being targeted by terrorism:
Abu Mohammed can't go near a hospital now. The Iraqi bone specialist, 37, has lived in fear since August, when his younger brother, also a doctor, was shot dead one night while walking home from his clinic in Baghdad. Abu Mohammed bought a pistol after that, but he still doesn't feel safe. Recently he was offered a managerial job at one of the city's biggest hospitals. He's scared to accept it. His wife owned a pharmacy; she sold it in November. A week or so ago a doctor friend of theirs was kidnapped from his clinic in the city's Mansour district—the latest of their friends to vanish. "My brother was killed when the terrorists started a campaign against doctors," says Abu Mohammed. "He was one of their victims."Hundreds of physicians are fleeing the country. The Newsweek journalist blames the American presence, but that knee-jerk reaction doesn't explain similar incidents in India...
Last week India was hit by a terror attack that unsettled the country. A gunman entered the main conference hall of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, tossed four grenades into the audience and, when the explosives failed, fired his AK-47 at the crowd. One man, a retired professor of mathematics from one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, was killed. What has worried some about this attack is not its scope or planning or effect—all unimpressive—but the target. The terrorists went after what is increasingly seen as India's core strategic asset for the 21st century: its scientific and technological brain trust. If that becomes insecure, what will become of India's future?..and Thailand.
More than half of all schools in one of southern Thailand's most strife-torn provinces have been closed following the murder of two teachers by suspected Islamic militants, education officials said.In Afghanistan, the Taliban recently beheaded a teacher while his wife and eight children were forced to watch. This was "the latest in a string of attacks targeting educators at schools where girls study"About 60 percent of Pattani province's 400 state schools have been closed indefinitely, said Pairat Vihakarat, president of a teacher's federation covering three provinces near the Malaysian border which have been the centre of a separatist insurgency this year.
"Teachers fear for their safety and agreed that they want to temporarily stop teaching," Pairat said.
Four men stabbed Malim Abdul Habib eight times late Tuesday before decapitating him in the courtyard of his home in Qalat, said Ali Khail, a spokesman for the provincial government of Zabul, where the attack took place...Of course, there were no attacks on girls' schools before the Taliban regime fell because these Islamists didn't let girls go to school...in the past year, Taliban insurgents have occasionally put up posters around Qalat demanding girls' schools be closed and threatening to kill teachers, Khushal said.
He said 100 of the province's 170 registered schools have been closed in the past two to three years because of poor security. Of the 35,000 students attending schools in Zabul, 2,700 were girls, he said.
There has been a series of attacks on girls' schools and teachers across Afghanistan since the Taliban regime fell. In October, gunmen killed a headmaster in front of his students at a boys' school in southern Kandahar province, the former stronghold of the Taliban regime.
These trained Islamist paramilitaries, the "insurgents", "militants", or "minutemen", or whatever the press wants to call them, aren't fighting an occupation - they're simultaneously waging war against the foundations of their own societies. Is there any reason why the world should tolerate this?
[cross-posted at Dean's World]
In Iraq, at least, this has been going on for at least a couple of years now according to Iraq bloggers, and clearly its intent is to drive professionals out of the country. Doctors and university teachers, especially if they're women, are being harrassed and attacked in this manner.
Nasty stuff.
From the article:
"The same American officials who used to promise imminent victory are now saying openly that the insurgency seems likely to continue indefinitely. The recent elections, rather than creating a sense of common ground, only emphasized the country's deepening rifts. And all the while, the insurgents are attacking the social structure wherever its defenses are weakest, aiming to create chaos so hopeless that America will finally give up and go home. Now they are targeting the health-care system with murders, kidnappings and scare tactics."
Of course, the story about the same kind of tactic being used in India appeared in the same issue of Newsweek. I wonder if these reporters read their own magazine?
Do the "insurgents and terrorists" want the US to leave Thailand? India? Islamists have been terrorizing intellectuals in Iran for years (well, until most of them left the country).
Terrorizing intellectuals is standard for totalitarian groups. If the American troops left now, the terrorists and the 'non-violent' totalitarian Islamists would take power and the problem would be worse, not better.
If you really,really want to place blame, blame the international community (including the US) for not effectively dismantling Islamist organizations in the Middle East and around the world. Blame everyone who sends money to Islamist regimes.
otherwise, non causa pro causa
The people killing the academics and professionals in Iraq for political reasons. Do they want the US military forces to leave Iraq, or do they want them to stay?
Do you think ex-Ba'thists are killing the academics and professionals?
Or is it Sadr's Mahdi Army? The Saudi suicide bombers? al Qaeda? Other foreign terrorists? Are they all doing this, and if they are, then wouldn't they all be terrorists?
If they're not all killing Iraqi doctors, (and I can't see why the ex-Ba'thists would be shooting their own society in the foot this way, unless they're inspired by Mao?) then we'd have to assume that the Islamists are doing this.
The Saudis might want US military forces to stay. They didn't try very hard to stop the invasion, in fact, they helped us. They also seem to be subtly trying to encourage an invasion of Iran. Their profits have increased since the invasion, so, it's hard to tell what they want.
Iranian-influenced Shi'ites want us to leave, and they're equivalent to the Taliban, who liked to kill anyone who was smarter than they were.
So, do you think the attacks against intellectuals in Iraq would stop if US forces left?
Yes, suicide bombers tend to be hard to capture, at least pre-bomb. Since the Saudi government is sending them, and they are all very much alive and well, their motivations need to be taken into account.
it looks as if the majority of those killing the professional classes in Iraq want the US to leave.
So, should we take our orders from Michael Moore and Juan Coles' favorite firebrand Minuteman, al Sadr?
I don't follow your logic here. I was trying to get a straight answer from you about the aims of those who were killing professionals in Iraq.
As you seem to finally be in agreement that they want to US military to leave Iraq, would you agree that that goal plays a part in their actions? In other words, if they want the US to leave, they do things that they think will result in that end?
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And by the way, Cole isn't a fan of Sadr, nor did he ever use the term "minutemen" to describe him. Where on Earth are you getting this stuff from? It would be a lot easier to take your objections to these people seriously if you were actually critical of things they really say rather than making up stuff.
Moore uses the word "minutemen" to describe al Sadr's Talibanesque group. Cole often uses the term "firebrand" to describe al Sadr; here in US News he describes the mass murdering twerp as a "firebrand cleric"; in Al Jazeera he again uses firebrand cleric"; and again in al Jazeera, he again praises al Sadr's success and youthful vigor. Obviously, Cole thinks al Sadr is pretty hot.
As you seem to finally be in agreement that they want to US military to leave Iraq, would you agree that that goal plays a part in their actions?
No, I'm not in agreement with that. You seem to be trying to reduce a complex and nuanced argument to black and white terms. Some of 'them' want the US to leave Iraq, some may not. The history of both Islamists and totalitarians indicates that they'd be killing intellectuals no matter what. It's what they do, it's what they've done for decades
This is a somewhat tortured interpretation of his article, which goes into some depth exposing Sadr as a manipulative thug. Yet you ignore that and mention that Cole thinks him "young."
Wow.
No, I'm not in agreement with that.
So you think that most of them would like the US to stay in Iraq?
If I was seriously interested in dissing Cole, I would just quote from this recent post, Collected Idiocy, at Harry's Place.
So you think that most of them would like the US to stay in Iraq?
I think that the Saudi government and Saudi financial supporters of the insurgency may want us to stay in Iraq. Being that these are the most powerful, if not the most numerous, instigators of the 'insurgency', they could be classified as 'most of them'.
Why do you think they want the US to stay in Iraq? And if they do want that, was it a mistake going there in the first place?
Coles appreciation of Sadr's tactical success is also pretty evident.
"Appreciation?" How so?
Why do you think they want the US to stay in Iraq? And if they do want that, was it a mistake going there in the first place?
They've been profiting from the destruction of Iraq's economy, a destruction that has mostly been the result of Saudi suicide bombers. Saudis are also expressing quiet approval of our taking action against their other competitor in the oil market, Iran.
I've often said that it was a mistake to invade Iraq without also planning to fight the Islamist states that support paramilitary "insurgents" (or firebrands, or rebels, terrorists and militants).