This morning in Iraq gunmen abducted one hundred people working in the Ministry of Higher Education. Apparently they broke through barriers of guardsmen and walls fortified against blasts, rounded up the people, stuffed them into twenty or so vehicles, and left. It took them fifteen minutes.
I am a college teacher--not tenured or even officially full-time, but a college teacher nonetheless. According to the news report, people in the Ministry and at the University in Baghdad had requested more security based on intelligence an attack was imminent.
Meanwhile, yesterday George Bush announced that the Iraq "study group" was going well. They had all agreed they wanted the U.S. to succeed in Iraq. I'd like to know what constitutes "success in Iraq." This month over 1,800 Iraqi people have been murdered or killed there. Oh, wait, I know, that means Bush gets to say, "I won." And all the old choir boys chime in, "We won." Bush: "This is my legacy." Choir boys: "This is our legacy." Right.
It takes me about fifteen minutes to write this blog entry this morning, as long as it took gunmen to abduct one-hundred people from the Ministry of Higher Education, never to be seen or heard from again? I have to go to class now. And the members of the Iraq study group are sitting in Washington over their breakfast buffet scratching their heads.
This so reminds me of how for decades now the politicians in the U.S. studied the violence in Palestine and Israel, while the killings raged on. And still do.
