WP: An Educator Learns the Hard Way (rebuilding universities in Iraq)

[kskiska]

Task of Rebuilding Universities Brings Frustration, Doubts and Danger

Monday, June 21, 2004; Page A01
Second of three articles

BAGHDAD -- John Agresto arrived here nine months ago with two suitcases, a feather pillow and a suffusion of optimism. He didn't know much about Iraq, but he felt certain the American occupation, and his mission to oversee the country's university system, would be a success.

"Like everyone else in America, I saw the images of people cheering as Saddam Hussein's statue was pulled down. I saw people hitting pictures of him with their shoes," said Agresto, the former president of St. John's College in New Mexico. "Once you see that, you can't help but say, 'Okay. This is going to work.' "

But the Iraq he encountered was different from what he had expected. Visits to the universities he was trying to rebuild and the faculty he wanted to invigorate were more and more dangerous, and infrequent. His Iraqi staff was threatened by insurgents. His evenings were disrupted by mortar attacks on the occupation authority's Baghdad headquarters.

His plans to repair hundreds of campus buildings were scuttled by the Bush administration's decision to shift reconstruction efforts and by the failure to raise money from other sources. His hope that Iraqis would put aside differences and personal interests for a common cause was, as he put it, "way too idealistic."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56414-2004Jun20.html

[Bucky]

1. Normally I say "Hate to say I told you so" when really I love saying it...

But in this circumstance I really do hate being able to say 'I told ya so' because the warnings the antiwar left urged were specifically about disrupting a corrupt, antidemocratic, but relatively peaceful society with an ill-concieved foriegn invasion made with the naive perception that Muslims just love Americans coming in and blowing up their cities, goverments, and cousins. 'I told you so' specifically refers to billions in damage, the billions in looting, the thousands of dead, the tens of thousands of wounded and maimed, the millions of angry, and the years upon years of bad will created by this dumb goddamn war.

But at least we got Osama on the run. Right? Right?

[struggle4progress]

2. "When will they ever learn?"

[gratuitous]

3. Doofus

"Like everyone else in America, I saw the images of people cheering as Saddam Hussein's statue was pulled down. I saw people hitting pictures of him with their shoes," said Agresto, the former president of St. John's College in New Mexico. "Once you see that, you can't help but say, 'Okay. This is going to work.' "

Gee, Mr. Agresto, did you also see the long shot on the statue pull-down, which showed that the the "crowd" was kinda, I dunno, miniscule? Did you see millions of people all over the world, marching in the streets, demonstrating, and pleading with this corrupt administration not to waste itself on that pimple, Saddam? Did it occur to you to wonder what Germany and France might know about the Middle East that Stupidhead doesn't know? Or did you just figure that ideology would conquer all?

Doofus.

[Sabriel]

4. How can an academic be so incredibly deluded?

And how can a person with a Ph.D. in government from Cornell be so naive?

I guess it goes without saying he's a proponent of right-wing ed issues:
high-stakes testing, traditional approach to curriculum using the "great books," etc.

Get this guy out of my field, PLEASE!

[madrchsod]

5. iraq had the best university system in

the whole of the middle east. students were given the best of everything that money could buy in the late 70`s and 80`s.universities were secular with freedom of inquiry-but not political freedom. what was the reason to destroy the univerities? why were they targets?