corrente

This item comes from a long and stunningly depressing guest posting at Juan Cole about the state of higher education in Iraq these days, and how it got to such a miserable state. As you probably guessed, the war was a setback but the Bush Occupation efforts afterwards were the real disaster.

Even for those not into the details of academia, the conclusion of the piece should be read by all:

(via Juan Cole)

Sometimes I think we are, as a community of humane scholars, sleepwalking through the most important crisis of our lifetimes and we will look back on the legal, civil and moral outrages committed in the name of the War on Terror with the same embarrassment we now view the internment of Japanese Americans or the communist Witch Hunts of the 1950s. Elements of the so-called War on Terror and certainly the war in Iraq have been predicated on purposeful misinformation, rank ethnocentrism, bad language skills and poor analysis – the things we college professors are supposed to be good at counteracting and helping students and society overcome. Where have we been? Preparing for the coming civil war in Iraq and making the kinds of commitments to the peoples of the Middle East that the current situation demands can begin to redress that absence.

Keith Watenpaugh
History
Le Moyne College