Iraqi Novelist Speaks Out

"Today we are going to look at the targeting of one group that has received little attention -- hundreds of Iraqi academics and scientists have been assassinated since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The exact figure of deaths is unknown; estimates range from about 300 to more than 1,000. Iraqi novelist Haifa Zangana wrote in the Guardian last month that Baghdad universities alone have lost 80 members of their staffs. These figures do not include those who have survived assassination attempts."

"Zangana writes there is a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out against the occupation."

This is a transcript of an interview from yesterdays' Democracy Now broadcast. You can stream the show if you want. In it, they discuss something I hadn't heard happening before; assasinations of intellectuals. I find it interesting that not only did these assasinations begin to occur at the start of the occupation, they first involved scientists. There's an implication that these scientists may have been those who had at one time been working on Saddams' WMD. While that's yet to be determined, it could mean that many of them could have had something to say about WMDs that someone didn't want revealed. According to the author, there's been no investigations into those killings by either the Iraq government or occupation forces. Now it's escalated to include other intellectuals. There's a mystery here that needs to be solved. At this point it's not known whether these assasinations are taking place because they know something about past projects, or that they could become involved in the future. With no formal inquiries, it's anyones' guess as to the motive, other than it appears to be unrelated to the "normal" situation involving kidnappings and murders.

The author disputes the widely reported "sectarian violence", saying that the labeling of individuals and groups as Sunni or Shia, is a recently manufactured phenomenon brought about as a result of the occupation. She claims that before the invasion, nobody cared what faction someone belonged to. She says that they've never had civil war before, and the idea that they will have one now, based along sectarian lines, is invalid. She believes that the widespread violence is based on individual animosity towards other individuals, and has nothing to do with what group a person belongs to.

I don't know how true any of that is, it's only the opinion of one person no longer living in Iraq. She implies that the assasinations of academics and the propagation of the notion of "sectarian" violence, is by the occupation forces' design. If true, it doesn't take much imagination to see that it would be to our advantage to make them academically weak, so as to make them technically dependant on "assistance" for the foreseeable future. It would also be worthwhile to create a constant state of mistrust between Iraqis so they will become, and remain, devided. Remember the saying; "united we stand, divided we fall"? If we keep them divided, it's much easier to manipulate them for our geopolitical and corporate designs.